Readings for Week Eight

First: no muddy points.

1. Chapter 1. Definition and Origins of OAI-PMH. oai-pmh-ch1.pdf

OAI-PMH sounds a lot better than Z39.50. XML? Simple? I'm in.

2. Miller, Todd. "Federated Searching: Put It in Its Place." Library Journal April 15, 2004. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA406012.html&

It seems to me that the author is arguing that federated search, not the library catalog, should be the new "center" of library searching. I think it's fair to say that at least some libraries have taken that to heart - Pitt's ULS has its "Zoom!" on its homepage, while PITTCat (aside: why is PITT capitalized in PITTCat?) requires additional clicking.

3. Hane, Paula J. "The Truth About Federated Searching." Information Today Vol. 20 No. 10, November/December 2003.
http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct03/hane1.shtml

This article would be better titled "The Sad Truth About Federated Searching." It's surprising to me that this list of five weaknesses of federated searching were provided by WebFeat, a provider of...federated searching. I guess one has to give them points for candor. It's still...disheartening, I guess.

4. Lynch, Clifford A. (1997). "The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Standard, Part 1: A Strategic View of its Past, Present, and Future." D-Lib Magazine, April 1997. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april97/04lynch.html

Wow...this article is rather old by technology standards, isn't it? It's over ten years old - ten years generally considered the threshold between "new" and "old" scholarship. I'm curious if this is still "current," though I do get the gist of it.

5. Norbert Lossau, “Search Engine Technology and Digital Libraries: Libraries Need to Discover the Academic Internet.” D-Lib Magazine, June 2004, Volume 10 Number 6.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/lossau/06lossau.html

"Will Google, Yahoo or Microsoft be the only portals to global knowledge in 2010?"

Actually, the true portal to global knowledge is John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, the authoritative almanac to complete world knowledge, first published in 2005. Its continuation, More Information than You Require, is being released on 21 October 2008.

That said, I find it interesting that the author clearly notes the strong conservatism in librarianship, but then says that their conclusions are "obvious." And this article is four years old - and I don't know that much has changed in that time, at least from what I've seen.