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METAFORIX MAIL

ON MY MIND: Libraries and Cyberspace
IN THE MEDIA: "Three Babies and a Web Site"
INFORMATICON: Technological Forecasts
CYBERSPEAK: The meaning of "Cyber-Spanglish"
SITE OF THE DAY: Internet Resources for Curious People

Last week, I discussed a recent New York Times piece on how students use libraries to do research, along with the published responses it evoked. The piece, "Choosing Quick Hits Over the Card Catalog," by Lori Leibovich, is still online.

Like a number of other readers, I also wrote (in my totally unbiased opinion) a thoughtful, pithy, well-informed response that the Times declined to print. So let me use Metaforix Mail as my bully pulpit:

As a former librarian whose business involves helping people use the Internet effectively, I read with interest Lori Leibovich's article on how students do research on the Web. To become a proficient Web researcher, I believe, it is important to understand a fundamental difference between library stacks and cyberspace.

Libraries, unlike most search engines, contain resources that have been reviewed by information professionals and organized according to a standard classification system. Search engines, in contrast, typically use keyword matching and sorting rules to retrieve and rank information that has not been professionally screened.

Leibovich's article offers valuable tips for using search engines. However, I was surprised to find no mention of sites that attempt to replicate the selection and classification function served by libraries -- for example, The Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org) and The Librarians' Index to the Internet (www.lii.org) -- or the many sites maintained by libraries and museums large and small.

Internet research is inherently no more lazy, unfocused, or undisciplined than traditional research. It simply requires different skills.

I'm not sure how long Leibovich's article and the letters associated with it will remain freely available online. The Times has a habit of archiving articles and charging $2.50 a pop to retrieve them. In any case, if you have opinions on what seems to be a hot-button topic, I'd love to hear them.

Cordially,

Lois C. Ambash, Editor
editor@metaforix.com

"Three Babies and a Web Site"
Keith Regan, e-Commerce Times, August 18, 2000

The Web site of IUMA, the Internet Underground Music Archive, offered $5,000 to new parents who agreed to name their new baby "Iuma," payable on presentation of the birth certificate. So far, IUMA has paid out $15,000 of the $50,000 allocated for this purpose. Keith Regan's critique places the stunt in the context of the 21st Century American "naming rights rage," slamming IUMA for putting "a price tag on something that really ought to be out of bounds for simple reasons of moral decency."

To read the full article, click here.

"The coming technolgical revolution means that forecasts are more valuable than experience. The most valuable forecasts are visions describing what we want our technology to do for us"

Jonathon Peck, Institute for Alternative Futures
at The eHealth Colloquium, Harvard University, August 21, 2000

"Cyber-Spanglish:" The growing vocabulary of technology-related terms adopted by Spanish-speaking computer and Internet users around the world.

For example, the editor of a women's channel at a Mexican dotcom uses "el maus" to "clickear," loves to "chatear" online, likes to "forwardear" interesting "imail" she receives, and loves to "ICQuear" (pronounced eye-see-kay-YAR).

Source: "On the Language of Cervantes, the Imprint of the Internet"
Sam Dillon, New York Times, August 6, 2000

Internet Resources
for Professionals, Managers, Academics, and Other Curious People

The website of The Chronicle of Higher Education, "the academic world's No. 1 source of news and information," is a wonderful repository of information on both business and scholarly trends in the academic world. Most of its content, however, is available only to print subscribers.

The good news is that The Chronicle has recently made most of its articles on distance learning and information technology freely available to all, including its new and growing section on Internet Resources. This free gateway is geared to the interests of "people in higher education," but its potential audience is much larger.

In addition to dozens of links to sites about higher education itself, the "academic subject areas" section connects you to professional associations and online libraries with content ranging from architecture to healthcare to management to zoology. Follow the links in your special areas of interest; you won't be disappointed.

To visit this site, click here.

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