To me it all seems like a case of over-zealous propagandists putting the cart before the horse....

This is a pretty incredible display of journalistic arrogance. I find it amazing how many influential voices of the mainstream American press were just unable to consider even the possibility that, perhaps, the American invasion of Iraq would involve more than a quick ass-kicking, where nobody would get hurt except the bad guys.

(For the record, I wouldn't expect them to question the war's morality - I know whose side the people quoted here are on and their "interpretations" of events aren't surprising. But you'd think they could at least open their eyes and acknowledge the piles of evidence predicting the tragedy that eventually did unfold. If thousands of people hadn't died unnecessarily I'd say it's hilarious.)

"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it."
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)

"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
(Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)

"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)

Take a look here for more of the same.

In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, p. 265

A Review of “Renewing the Information Infrastructure of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek” by Theo van Veen

The article I selected is titled “Renewing the Information Infrastructure of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek,” or the National Library of the Netherlands (KB). The author is Theo Van Veen, who is a member of the KB’s research and development department. This department is currently evaluating its information infrastructure and remaking it in order to “improve the integration and exchange of information between internal and external services, and lowering implementation barriers for new functionality” (van Veen, 1). Van Veen’s primary goal in this evaluation is “to be able to offer services that can understand the data coming from other services and to offer data from the KB in such a way that other services can understand and use it. Interoperability is the key to his evaluation, in fact.

The article itself begins by mentioning these goals. It then looks at the current information infrastructure of the library and goes on to consider possible changes to implement. It concludes by pointing out how the staff of the KB no longer see its infrastructure, as well as that of similar organizations, as closed systems, but rather “as a part of global knowledge, with users accessing various services to obtain information.” On the whole, it is a useful article to read because the ideas and solutions it offers are not unique to the KB – the author deliberately attempts to make them relevant to other, similar organizations. In addition, Van Veen rightly stays focused on the user’s needs throughout the article, making it clear that his intention is to improve users’ access to information as well as the KB’s visibility and usefulness.

The discussion of the library’s goals is particularly interesting as it calls for both the interoperability of various services and a minimizing of “development and maintenance efforts” for the KB’s services. Van Veen points out that although the current project mainly concerns the internal infrastructure of the KB, they expect that the methods discussed in the article will “support integration with external information infrastructures, such as those of other national libraries and museums, archives, Google, etc.” This is important because the integration of several sources of information, such as the ones mentioned above, increases the influence and usefulness of each. Creating a structure that can be integrated in this way is a good idea for the KB, and also serves as an example that other large or national libraries can follow. The author has also worked on the European Library project, which integrates the national libraries of several European countries, and so is able to offer practical experience as to what this entails.

After discussing the library’s problems and current situation Van Veen briefly discusses his approach, which is basically a concern that “integration of data takes place under the user’s control.” In other words, he wants a system whose search results can be used by other services, eliminating the need to copy and paste from one program to another. If we look at the European Library project’s online catalogue we can see this in practice.

He then offers recommendations for five areas of the KB’s information infrastructure that he feels need to be addressed:

1. Search and Retrieval
2. Search Results: text, objects and semantic relations
3. Metadata
4. Resolution
5. Authentication

Basically, he points out that infrastructures need to be “more generic, more powerful and extensible…while at the same time retaining low implementation barriers.” His team then looked at a number of available standards with these needs in mind to see which would be most appropriate for the library.

Regarding Search and Retrieval he recommends indexing all metadata in a single index, and prefers central indexing versus federated searching. This is a particularly way to integrate different databases, and the European Library’s site is a good example of this.

Metadata is another aspect of the information infrastructure that he focuses on. He suggests making metadata available in standard XML formats. He also suggests using Dublin Core (at a minimum) for the organization’s metadata in order to make it available to as many services as possible. Dublin Core, he says, “will allow access by generic search and retrieval applications without these applications needing to know the organization’s specific schema for those metadata.” This is important for interoperability, and the European Library project on which he worked can once again serve as an example of this. As his focus is largely on integration of various libraries’ databases this is an important issue to raise – the technical methods of implementing the ideas he has discussed.

Van Veen concludes his article by reiterating his belief that the KB is part of “global knowledge” which must be able to accommodate various services that users have to obtain information. In order to overcome barriers to interoperability he calls for “integrating information from open, non-monolithic systems.” Basically, he hopes that “when a user finds information elsewhere, [the KB] should provide the functionality to link this information to the local services (e.g., to order a copy of that article held by the KB).” On the whole, I found the article useful because the issues it raises are relevant for any large library and are valuable for librarians to be aware of. The integrated databases that Van Veen discusses are more or less the new incarnation of the union catalogue, and knowledge of the technical makeup of such databases, and a basic understanding of the nature of their integration, can greatly improve a librarian’s ability to implement and maintain such a system at his or her library.

Source:

Van Veen, Theo. (2005, March). Renewing the Information Infrastructure of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. D-lib Magazine, 11(3). Retrieved February 25, 2006.

Quote of the hour 1 March 2006 (8:21pm):

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.

- Timothy Leary

Fortnightly quote 1 March 2006:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

- Douglas Adams

Open Source-a-me: the Potential Benefits of Ubuntu for the Public Library

Ubuntu is a free, open-source, Linux-based operating system. It is based on the Debian Linux project’s architecture, but unlike Debian it has “regular releases (every six months), a clear focus on the user and usability (it should "Just Work", TM) and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of support for every release” (ubuntu.com). It has several aspects that would make it advantageous for adoption by the public library, such as cost, flexibility, and freedom from dependence on one corporate vendor. While it may take time to transition from a Windows-based system, it is certainly worth it to do so – not only because it would greatly benefit the library itself, but also because it would further encourage diversity and innovation in the software development field that is currently being stifled by the domination of one company. In addition, the precedent of using open-source software in public institutions has already been set by several local governments, from Massachusetts to Munich, and it would be useful to consider the experiences of these other public bodies when determining Ubuntu’s potential benefit to the public library.

Perhaps the biggest and most obvious benefit of a public institution switching from traditional proprietary software is in cost. Using free software releases public institutions from the need to pay thousands of dollars in licensing fees and other costs associated with organizational purchases of software such as Microsoft’s. Public libraries must always be conscious of their costs, and by reducing the amount they pay to private companies they can keep more money in the public sector, increasing the level of service they provide and thus overall improving their profile in the public eye. Of course, these savings could be partially offset by the costs of qualified Linux engineers (which will inevitably be higher), but this is something the library will have to consider.

Regardless, however, open formats have the additional benefit of keeping public records public. When discussing his state’s decision to use only OpenDocument and PDF formats in government systems, Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance in Massachusetts, said that, “It is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system that we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format, perhaps unreadable in the future, or subject to a proprietary system license that restricts access” (www.mass.gov). While the records held by a state government will not be exactly the same as those held by a library, it is important to keep in mind that dependence on private companies weakens the public institutions that are supposed to be looking out for the public’s interests. Thus, the use of open-source software based on some sort of standard creates independence for the library without sacrificing compatibility with other organizations’ systems.

Beyond external considerations such as cost and independence from vendors, Ubuntu has several inherent characteristics that make it potentially beneficial for public libraries to use. For example, Ubuntu comes with several applications, including a word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software suite called OpenOffice, which is open-source software as well and yet compatible with Microsoft’s Office suite. Libraries using a Ubuntu OS would therefore be able to save on their technology costs but still offer all of the same services for business and personal needs as they do now. They would not have to sacrifice quality for price.

Ubuntu also offers quality translations in several languages. As public libraries are often of central in communities with large immigrant populations, having the possibility to set one or more terminals aside to be setup in one of the other languages of the community could be of great benefit to the library’s users. It could alleviate the technological transition by first easing the cultural transition many immigrants face.

When considering the conversion to an open-source operating system there is, of course, the issue of support. It is important to remember that Ubuntu offers two types of support offered – free and paid. With Ubuntu you not only get a new operating system but also an entire community of people, many of whom offer their services free of charge to assist other users of Ubuntu. These volunteers provide free technical support through the Ubuntu Documentation Project (which is their official help page), the Ubuntu IRC channel, mailing lists, web forums and the Ubuntu wiki. These all allow users to get direct, personal help with any technical problems they may have completely free from cost.

However, there is also the option of paid technical support through private companies such as Canonical Limited. This is a company that provides broad support to companies using Ubuntu, but they do offer direct, individual support as well. Ubuntu by default includes support for certain of its components, but it is important for the user (whether an individual or organization) to remember that the option for sustained support does exist and that public libraries are not on their own just because they have chosen open-source software.

Choosing Ubuntu over proprietary systems such as Microsoft allows institutions such as the public library to lower their costs without having to risk poor quality technological services. It has been done before so a public library system choosing to do so would be able to learn from the experiences of others before braving such a considerable transition. It is interesting to note that some of the strongest opposition to the Massachusetts’ decision was in an article by James Prendergrast of Americans for Technology Leadership, written for foxnews.com. In a follow-up statement foxnews.com revealed that Microsoft was actually a co-founder of the ATL, seriously undermining Prendergast’s case against the use of open-source software. As Bernd Plank, a spokesman for the City of Munich, said after his city decided to unload Microsoft in favour of open-source products for the city administration’s 14,000 computers, open-source software gives them lower procurement costs and a higher degree of vendor independence, which encourages greater competition in the software market (PCWorld). Using open-source software not only benefits the organization using it, but actually encourages further innovation and diversity and so serves to benefit the software industry at large.

Sources:
Informal comments on Open Formats
Eric Kriss, Secretary, Administration & Finance
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
http://www.mass.gov/eoaf/open_formats_comments.html

Massachusetts set to switch off Microsoft
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: August 31 2005 | Last updated: September 1 2005 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/80033a76-1a71-11da-b7f5-00000e2511c8.html
Munich Makes the Move to Linux: City government drops Windows in favor of open-source software
John Blau, IDG News Service
Friday, June 18, 2004
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116568,00.asp

Ubuntu homepage
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Your Mail: Open Debate About OpenDocument (follow-up to Prendergast’s commentary, with link to the original article)
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172063,00.html

Quote of the day 10 February 2006:

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln ... how was the evening?"
--Author Unknown

I'm sittin' here, drinking a beer, reading about what makes a good dictionary, what makes a bad one, and how they're made. This is livin, huh?

In order to learn more about me you can take a look at some of my posts below. I originally created this blog for another course but I have refurbished it and adapted it to the needs of FIS 1311.

Swearing competition. I can't tell if this has been altered or not.

http://www.wimp.com/competition/

I came across this quote in a required reading for 1310. Hilarious. But then, how else could a librarian be characterized?

It is important to have a democratic spirit in dealing with readers in popular libraries. The librarian is not, of course, to overlook the neglect of deference which is due him, or to countenance in any way the error which prevails to a considerable extent in this country, that because artificial distinctions of rank have been abolished here, there need be no recognition of the real differences among men in respect to taste, intellect, and character. But he runs little risk in placing readers on a footing of equality with himself. The superiority of his culture will always enable him to secure the respectful treatment which belongs to him when confronted by impudence or conceit.

- Samuel Green, 1876 [Personal relations between librarians and readers. American Library Journal, 1:74-81].

This is an interesting article from the Economist. They're basically saying that falling populations in rich countries aren't necessarily bad for economic welfare. Makes sense, though I think the article would be a bit more, what's the word - relevant? Maybe 'compelling' is what I want. So - I think the article would be a bit more compelling if it made reference to the fact that an overpopulated planet leads to overconsumption of limited resources, leading us all to a future of unknown horrors.

Or something like that.

Anyway, here's the article. Enjoy the theme music. Goodnight.

The shrinkage of Russia and eastern Europe is familiar, though not perhaps the scale of it: Russia's population is expected to fall by 22% between 2005 and 2050, Ukraine's by a staggering 43%. Now the phenomenon is creeping into the rich world: Japan has started to shrink and others, such as Italy and Germany, will soon follow. Even China's population will be declining by the early 2030s, according to the UN, which projects that by 2050 populations will be lower than they are today in 50 countries.

I don't know why this stuff still amazes me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1682246,00.html

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home
of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing
bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and
children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young
journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He
was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel
4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars
worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been
misused or misappropriated.

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent
and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not
yet been returned.

The director of the film, Callum Macrae, said yesterday: "The timing and
nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we
first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this
investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our
findings.

"We need a convincing assurance from the American authorities that this
terrifying experience was not harassment and a crude attempt to
discourage Ali's investigation."

Dr Fadhil was asleep with his wife, their three-year-old daughter, Sarah,
and seven-month-old son, Adam, when the troops forced their way in.

"They fired into the bedroom where we were sleeping, then three
soldiers came in. They rolled me on to the floor and tied my hands.
When I tried to ask them what they were looking for they just told me
to shut up," he said.