[1] From: Eric Johnson <johnsone@jupiter.dsu.edu> (39)
Subject: New online Journal
[2] From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu> (101)
Subject: Announcement: the latest issue of the JCMC is out!
[3] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (118)
Subject: Current Cites December 1997
[4] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (19)
Subject: Museum Digital Licensing Collective Web Site
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 05:57:06 -0600 (CST)
From: Eric Johnson <johnsone@jupiter.dsu.edu>
Subject: New online Journal
Teaching Literature with Computers:
A Refereed Electronic Publication
<http://www.triton.dsu.edu/tlwc>
New Publication Announcement and Call for Papers
_Teaching Literature with Computers is pleased to announce the publication
of a new article, "Is There a Hypertext in this Class? Teaching Victorian
Literature in the Electronic Age" by Jonathan Smith, Department of
English, U of Michigan-Dearborn. The essay describes and analyzes the use
of hypertexts, in particular George P. Landow's The Dickens Web and The In
Memoriam Web, in two undergraduate Victorian literature classes.
Hypertext is shown to encourage active student engagement, especially with
contextual material; to lead to more focused research topics; and to
facilitate student collaboration. The potential of hypertext is best
realized, however, when it is extensively integrated into a course. Focus
is thus given to two practical questions: 1) How must classroom management
and writing assignments be reconceptualized? 2) How are students to be
taught to read hypertextually? Landow's claim about the ease with which
the latter occurs is questioned.
TLWC: Teaching Literature with Computers has been created to meet the
needs of teachers at all levels of instruction who are looking for
information and ideas about how to teach literature with computers. TLWC
is looking for articles that describe in detail specific uses of computers
in teaching literature. Articles should also analyze the strengths and
weaknesses of the uses of computers described. As a peer-reviewed, online
collection, TLWC serves as a continuously growing, evolving resource,
offering challenging ideas to innovative teachers.
Articles may discuss any use of computers in teaching literature,
including (but not limited to) synchronous and asynchronous discussion,
MOOs, using and authoring hypertext/hypermedia, CD-ROMs, the World-Wide
Web, online textbooks, word processing, and authoring software and
multimedia packages. Articles should focus primarily on classroom and
course-related applications of computer technology. Articles that relate
classroom applications of computer technology to particular theoretical
concerns are also welcome, though article should focus explicitly on
teaching.
For more information on and submission guidelines for TLWC, please visit
our webpage at http://www.triton.dsu.edu/tlwc or e-mail the editor, Seth
Katz, at seth@bradley.bradley.edu.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:29:56 -0500 (EST)
From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu>
Subject: Announcement: the latest issue of the JCMC is out!
>> From: nicole ellison <nellison@scf.usc.edu>
The latest issue of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is ready at
our USC server: http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue3/
our HUJI server: http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol3/issue3/
Volume 3 Issue December, 1997
Part 2 of Special Issue on Virtual Environments
Special Issue Editors, Wendy Robinson and Frank Biocca
In this issue:
Information Does not Equal Knowledge: Theorizing the Political
Economy of Virtuality
Marcus Breen
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
This paper argues that causation theory has a role in discussions
about knowledge in the virtual context. Drawing on cultural studies, it
suggests that the fragmentation of rational knowledge in the postmodern
world has produced a focus on information that is unaware of its history.
A knowledge gap has been produced that needs careful consideration by
those people and institutions advocating the use of virtual technologies.
Virtuality is about a politics of convenience, where contemporary knowledge
is characterized by two modes of action: mathematics and marketing. The
paper suggests that contemporary capitalism fits well with this type of
knowledge. It argues that other ways of conceptualizing causal relationships
between information-knowledge are necessary in the virtual world.
Heaven's Gate: The End?
Wendy Gale Robinson
Duke University
In San Diego on March 26, 1997, police found the bodies of 39
similarly dressed men and women who took their own lives in a mass
suicide. Led by Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven's Gate cult believed that
a flying saucer was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet. They chose to
leave their physical bodies behind to find redemption in an
extraterrestrial "Kingdom of Heaven." The sect also left behind
apocalyptic messages in their Rancho Santa Fe mansion and on home pages on
the World Wide Web. This paper looks at online material produced by the
cult and the media coverage of their tragic end, it explores the
background of the cult and the science fiction and millennial influences
on their beliefs, and it considers the group's connection with
cyberculture and some of the questions raised by their mass suicide, which
perhaps, as David Potz said in Slate, "promises to be the first great
Internet mystery".
Breaking out of Binaries: Reconceptualizing Gender and its Relationship
to Language in Computer-Mediated Communication
Michelle Rodino
University of Washington
Virtual environments provide a rich testing ground for theories of
gender and language. This paper analyzes interactions in one virtual
environment, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), to look at the extent to which
research on face-to-face (FTF) talk and computer-mediated communication
(CMC) can describe gender and its relationship to language. Neither the
function of utterances nor the construction of gender adheres to dualistic
descriptions, as past research has implied. Reconceptualizing gender as
performative helps researchers break out of binary categories that have
bound past research. Conceiving of gender as under constant construction
also helps demystify and thus disrupt the binary gender system which
naturalizes patriarchy.
Virtual Communities, Virtual Settlements & Cyber-Archaeology:
A Theoretical Outline
Quentin Jones
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
If useful explanations are to be provided about the relationship
between computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies and online
behavior, then a longer-term perspective needs to be taken than the
current focus of CMC researchers. This paper provides such a perspective
by outlining in theoretical terms how a cyber-archaeology of virtual
communities can be conducted. In archaeology, researchers focus on
cultural artifacts. A similar focus on the cultural artifacts of virtual
communities should be a focus for CMC researchers as these artifacts can
provide an integrative framework for a community's life, be it virtual or
real. It is proposed that CMC researchers pursue cyber-archaeology by
systematically examining and modeling the framework for virtual community
life provided by their cultural artifacts.
The systematic exploration of cyber-space via cyber-archaeology cannot
proceed without adequate linguistic tools that allow for taxonomy. The
first step in the creation of such a taxonomy is to distinguish between
virtual communities and their cyber-place, the virtual settlement. The
second is to define and operationalize the term virtual settlement so that
they can be systematically characterized and modeled. With this new
terminology, it is possible to detail a cyber-archaeology where
technological determinism is replaced with the notion of bounded
hierarchies and material behavior. The theoretical outline will show how
cultural artifacts can play a role in constraining the forms virtual
settlements can sustain. The modeling of the boundaries of virtual
settlements via cyber-archaeology should dramatically increase our
understanding of communication in general.
On-Line Forums: New Platforms for Professional Development and
Group Collaboration
Terry Anderson and Heather Kanuka
University of Alberta
This study evaluated the output, level of participation and
perceptions of effectiveness and value among participants in a virtual
forum. Twenty-three experts in the field of adult education and community
development were invited to participate in a three-week interactive
session using a WWW-based, asynchronous computer conferencing system. Data
gathered through surveys, interviews, transcript analysis and on-line
discussion revealed that this technology has relative advantage for
organizers and sponsors, but is perceived by most users as being less
satisfying than face-to-face interaction. The on-line forum was found to
be observable, trialable and relatively easy to use (compared with
existing tools), indicating that this innovation has potential to become a
widespread medium for continuing professional education.
Margaret McLaughlin and Sheizaf Rafaeli, Editors
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:11:19 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: Current Cites December 1997
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
January 12, 1998
Although this may be too detailed for some, too abbreviated for others, I
thought I would post this latest monthly edition of "Current Cites," from
the Berkeley Library, giving brief reviews of some recent articles on
digital networking. Here 8 articles are cited.
David Green
===========
_Current Cites_
Volume 8, no. 12
December 1997
The Library
University of California, Berkeley
Edited by Teri Andrews Rinne
ISSN: 1060-2356
<http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/1997/cc97.8.12.html>
Contributors:
Christof Galli, Kirk Hastings, Terry Huwe, Margaret Phillips,
Richard Rinehart, Jim Ronningen, Roy Tennant
Digital Libraries
Cromwell-Kessler, Willy. "Dublin Core Metadata in the RLG Information
Landscape" D-Lib Magazine (December 1997)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december97/12cromwell-kessler.html). - In
July 1997, the Research Libraries Group (RLG) held a "Metadata Summit"
to provide a venue for a number of communities interested in metadata
to explore their commonalities and differences, particularly vis. a
vis. the Dublin Core. One of the outcomes of this meeting is the
document "Guidelines For Extending the Use of Dublin Core Elements to
Create a Generic Application Integrating All Kinds of Information
Resources", which is aimed at those involved with developing the
Dublin Core specification. At the core of this article as well as the
"Guidelines" is the issue of how to handle the original object vs. the
digital surrogate. - RT
Frey, Franziska. "Digital Imaging for Photographic Collections:
Foundations for Technical Standards" RLG DigiNews 1(3) (December 15,
1997) (http://lyra.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews3.html#com). -
This brief article serves as a good introduction to the issues
relating to digital imaging. But since it is the barest of overviews
of the outcome of a two-year project of the same name, funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities, one is left with a feeling of
impatience until the products from the project are published "sometime
next year". But at least this piece can give a sneak peek into what
will be coming soon in more detail. - RT
Mintzer, Fred, Jeffrey Lotspiech, and Norishige Morimoto.
"Safeguarding Digital Library Contents and Users: Digital
Watermarking" D-Lib Magazine (December 1997)
(http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december97/ibm/12lotspiech.html). - Digital
watermarking is the online equivalent of the long-practiced art of
marking paper with a mark of ownership or origin. Digital watermarking
may be important to assert copyright or to mark a file as authentic.
This article is a great introduction to the principles, applications,
and technologies relating to digital watermarking. But if you are
interested in this topic, don't stop your investigation here, as only
technologies from IBM are highlighted (all the authors are IBM
employees). - RT
Electronic Publishing
Valauskas, Edward. "Waiting for Thomas Kuhn: First Monday and the
Evolution of Electronic Journals" First Monday 2 (12)
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_12/valauskas/). - First
Monday's editor surveys the growth of the journal as a case study in
Internet-based, peer-reviewed journals. It's not at all a self-serving
piece; on the contrary, he uses his experiences with the journal and
with print journals to think about the future in broad terms. The
print journal will not disappear entirely, he believes; instead, a
rich diversity of formats will persist. - TH
Multimedia & Hypermedia
CIDOC Multimedia Working Group Multimedia Evaluation Criteria
(http://www.archimuse.com/cidoc/cidoc.mmwg.eval.crit.html) September
1997. -- This set of evaluation criteria can be used in many
evaluation or survey projects as a set of questions and criteria for
measuering the full effectiveness of multimedia resources on web,
CD-ROM, DVD, etc. - RR
Networks & Networking
Global Information Locator Service FAQ, Dec. 26, 1997
(http://www.usgs.gov/gils/faq.html) . - This FAQ, compiled primarily
by Eliot Christian of the US Geological Survey, is very thorough in
answering questions about this new technical standard to facilitate
resource discovery. - RR
Minow, Mary. "Filters and the Public Library: A Legal and Policy
Analysis" First Monday 2 (12)
(http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_12/minow/). - Minow
insightfully reviews the tangled area of public policy covering
Internet access in public libraries. Much policy is decided without
empirical evidence for any stance, and the resulting policies
demonstrate this gap in their ambivalence, and lack of clarity. Minow
maps some strategies librarians can employ to balance the needs of the
community with the directives of the profession, and provides a useful
review of the issues along the way. - TH
Olson, Nancy B. Cataloging Internet Resources: A Manual and Practical
Guide. Second edition. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Online Computer Library
Center, 1997 (http://www.purl.org/oclc/cataloging-internet). - In what
is clearly a nascent field, this online resource stands out as the
only reference tool for librarians cataloging Internet resources using
MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging). If you are a cataloger, this is
the kind of nitty-gritty guidance that makes a difficult job easier.
One of the most useful sections is the appendix with record examples,
although in poignant counterpoint at least a couple of the URLs in the
example records were out of date. - RT
_________________________________________________________________
Current Cites 8(12) (December 1997) ISSN: 1060-2356 Copyright
1997 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. _All rights
reserved._
All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders. Mention of a product in this publication does not
necessarily imply endorsement of the product.
[URL:http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/]
To subscribe, send the message "sub cites [your name]" to
listserv@library.berkeley.edu, replacing "[your name]" with your
name. To unsubscribe, send the message "unsub cites" to the same
address. Copying is permitted for noncommercial use by computerized
bulletin board/conference systems, individual scholars, and libraries.
Libraries are authorized to add the journal to their collections at no
cost. An archive site is maintained at ftp.lib.berkeley.edu in
directory /pub/Current.Cites [URL:
ftp://ftp.lib.berkeley.edu/pub/Current.Cites]. This message must
appear on copied material. All commercial use requires permission from
the editor, who may be reached in the following ways:
trinne@library.berkeley.edu // (510)642-8173
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:42:13 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: Museum Digital Licensing Collective Web Site
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
January 13, 1998
WEBSITE FOR MUSEUM DIGITAL LICENSING COLLECTIVE NOW OPEN
<www.museumlicensing.org>
>Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:44:26 -0400
>Reply-To: Visual Resources Association <VRA-L@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>
>>From: Joseph Romano <Joseph.Romano@OBERLIN.EDU>
>
>The web site of the Museum Digital Licensing Collective (MDLC) is now
>public at: www.museumlicensing.org
>
>The MDLC is a non-profit corporation formed to provide technical
>and financial assistance for the digitization of museum materials and to
>manage the storage, distribution, and licensing of digitized materials
>to educational institutions and the public.
>
>MDLC will be offering a presentation at the VRA conference at 12:00 noon
>on Saturday, March 7 at the Warwick Hotel.
>
>JR
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