What’s Hot & What’s NotLibrary Technologies & Trends from Applets to Z39.50

Roy Tennant

Warnings My personal opinion of the situation

today (only fools and geniuses predict the future)

I can’t cover the entire landscape (I mean, you want to go home, right?)

I will cover way more Hot technologies than NOT Hot — sorry!

TMBA: Too Many Bloody Acronyms

Outline Hot (and Not) Technologies, from

Applets to Z39.50 What Makes a Technology Hot? Or

Not? Joe Janes’ Six Questions Making Good Technology Decisions I Know This Much Is True 3 Things You Must Remember

Applets Java applets were once thought to be

the way to deploy rich interactive services to web clients

Experience demonstrated that Applets: Often crashed browsers Took way too long to load Were less cross-platform compatible than

advertised Hot? NOT! — Use servlets instead…

Digital Reference Solves the essential problem of not

being where the user needs us (online) Is much better than it was, but is still in

its infancy Should be viewed as simply another tool

to provide more effective user services Hot? Yes, but be realistic and realize it is

a NEW service that requires investment

Dublin Core A common meeting ground for more

complex metadata standards Co-developed by an international

community of librarians and computer scientists (broad-based support)

Example of success: it is the one required metadata format for OAI-PMH

Hot? Yes, but should be used only for cooperative metadata sharing or very simple metadata needs

eBooks Major kinds:

Device-dependent Web-based Download-based

Uptake varies dramatically based on format, cost, type of content, etc.

Hot? Varies…from dead-cold device-dependent ebooks to lukewarm and slowly heating up for other types

FRBR Functional Requirements for

Bibliographic Records (from IFLA) A method by which we can bring

together for the user multiple records that describe one intellectual object

Example system: Redlightgreen.com from RLG

Hot? YES! May be an effective way out of the morass of multiple records

HTML A hodge-podge of sloppy

implementations and browser-specific hacks

Meanwhile, a better solution exists…XHTML & CSS

Hot? Cold, dead cold, for anyone interested in standards and long-term viability — use XHTML and CSS instead

Institutional Repositories “Digital collections capturing and

preserving the intellectual output of a single or multi-university community.” (SPARC)

A way libraries can help change scholarly communication from a profit center to a social good

Hot? Yes!

repositories.cdlib.org

dspace.mit.edu

Java Servlets “Servlets” = Server-side

applications Java is a common language for

web-based application programming

Hot? Yes.

Metasearching Only librarians like to search, everyone

else likes to find Searching in a Google World A powerful tool, but… Challenges remain:

Deduplication Ranking Target Response

Hot? Yes, but still at an early stage

METS Metadata Encoding and Transmission

Schema An XML “wrapper” for various

metadata “packages”, as well as component files or the internal structure of a file

Increasingly used as an all-purpose metadata package for digital objects

Hot? Red hot, and getting hotter!

MODS Acronym A bibliographic standard similar to

MARC expressed in XML Probably the closest thing to a

replacement for MARC Currently used as an alternative to

MARC XML Hot? Lukewarm, and getting

warmer…

OAI-PMH A protocol for “harvesting” (as opposed

to searching) metadata from content repositories

A digital library interoperability “home run”

Simple, easy to implement and understand; other uses are being layered on top (e.g., dynamic searching)

Hot? Red hot and getting hotter…

Open Source Software Software for which anyone can obtain the

source code (the human-readable code that is normally compiled into code that isn’t)

Essential services are running on OSS; e.g., Apache web server, MySQL

OSS is particularly important for libraries, as it is now much easier and cheaper to prototype and build new online services

Hot? Red hot, and likely to continue to be

OpenURL A standard way to encode URLs for

information objects that are computer parseable, and therefore actionable in ways that standard URLs are not

Key benefits: Links are not 1-to-1 (multiple targets can be

presented) Links can be presented that are unique to a user

community (based on local licenses) Hot? You bet! A simple way to solve the

“appropriate copy” problem as well as offer new capabilities

RDF Resource Description Framework Do you understand, and can you

explain to someone else, what a labeled directed graph is? No? Then forget about understanding RDF

Can you implement what you don’t understand?

Where is the killer app? Hot? NOT!

RSS Pick your acronym definition: Really

Simple Syndication (my fave), Rich Site Summary (from Netscape), or RDF Site Summary (for those into the RDF version of RSS)

Useful for current awareness: Blog readers Automatic web site updates

Hot? Yes! But for specific purposes

Storage Storage is going for about $1/GB Buy this 1 terabyte disk for $1,000 ->

Put this 4 GB card in your camera ->

Carry this 1 GB USB drive in your pocket

Hot? Like, duh!

Web Services: SOAP + REST SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol A lightweight way to exchange encoded

information between applications REST (Representational State Transfer)

is a URL (HTTP Get) based way of sending a SOAP request and receiving an XML-encoded response

Both Google and Amazon can be searched via Web Services

Hot? Definitely!

XHTML and CSS An XML-compliant version of HTML Benefits: forces markup to be valid

and properly structured; forces display directives into a separate stylesheet (CSS) where they belong

Ongoing maintenance of documents thereby simplified and standardized

Hot? Definitely! Migrate NOW!

http://csszengarden.com/

XML A simple and yet powerful way to

encode information in a structured format for processing and communication

All kinds of hot new services use it, from OAI-PMH to RSS and SRU/SRW — even library catalog systems

Hot? Super Red Hot! If you want job security, learn XML now!

Z39.50 A standard for searching remote

databases that has been around for years

Still not widely implemented in a consistent and effective manner

Meanwhile, OAI-PMH and other XML-based protocols (e.g., SRU/SRW) are rapidly replacing it

Hot? NOT! But see SRU/SRW

SRU/SRW SRW = carried by a form (uses HTTP

POST) SRU = carried by a URL (uses HTTP GET) A Web Services implementation of

Z39.50 The best chance Z39.50 has of surviving Hot? Warm and getting warmer (it may

be a useful method for database vendors to expose their databases to metasearching)

What Makes a Technology Hot? Simplicity Power Flexibility Cost-effectiveness Kills a pain or fulfills a strong

desire

What Makes a Technology NOT Hot? Needless complexity (more

complexity than is required to solve the problem at hand)

Greater cost (in either money or time) than users are willing to pay

Addresses a problem that no one feels that strongly about

Competition that is more compelling

Joe Janes’ Six Questions Is there a benefit to the user? Is it accessible, affordable, and

worth the cost? Does it help uphold the values of

the profession? Does it play to our strengths? Is it likely to endure? Does it feel right?Reference:

Making Good Technology Decisions Keep an ear to the ground and an

eye on the horizon Hold new technologies up to the

light of your mission and priorities Watch out for 800 lb. Gorillas Don’t ignore an upstart with a

compelling product

Making Good Technology Decisions Don’t bet the farm on things you can’t

control All things being equal, open is better

than proprietary Technology with market share often

prevents or kills better technology However…market share is everything Get good advice Know your source of support

I Know This Much is True Neither an early adopter nor latecomer be It’s the user, stupid! Don’t expect users to know what they want

until they see it Never underestimate the power of a

prototype Back it up or kiss it goodbye Buy hardware at the last possible moment

I Know This Much is True Don’t buy software with a zero at the

end of the release number Burn, baby, burn: the only good CPU

cycle is a used one Never let anyone bitch at you about

disk usage — disk space is cheaper than dirt!

If you can’t be with the operating system you love, love the one you’re with

3 Things You Must Remember XML It’s not the technology, but

the user! Never stop learning!