Clifford A. Lynch

When documents deceive: trust and provenance as new factors for information retrieval in a tangled web

This article outlines a personal view of the changing framework for information retrieval suggested by the Web environment, and then goes on to speculate about how some of these changes may manifest in upcoming generations of information retrieval systems. It also sketches some ideas about the broader context of trust management infrastructure that will be critical during this decade. The pursuit of these agendas is going to call for new collaborations between information scientists and a wide range of other disciplines

A Packet Radio Network for Library Automation

The progress of libraries towards establishing online databases and automated search and retrieval tools allows them to share their resources and provide access to remote users. Unfortunately, the steady increase in the cost of leased lines makes them very undesirable as the media for access networks for budget-constrained libraries. An alternative approach-a packet switching radio network-is therefore presented here. Low-cost, commercially available radio transceivers and standard personal computers are the hardware building blocks of the system. The resulting network employs a suite of protocols, including channel access, routing, congestion control, and the higher-level TCP/IP. This network, which is planned to cover a large part of northern California, will provide remote access to University of Californias automated library online catalog system. It will also support communication between any two end-points, provide for alternative routes in cases of link or nodal failure, and monitor its own performance. This paper, then, presents the networks topology, its architecture, its basic elements, and the functions it performs.

The integrity of digital information: mechanics and definitional issues

This article surveys the issues of integrity of digital information in the networked environment. The emphasis is on the content of specific digital objects as they are transferred and transformed and on the meanings of integrity in these contexts, rather than on broader questions related to the migration of a system of literature into electronic formats. The current state of the art in techniques used to maintain information integrity such as document digest algorithms and cryptographic signatures is also briefly surveyed.

Development of a TCP/IP for the IBM/370

This paper describes the design and implementation decisions that have been made in developing software to support the DARPA TCP/IP protocols for the IBM OS/370 environment at the University of California Division of Library Automation. The implementation is designed to support over 100 concurrent TCP connections, all of which are managed by a single program, which acts as a specialized sub-operating system. The system is optimized for line-by-line or screen-by-screen terminal traffic rather than character-by-character traffic. In addition, this TCP is designed to exploit the availability of the large main storage and processor speed available on the IBM/370. TCP/IP is generally considered to be a mature protocol specification; however, in the course of our implementation we found several parts to be either ambiguous or problematic — in particular, error handling and notification, ICMP and its relationship to other protocols, and synchronization of data flow with TCP callers. We also discuss problems encountered in trying to replace hardwired terminals in a public access environment with TCP and TELNET, and some protocol changes that would make these protocols more hospitable to our environment.

Networked information resource discovery: an overview of current issues

Users need a new class of information retrieval systems to help them utilize effectively the increasingly vast selection of networked information resources becoming available on the Internet. These systems-usually called network information discovery and retrieval (NIDR) systems-must operate in a highly demanding, very large-scale distributed environment that encompasses huge numbers of autonomously managed and extremely heterogeneous resources. The design of successful NIDR systems demands a synthesis of technologies and practices from computer science, computer-communications networking, information science, librarianship, and information management. This paper discusses the range of potential functional requirements for information resource discovery and selection, issues involved in describing and classifying network resources to support discovery and selection processes, and architectural frameworks for collecting and managing the information bases involved. It also includes a survey and analysis of selected operational prototypes and production systems. >

Scholarly communication in the networked environment: Reconsidering economics and organizational missions

The prospects for network-based scholarly communication and electronic information distribution are of great concern to organizations involved in print publishing. Recognizing that they must consider the changes taking place with the widespread deployment of information and computer-communications technology, their management and governing boards are trying to determine how best to understand and operate within this new environment. Some organizations--primarily those that are well established and economically secure--seem to fear the emerging electronic information environment as a threat to their historical roles and revenue streams. Other organizations--perhaps financially marginal in the current print-based world, or those that have grown up with networks--are aggressively embracing and pursuing and exploiting the possibilities the new technology offers. This article argues that the choices faced by all types ofpublishingorganizations are not simply tactical or operational issues related to revenue. How these organizations position themselves to address the opportunities offered by computer networks must be determined by the original, basic purposes of the organizations. Beginning with a brief review of the changing economics and characteristics of scholarly communications in the networked environment, the article then considers the fundamental purposes of several types of organizations, reviews how these purposes have been

The changing role in a networked information environment

Outlines the traditional issues surrounding authentication and authorization before charting the changing nature of the requirements for these services, as a fully networked information environment becomes a reality. Highlights some of the technical, organizational and policy issues which need to be addressed to create appropriate standards and infrastructure.

THE RETRIEVAL PROBLEM FOR HEALTH POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH : KNOWLEDGE BASES AND SEARCH ENGINES

I N T R O D U C T I O N : I N F O R M A T I O N N E E D S A N D R E S O U R C E S Other papers presented at this conference and reported in this issue of the Journal of Urban Health examined in depth the specific information needs and resources of health policy and public health professionals. This paper explores and assesses computer-based searching tools and systems that are available to these communities. Public health professionals will need to know how to use the growing array of information resources appearing on the Internet, some of which may specifically address their professions, but many of which were created primarily to serve other purposes. The linkage of public health and health policy to geographic communities guarantees a continuing requirement for access to diverse resources that will vary from one professional to another. This paper highlights a few developments in other disciplines, in which networked information resources and tools are making a significant difference in problem solving and general research, as a way of illustrating what may be possible for the public health communities through the application of these same technologies. Many of the most prominent examples (which we do not discuss, however) are in the biomedical and life sciences. One goal of this paper is to provide readers with a realistic understanding of what they can expect-today and in the near future-f rom the Web and the Internet. Readers will learn how these tools can enhance, supplement, or even replace existing resources and practices and thus understand the extent to which investments in both creating and learning about how to use information technol-

Publishing Bibliographic Data On Optical Disks: A Prototypical Application And Its Implications

Bibliographic databases are quite large and relatively static, making them ideally suited for storage on optical media now becoming available. Consequently, libraries and publishing houses are pioneering certain applications of optical disks. The high storage density and the economy of optical disks make them attractive media for large databases. However, two factors create problems in the design of sophisticated retrieval software: certain device characteristics (e.g., slow access time compared to magnetic media), and the user interface requirements for bibliographic data. We discuss a prototypical application of optical disks to the publishing of the Library of Congresss machine-readable collection (the MARC and REMARC databases). The prototype disk is manufactured from pre-mastered videotape and is controlled by an IBM PC microcomputer. The prototype represents a significant effort in system integration, requiring development of hardware interface, error correction, low-level access software, high-level language interface, and user-friendly front-end applications. To prepare the data for indexing and display, mainframe software was developed. Based on our experience with the prototype, we discuss a number of issues common to the publication of such databases: data structures, search strategies, precomputation of retrieval results (a powerful technique well-suited to optical disk applications), and issues pertaining to standardization and publication formats.

The Technologies of Electronic Imaging

This article provides a brief overview of the technologies of electronic imaging as background for the other articles in this Perspectives, and focuses on technologies seen by the developer or user of electronic imaging applications. It includes a brief discussion of architectural and standards issues that arise in electronic imaging applications, and goes into more depth on issues of developing image‐oriented networked information resources. A short discussion of sources for further information on electronic imaging concludes the article.