1 Digital scientific information in 2007 [email protected]@vub.ac.be...
-
Upload
violet-cook -
Category
Documents
-
view
219 -
download
2
Transcript of 1 Digital scientific information in 2007 [email protected]@vub.ac.be...
1
Digital scientific information in 2007
[email protected] Belgium
Prepared for a presentation at ADEKUS = Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname, in Paramaribo, SurinameJune 2007
2
These slides should be available from the WWW site
http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/presentations/
(note: BIBLIO and not biblio)
3• Online literacy
• Online information sources and services» Introduction
» Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
» Internet directories and indexes
» Current awareness services
» Book databases
» Fee-based information services
» Databases about journal articles
» Multimedia
» Evolution
- contents - summary - structure- overviewof this presentation
4
Information literacy
5
Our world: future trends
Future trends in our world
• Complexity
• Dynamics and evolution Speed and acceleration
• Internationalization Globalization
• Economic products less based on natural resources and more on “knowledge”
Answers / Requirements / Solutions / Reactions
• Knowledge and skills
• Adaptability Flexibility
• Global co-operation Mobility
• Education, research, exploitation of knowledge is important
6
Information, computer and media literacy overlap
Media literacy
Computer literacy
Information literacy
7
Information literacy: definition: the importance of information
1. To understand in general the nature, the value and the importance of information. The ability to recognize when information is needed, when information can help to make progress, to solve a problem, to make a decision…
8
Information literacy: definition: finding information
2. The ability to search, find, locate relevant, needed information! (Identify concepts, select information sources, formulate queries….) The ability to cope with information overload.
9
Information literacy: definition: evaluating information
3. The ability to evaluate the quality and suitability of retrieved information!
10
Information literacy: definition: managing information
4. The ability to manage information! (Saving information, ordering information in folders on computer, finding information in your own collection…= “personal information management”)
11
Information literacy: definition: sharing information
5. The ability to apply/use information effectively.The ability to keep up-to-date on the topics/subjects that are relevant for you. The ability to communicate with others, to share information with others!(Using citations, live presentations, electronic mail,your own WWW site, publishing…)
12
Online access information sources and services
Introduction
13
Online information sources: summary
• The following gives a general overview of online accessible information sources.
• This overview is not limited to or focusing on a particular concrete subject domain/area.
14
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 0)
• Through the Internet, we can access information sources and information services.
• This has become increasingly important and interesting since 1990.
• The advantages are tremendous and well appreciated.
• However, the following are some of the remaining difficulties and bottlenecks.
15
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 1)
• Redundancy and overlap:On the one hand, there is too much information on some topics; in other words, the redundancy and overlap are high in many cases. Only few information sources: On the other hand, there are only few information sources on some topics.
16
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 2)
• No order is imposed on most sources.Quality checks / quality controls are not performed.Related to this: it is not required to register new information offered. Is the information that you find real, honest, authentic?
17
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 3)
• Change is the only constant: Information sources are constantly changing, growing, but sometimes disappearing.
18
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 4)
• Scattering: There is no single simple but powerful system to find relevant information through the Internet.In other words: integration / aggregation is still far from perfect.
19
Internet based information sources: problems / difficulties (Part 5)
• Slow: The Internet is in many places and for many applications not yet fast enough.
20
Online access information sources and services
Types of online access information systems
21
Primary versus secondary computer sources / systems / services
• Primary sources /systems /services
directly usefulExamples: - books, - collections of articles on the Internet (like Hinari and Agora in ADEKUS)
• Secondary sources /systems /services !
»helping to access / use the primary services
»“travel agencies”, “navigation services”...
22
Online access information sources and services
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias accessible through the WWW
23
Dictionaries and encyclopedias through the WWW: introduction
• Dictionaries and encyclopedias are the first choice among many types of information sources,
»when we do not need detailed information on a common topic
»when we want to prepare a more detailed search on an unfamiliar topic, by searching for the right spelling, synonyms, context…
• Some dictionaries and encyclopedias are available through the WWW free of charge.
24
Dictionaries accessible through Internet and the WWW: example
• The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
»Over 200,000 entries, 70,000 audio word pronunciations, 900 full-page color illustrations
»Available free of charge from http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/
Example
25
Encyclopedias accessible through Internet and the WWW: examples
• Encarta Concise Free Encyclopedia
»http://encarta.msn.com/
»Available in English and in some other languages
Example
26
Encyclopedias accessible through Internet and the WWW: examples
• Encyclopædia Britannica only a small part is available free of charge + links to selected WWW sites
»http://www.britannica.com/ [cited 2006]
• Encyclopædia Britannica Concise
»http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/
Example
27
Encyclopedias accessible through Internet and the WWW: examples
• The Canadian Encyclopedia(in English and in French):
»http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/
Example
28
Encyclopedias accessible through Internet and the WWW: examples
• Wikipedia
• A free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Example
29
Encyclopedias accessible through Internet and the WWW: overviews
• A list / overview of encyclopedia on the Internet:http://www.internetoracle.com/encyclop.htm
• Other lists of encyclopedia on Internet can be found as a part of more general directories of Internet-based information sources.
Example
30
Online access information sources and services
Internet directories and indexes
31
Internet global subject directories:introduction
• They are virtual libraries with open shelves, for browsing.
• They are manually generated, man-made by many people.
• They can be browsed following a tree structure or a more complicated variation.
32
Internet global subject directories: pros and cons
• They cover a small number of selected WWW sites, in comparison with the total number of sites that are accessible
+ Browsing is possible (formulating a query is not needed).
+ The selected, included sites should be better than average.
- They are NOT suitable for deep, detailed, specific searches with a high coverage.
33
Internet global subject directories: Yahoo!
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found at http://dir.yahoo.com/
• Entries are NOT rated.
• Accessible free of charge.
Example
34
Internet global subject directories: Yahoo!: screenshot of home page
Example
35
Internet global subject directories: Yahoo! links in pediatrics
• Health > Medicine > Pediatrics:• International Pediatric Chat - for professionals to share information and education
regarding children's health care.
• National Med/Peds Residents' Association - organization for residents, practioners and medical students interested in combined internal medicine and pediatrics.
• Neonatology Network - information and communication platform for neonatologists and pediatricians.
• Pediatria OnLine - qui si parla di bambini, fra pediatri e con le famiglie.
• Pediatric Critical Care
• Pediatric Database (PEDBASE) - containing descriptions of over 500 childhood illnesses.
• Pediatric Endocrinology Conference - LWPES/ESPE joint meeting occuring July 6-10 2001.
• Pediatric Endoscopic Photos - illustrating intestinal problems in children.
Example
36
Internet global subject directories: dmoz Open Directory Project
• A hypertext global subject directory can be found athttp://www.dmoz.org/
• Accessible free of charge.
• It is allowed to use the contents also in other systems;this is indeed done in the Google Directory and Webbrain.
Example
37
Internet global subject directories: dmoz: screenshot of the starting page
Example
38
Internet global subject directories: Intute
• A collection of hypertext subject directories that focus on academic information sources can be found from 2006 athttp://www.intute.ac.uk/
• Accessible free of charge.
• Also tutorials are offered about how to find information in specific subject domains.
Example
39
Internet subject directories: non-global, more specific systems
a directory limited to sources in/of a country or region
a directory restricted to a specific subject domain
(“portal”)
a global subject
directory
the complete WWW
can lead to
40
Internet subject directories focusing on a specific subject domain: example
• Communication studies:
»http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/communications/lrcs/
Examples
41
Internet subject directories focusing on a specific subject domain: example
• Marine science and oceanography:
»http://oceanportal.org/ = http://ioc.unesco.org/oceanportal/
Examples
42
Internet subject directories focusing on a specific subject domain: example
• Fishing:
»http://www.onefish.org/
Examples
43
Internet indexes:automated search tools
• Several systems allow to search for and to locate many items (addressable resources) in the Internet in a more systematic, direct way than by only browsing/navigating.
• These systems do NOT search the contents of computers through the real Internet in real time and completely when a user makes a query. Searching in that way would be much too slow due to limitations in the technology.
44
Internet indexes: scheme of the mechanism
User searching for Internet based information
Internet client hardware and software
user interface to a search engine Internet information source
Internet index search engine Internet crawler and indexing system
database of Internet files, including an index
45
Internet indexes:description of the mechanism
Each of these search systems is based on:
• a database of links to pages / URLs that can be retrieved by searching with queries through a big index that is built machine-made on the basis of the contents, the texts, of these pages(to build this database and to keep it up to date, pages are continuously collected from the Internet by a “robot” computer software system)
• a search system with a user interface in a WWW form, to allow the user to search through that database
46
Internet indexes: Google (Part 1)
• http://www.google.com/
• Available since 2001 with most of its features.
• The most popular system in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006…
47
Internet indexes: Google (Part 2)
• Full-text searching is possible of many files that are available through the WWW.
• Not only HTML and plain text pages are covered, but also the first part is indexed of many files in other file formats, such as
»Adobe PDF,
»Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint
»Rich Text Format…
48
Internet indexes: Google Scholar
• Google Scholar allows us to search for more scholarly information sources, including journal articles.
• A beta (test) version has been available since November 2004.
• The system is accessible starting from the home page of Google as one of the additional services, or more directly from http://scholar.google.com/
• The online manual explains the system, but provides no details on algorithms applied and on coverage.
49
Internet indexes: Google Scholar: screenshot
Example
50
Internet indexes: the coverage of Google Scholar
• The information is harvested in a more or less automatic way from the public access WWW and from databases of some scholarly publishers that publish
»full-text, primary electronic journals
»bibliographic, secondary, abstract databases including
—the Ingenta database of journal articles
—the Pubmed database
—some databases of the company CSA
51
Internet indexes: MSN Web Search = Live
• Available from: http://search.msn.com/
• Since 1998.
• Offered free of charge by Microsoft.
• You can search for WWW content.
• Since 2006 available from http://www.live.com/
Example
52
Internet indexes: Scirus
• The search interface: http://www.scirus.com/
• Since 2001.
• Offers not only access to files in html format, but also to files in PDF.
• Is partly based on the Fast WWW search system.
Example
53
Internet indexes: Scirus contents and coverage
• Allows you to search for more or less “manually” selected
»scientific WWW pages, plus
»the contents of some scientific, bibliographic databases.
• In the sense that Scirus is dedicated to scientific information, it is similar to Google Scholar.
Example
54
Internet indexes: Scirus contents details
• Is offered free of charge by the publisher of scientific journals, named Elsevier.
• Offers bibliographic descriptions of the articles that are published in close to 2000 peer-reviewed journals that are made available through the Internet/WWW site ScienceDirect by Elsevier !However, the full-text can be downloaded only when a fee has been paid to the publisher.The similar and competing open access search system named Google Scholar does NOT include these important data.
Example
55
Internet indexes: Scirus contents details
• Files from several scientific open archives/repositories that contain scientific research articles that can be downloaded free of charge.
• Bibliographic references from the open access Medline/Pubmed database.
• Since 2005: more than 10 million patent descriptions
Example
56
Internet indexes: Yahoo!
Example
• An Internet search system is offered through http://www.yahoo.com/
• This is offered BESIDES the well-established, classical Yahoo! subject directory.
57
Internet indexes cover only a part of the Internet: metaphore
The “visible” part of Internet
The “deep, hidden, invisible” part of Internet and the WWW, (that is not searchable using a global index like Google, Yahoo!...)
58
Internet indexes cover only a part of the Internet: introduction
• Why can Internet indexes find only a part of what is in fact available through the Internet?
• Quantitative technical limitations:
»Each Internet search system has indexed only a part of the static WWW pages that are available for indexing.
• Qualitative technical limitations:
»Besides the static WWW pages that Internet search engines try to cover, many other, quite different sources exist, that are also available through the Internet, but that are not incorporated in those search engines.
59
Internet
Internet indexes cover only a part of the Internet: scheme
WWW
Databases and
file archives accessible through
the Internet
telnetftp...
telnetftp...
CGI, ASP,...CGI, ASP,...
Rapidly changing information, such as news, weblogs=blogs…
Information accessible only when passwords are used
Static texts in the WWW that can be indexed( = on HTTP server computers)
covered partly by Internet indexes
Wordfiles
PDFfiles
60
Databases accessible over the Internet: examples
• Medline/PubMed offers bibliographic descriptions of publications on medicine, free of charge.
Example
61
Databases accessible over the Internet: examples
Example
• http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/
• “Our goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone.”
62
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Current awareness services focusing on WWW pages
63
Current awareness services focusing on WWW pages: Google Alerts
• Available at http://www.google.com/ and then see the page with additional servicesor more directly from http://www.google.com/alerts/
• Since 2004.
• Can discover relevant changed or new WWW pages for you in the future.
• Is based on the popular Internet index Google.
• Works with search queries given by you that are stored on their server computer.
Example
64
Current awareness services focusing on WWW pages: Google Alerts
Example
65
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Public access book databases
66
Public access book databases: introduction
Public access book databases: introduction
• Even in this age of Internet-based information sources, a lot of information is still distributed in the form of printed books.
• The contents of most books is (still) not available on the Internet.
• Most general Internet search tools do NOT allow you to find out about the existence of books that may be interesting for you.
• So, specific search tools to find books can be useful.
67
Public access book databases: an overview
Public access book databases: an overview
• (Databases by publishers.)
• (Fee-based databases by commercial providers)
• (Databases of computer-based versions of books.)
• Catalogue databases by book distributors / bookshops!
• Online public access catalogue databases of libraries
• Databases of scanned book pages (really taking off since 2004)
68
Book databases accessible free of charge: examples in U.S.A.
Book databases accessible free of charge: examples in U.S.A.
• Amazon.com (US):http://www.amazon.com/
• This company offers also different, more local versions that offer books in other languages, such as http://www.amazon.co.uk/ http://www.amazon.fr/
• note: amazon, NOT amazone
• Subject description is poor.
• Take into account delivery costs: postage + tax
Examples
69
Book databases accessible free of charge: examples in Europe
Book databases accessible free of charge: examples in Europe
• Blackwell’s on the Internet (International, academic books):http://www.blackwell.co.uk/
• VLB for books in Germanhttp://www.buchhandel.de/
• For books in Frenchhttp://www.chapitre.com
• Boeknet - De Nederlandse Internet Boekhandel (Dutch)http://www.boeknet.nl/
Examples
70
Free public access federated search systems for books: introduction
Free public access federated search systems for books: introduction
• Also available free of charge are searches through the independent catalogue databases of several bookshops, in one and the same action.
• Furthermore the results from the various shops are presented in such a way that the user can easily compare them (for instance: price, delivery costs…)
• We can call these “meta-catalogues”.
71
Federated searching: scheme
information sourcesportal for
meta-searching = federated searching= cross-database searching
portal for meta-searching = federated searching= cross-database searching
End user
End user
End user
End user
72
Free public access federated search systems for books: examples
Free public access federated search systems for books: examples
• http://www.addall.com/ [accessed 2007]Takes into account your location (country) and calculates the cost to ship/send a book to you.
73
Full-text databases of books: introduction
Full-text databases of books: introduction
• Some organisations have scanned the contents of thousands of old as well as recent books, to make them searchable through the Internet.
74
Full-text databases of books: Amazon
Full-text databases of books: Amazon
• http://www.amazon.com/ and choose BOOKS
• Since 2004
75
Full-text databases of books: Google Book Search
Full-text databases of books: Google Book Search
• In November 2005 http://www.books.google
• The contents of this database is obtained
»directly from book publishers, and
»by scanning the contents of books from a few big libraries
76
Online Public Access Catalogues of libraries
Online Public Access Catalogues of libraries
• Mainly to find older books, the catalogues of libraries can be useful.
• Most are accessible online and free of charge.
77
General conclusion concerning book databases
The
one and only, international, complete, ideal,
bibliographic database
does NOT exist,
but the united forces of the different available book databases should be satisfying.
78
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Fee-based online public access information services
79
Types of online access information systems: “free” versus “fee”
Public access information sources free of charge
Fee-based online information services(NOT free of charge)
80
Types of online access information systems: “free” for members only
Public access information sources free of charge
Fee-based online information services(NOT free of charge)
Fee-based online information services, made accessible “free of charge”
by an institute to its members
81
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Online access databases about journal articles
82
Online access databases about journal articles: overview
Online access databases about journal articles: overview
• Thousands of fee-based online access databases offer bibliographies or full-texts of journal articles in particular subject domains and published by many publishers.
• Many publishers offer searchable bibliographies, but only of their own publications. (for instance Elsevier, Emerald, Sage)
• Only few large databases offer access to bibliographies of articles published in journals from many publishers, free of charge.
83
Online access databases about journal articles: Ingenta (1)
Online access databases about journal articles: Ingenta (1)
• Ingenta allows you to search a bibliographic database of millions of journal articles, including titles, authors, in many cases abstracts.
• The organisation claims to be “The most comprehensive collection of academic and professional publications”
• Available from: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/
Example
84
Online access databases about journal articles: Infotrieve
Online access databases about journal articles: Infotrieve
• Available from:
»http://www.infotrieve.com/
»http://www3.infotrieve.com/
• Infotrieve allows you to search free of charge in a bibliographic database of the articles of more than 20 000 journal titles and conference proceedings, NOT full-text.
85
Online access databases about journal articles: Scirus
• The search interface: http://www.scirus.com
• This is a specialised Internet index that allows you to search for selected scientific information (only) on the WWW.
• This includes the peer-reviewed articles in the journals that are published in ScienceDirect by Elsevier.
• Offered free of charge by Elsevier.
• An article can be downloaded in full-text format only when a fee has been paid to the publisher.
86
Online access databases about journal articles: Google Scholar
• Google Scholar allows us to search for more scholarly information sources, including journal articles.
• A beta (test) version has been available since November 2004.
• The system is accessible starting from the home page of Google as one of the additional services besides the normal, classical WWW search.
• The online manual explains the system briefly and provides no details.
87
Online access databases about journal articles: Microsoft Academic Live
• http://academic.live.com/
• Since April 2006.
• Free of charge.
• Allows searching in a database of
»Bibliographic descriptions of articles published in a selection of academic journals, provided mainly by a limited number of publishers
»Open Archives on the Internet, crawled/harvested by Microsoft
88
Online access databases about journal articles: DOAJ
• The Directory of Open Access Journals started in 2003 as a directory/database of titles of electronic journals that can be accessed by anyone free of charge.
• http://www.doaj.org/
• More recently, this system allows deeper searching (down to the level of the titles and even abstracts of journal articles) for an increasing number of the journals that are included in the directory.
89
Online access databases about journal articles: DOAJ screenshot
90
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Finding multimedia files on the Internet
91
Finding multimedia files on the Internet: introduction
Several public access search systems are available free of charge, to search the Internet for multimedia files:
»images / pictures (either artwork, either photos, or both)
»sound / audio files (music, speeches...); video
92
Finding images on the Internet:introduction
• Several public access search systems are available free of charge to search for images / pictures (either artwork, either photos, or both) on the Internet.
• When searching for images, the search results from such a system offer not only links to the image files on the Internet, but also directly small versions of the images (so-called “thumbnails”).
93 Examples
Finding images on the Internet:screen shot of a Google image search
94Examples
Finding images on the Internet:examples of search engines (1)
• http://alltheweb.com/
• http://images.search.yahoo.com/ [accessed in 2007] or http://yahoo.com/ or http://www.yahoo.com and then go to searching ‘Images’
95Examples
Finding images on the Internet:examples of search engines (2)
• http://images.google.com/ ! or through http://www.google.com/[accessed in 2007] The largest database in this category (at least in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006…).For each result, not only a thumbnail is offered, but also directly the origin with the readable URL; this makes it easier to guess the relevance of the document.
96
Online access information sources and services
Online access information sources and services
Evolution
97
Online access information: evolution and future trends
• An increasing amount of information becomes available online.
• A growing amount of this online information becomes available free of charge.
• The quality and ease of use of software on server as well as client is growing.
• A consequence is: An increasing number of end-users searching for information online.
98
Online access information: easier information retrieval systems
• Individual information retrieval systems become easier:
»they react faster;
»they can provide access to more data/information in one action;
»their user interfaces are simple, but more sophisticated, intelligent retrieval algorithms can nevertheless deliver satisfactory results in most simple cases.
99
Online access information: more complicated information market
• The whole information landscape consists of more and more decentralised information sources, each one bringing an individual user interface that should be mastered. Making the right, ideal choice among the sources becomes not easier, perhaps even more complicated every day.
100
Online access information: easy or complicated?
• In the case of simple information needs, the WWW and the search tools can work like “magic”.
• However, in the case of more complicated information needs, there is still is no “magic button” that brings you immediately to all the required information.
101
Questions?
Suggestions?
Topics for discussion?
102
• You are free to copy, distribute, display this work under the following conditions:
»Attribution: You must mention the author.
»Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
»No Derivative Works: You may not change, modify, alter, transform, or build upon this work.
• For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.