ALEG

Weekly Report - Week 32, 8 December 2000

What I've done

Spent most of the work progressing/refining/testing/discussing the agent data maintenance screens. The techniques used here will be used by all the maintenance screens, so it is important to do the best job we can.
The good news is that the screens are now demonstrable, and are undergoing the first round of feedback (eliminating all the just-plain-silly and embarrassing mistakes) before being open to successively wider criticism!
Fran somehow found the time in the midst of an eventful week here at ADFA Library (systems-wise) to dump the latest data from AUSTLIT, and she even did it in a way which will hopefully make it easy to identify the changed records since the orginal load. Thanks Fran! Not all the data is ready (I think we are still waiting for reviews), but I've got more than enough to load next week. I loaded the new topics, but the "hard" stuff (agents, works, sources) awaits me next week.
Discussions with the thesaurus development team regarding thesaurus structure.
More discussions regarding search screens and results with Anna, Christopher and Sevi (our local reference librarians), which have been very useful.

What I haven't done but need to do soon!

Document how ALEG will handle some tricky cases - The "Poets of the Month" works from the mid 1970's and "Down the Lake with Half a Chook". These are amongst the most "difficult" cases Tessa and Kathy can come up with, so if we think the proposed data model can handle these, we'll be happy!

Next week

Summary

It was a huge relief to get the data maintenance screens operational, even if they are only taking little baby steps at the moment.

Links of the week - Lucre, Latin and Illumination:

Content in search of profits - Jennifer Greenstein. "Most news and information sites can't seem to find the magic formula for making money. The few relative success stories offer clues."
One of the referenced organisations, Consumer Reports, has a very interesting photo archive!
Halcyon Days of Broadcast Ad Model Fade - Christopher Locke
"Ask a company why it behaves as it does with respect to markets and marketing, and you’re likely to get the answer a five-year-old might give: because. ... In the post-broadcast era, brand will become the sum of all a company has said and the spirit in which it has said these things..."
CNET reports a resurgence in the use on Latin in online chat and news groups.
A set of proposals for using Topic Maps in an XML environment have been announced.

Kent Fitch
k.fitch@adfa.edu.au
8 December 2000