Newsletter No. 56
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Free Pint
"Helping 27,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN 1460-7239 17th February 2000 No.56
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"UK Political & Government Web Sites"
By James Hatts
BOOKSHELF
"When Things Start to Think"
Reviewed by Neil Infield
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Topics and Collections:
An Alternative Metaphor for Using the Web"
By Susan L. Gerhart
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is a free newsletter written by information professionals
who share how they find quality and reliable information on the
Internet. Useful to anyone who uses the Web for their work, it
is published every two weeks by email, and your regular free
copy can be reserved at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/>. The site gives
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EDITORIAL
We've been talking to a lot of people lately to find out what they
like and dislike about Free Pint. The one major message we don't seem
to be getting across is:
"We have a Web site"
Yes, even though we mentioned the Web site 40 times in the last
edition of the newsletter, it seems that many subscribers still don't
know it exists.
In fact, the site has well over 2,000 pages of information, housing
more than 100 articles, today's worldwide news, forthcoming Internet
events and book reviews. You can even post your tricky Internet
research questions at the "Free Pint Bar", and have the latest
postings emailed to you every other day. Finally, the whole site
can be explored in under a second using the search facility.
The Free Pint Web site is *your* resource and so I would urge you to
make the most of it. There's no registration required and it's totally
free. So why not spend a few minutes taking a look today ...
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
I enjoyed an informative day yesterday at the new eRetailing
conference in London. I overheard many comments praising the quality
of the content and organisation of the event, and if you wish
you had attended then you'll be pleased to hear it's returning in
October. My evening was spent with the City Information Group who
covered the topical subject of free versus paid-for content on the
Web. The panel included Lexis-Nexis/FT Profile, Factiva and FT.com,
with one speaker asking "Are hosts toast?". The overriding conclusion
was that the traditional hosts simply must explore the full range of
revenue models on the Web if they are to survive.
In today's issue of Free Pint we bring you two interesting articles
on how to locate political information on the Web, and researching
an entire topic. We review a fascinating book about the integration
of computers more directly into our lives, and Simon provides his
regular synopsis of the latest goings-on at the Free Pint Bar.
We do hope you enjoy this issue, and will join us online to give your
feedback and explore the many resources on the Web site.
Kind regards,
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc
Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint
e: william@freepint.co.uk
w: http://www.freepint.co.uk/
t: +44 (0)1784 455435
f: +44 (0)1784 455436
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/170200.htm#tips
"UK Political & Government Web Sites"
By James Hatts
The Internet has opened up a new way for governments to communicate
with citizens, and for citizens to access government information from
their homes and offices. Some government organisations have embraced
this new technology wholeheartedly, some still have a long way to go.
The rapid expansion of Internet access has now reached the stage
where people expect, by right, to be able to access government
information online and communicate electronically with departments
and agencies. This article examines some of the resources currently
available.
I can only hope to offer a brief introduction to the huge amount of
material relating to politics and government on the Internet, so I
look forward to hearing from readers at the Free Pint Bar
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar> with their personal recommendations.
Political Portals
-----------------
Political Resources on the Net <http://www.agora.stm.it/politic> has
an excellent clickable map of world regions leading to a page of flags.
The country level pages are rather confusing, but the sheer amount of
information means that persistence will be rewarded.
Julian White's British Politics Page <http://www.ukpol.co.uk> is
another comprehensive resource - the Westminster Diary is worth
checking out for the inside gossip.
Parliament
----------
The UK Parliament site at <http://www.parliament.uk> is a big
disappointment. It is infrequently updated and poorly designed. There
is a long way to go. The list of MPs does include links to some MPs'
websites, but it is by no means a comprehensive list. The biggest set
of links to MPs' web sites is at
<http://www.politicos.co.uk/resources/links/mps.htm>.
If you have been baffled by confusing parliamentary terms
BBC Online offers an excellent A to Z of Parliament
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/a-z_of_parliament/default.stm>.
Government
----------
The CCTA Government Information Service <http://www.open.gov.uk> is
the best starting point if you are looking for any UK governmental
information. The Organisation Index includes local authority websites.
The high profile 10 Downing Street site <http://www.number-10.gov.uk>
has now been relaunched and is a much more fitting web presence for
the Prime Minister's office and residence. The site achieves a good
balance between government information and lighter features. You can
sign up to receive updates by email.
Devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has spawned a new
set of websites for the newly created institutions.
The Scottish Executive <http://www.scotland.gov.uk> is a good starting
point for information on the Scottish government, whilst the Scottish
Parliament <http://www.scottish.parliament.uk> has a vastly superior
web site to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.
The National Assembly for Wales <http://www.wales.gov.uk> has a
particularly good sitemap showing how all of the sections fit
together.
The Northern Ireland Executive <http://www.northernireland.gov.uk>
and Northern Ireland Assembly <http://www.ni-assembly.gov.uk> sites
are not quite as polished as those of their Scottish and Welsh
counterparts, but provide useful sources of official documents
relating to the peace process.
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has
finally provided some proper information about the Mayor and Assembly
for London on the Web, via the <http://www.london.gov.uk> site. Until
the new system comes into operation the Government Office for London
<http://www.open.gov.uk/glondon> continues to oversee the capital's
relationship with central government.
Broadcasting
------------
There are two live video streams broadcasting the proceedings of the
House of Commons - the cable and digital channel BBC Parliament is at
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/video/parliament/parliament.ram>,
whilst a little-known broadcaster, The Parliament Channel
<http://www.westminster-digital.co.uk/parliament> has a rival feed
also in RealVideo format. Details of the other BBC political
programmes available on the internet can be found at
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/default.stm#uk_politics>.
And if you miss Prime Minister's Question Time on a Wednesday, C-SPAN
<http://www.c-span.org/guide/international/bhoc> rebroadcast the
proceedings on the Internet every Sunday. There's even a RealVideo
archive.
Political News
--------------
If you can't survive without a regular fix of political news, the news
aggregation site moreover.com (the providers of Free Pint Industry
News <http://www.freepint.co.uk/news>) is a good place to start. For
UK politics try <http://www.moreover.com/ukpolitics>, for US politics
go to <http://www.moreover.com/uspolitics>. You can even sign up to
have the headlines sent to your mailbox every day. Naturally, BBC
News Online <http://news.bbc.co.uk> and PA News
<http://www.pa.press.net> are other good sources.
Political Parties
-----------------
The main UK political parties have all launched their "second
generation" web sites, having learnt some hard lessons from the
criticisms of their initial efforts.
Labour's current slick web site <http://www.labour.org.uk> was
unveiled by Tony Blair at the 1999 party conference, and is backed
by big names including Oracle and Freeserve as part of a deal that
saw Freeserve CDs mailed to all party members.
The Conservative Party site <http://www.conservative-party.org.uk> is
business-like, but unfortunately the Java scolling news panel crashed
my browser.
The Liberal Democrat site <http://www.libdems.org.uk> is slightly more
modest than the others, but is perhaps more effective in communicating
straightforward information to party workers and prospective members
alike.
The three main parties all urge browsers to "Join now!", but how much
do they conform to their own party policies on promoting e-commerce?
The Liberal Democrats have an online form that looks promising until
you see the line that says "Someone will get back to you in the next
couple of weeks". The Labour site has a "security pledge", but in
fact the default form is insecure and it is necessary to click on a
special link to access the secure area. Only the Conservative Party
site takes users direct to a secure membership form.
There is a good set of links to political parties with UK, European
and Scottish Parliament representation on the 10 Downing Street site
at <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/default.asp?PageID=979>.
Europe
------
European Union sites can be accessed via Europa at
<http://europa.eu.int>. The European Parliament is at
<http://www.europarl.eu.int>. Want to know the words for "European
Parliament" in eleven languages? This is the place to find out.
And finally...
--------------
When you have had enough of the serious sites and are ready for some
fun, Anagram Genius <http://www.anagramgenius.com> will give you
hours of fun looking up anagrams of your (least) favourite
politicians' names. Did you know that William Hague MP can be
rearranged to make "I am all huge wimp"? And Tony Blair makes
"Tory in Lab"...
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James Hatts is Website Manager at Politico's
<http://www.politicos.co.uk>, the high-profile Westminster political
bookstore and publishing company, where he has recently overseen the
launch of the Politico's Online Bookstore. He is also Website
Producer for London SE1 <http://www.southbank.org.uk>, the local
information site for London's South Bank area. In addition, James has
acted as an Internet consultant to several voluntary sector
organisations. He can be contacted at <james@hatts.co.uk>.
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FREE PINT BOOKSHELF
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"When Things Start to Think"
Reviewed by Neil Infield
To those of us who spend our days on the web where an Internet year
is equivalent to three months of old world time, it may well feel as
though we are already living in the future. Reading this book would
soon change your mind. Neil Gershenfeld believes he sees the future
of technology every day he goes in to work. His job is co-director
of the Things That Think research consortium at the MIT Media
Laboratory in the U.S. And it is here that he is exposed to the kinds
of technologies many of us won't be seeing for a few more years yet.
If you think the current state of computing is pretty smart, what
about a computer in your shoe that can communicate with other peoples
wired footwear when you meet on the street? Or how about electronic
books using digital paper, which uses computerised ink with the same
readability as printed text but can reformat itself on demand. Even
more wacky is a three dimensional printer which could be thought of
as a personal desktop factory.
There are two things which I really like about this book. Firstly it
is written in a chatty non-technical style with very little jargon
and lots of clear and simple explanations. Secondly the author,
despite being from a technical background and having seen the
quantum leaps in computing over the past fifteen years, realises
there is still a long way to go. Until computers are both pervasive
and invisible, technology cannot really be regarded as intelligent.
Humans shouldn't have to adapt to computers - it should be the other
way around. The state of the art PC I am using to produce this review
does not even know I am sitting in front of it, let alone what kind
of mood I am in or how hungry or tired I am. And why do I have to use
an invention from two centuries ago to communicate with it?
Where I disagree with Gershenfeld is in his optimistic assessment of
the future. He believes that once the technology has matured it will
become a natural extension of our bodies. We will reach a kind of
technological nirvana. However he fails to notice examples from
history that show how scientific developments have been abused to the
detriment of humankind. We have nuclear power and genetically
engineered medicines but also nuclear bombs and 'Frankenstein' foods.
We have the global communications network known as the Internet but
also an information disenfranchised majority who are not connected.
Technology cannot be separated from society and however perfect its
developments they must be applied to an imperfect world.
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Neil Infield <neil@infield.nu> is Manager of Business Information
Services (BIS) at Hermes Pensions Management Ltd. the principal fund
manager for the British Telecom and Post Office pensions schemes.
Recently he has taken the initiative in developing web activities
within Hermes, and is now responsible for developing and maintaining
both the company web site and intranet. The intranet has been built
without any technical or programming input using a combination of
FrontPage 98 and FileMaker Pro.
Neil is on the board of the European Chapter of the Special Libraries
Association <http://www.sla-europe.org> where he edits their
newsletter and website.
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Related Free Pint links:
* Related Internet strategy book reviews on the Free Pint Bookshelf
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* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340728701/freepint0c>
or Amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080505880X/freepint00>
* Read this book review online at the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf/think.htm>
To propose a business-Web-related book for review, send
details to <bookshelf@freepint.co.uk>.
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FEATURE ARTICLE
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/170200.htm#feature
"Topics and Collections:
An Alternative Metaphor for Using the Web"
By Susan L. Gerhart
The web topic collector has different goals than the web searcher,
namely:
(1) 'all' the good URLs on a topic and
(2) analysis of those URLs for deeper insight into the topic.
This article examines some facets of this practice, distinguishes
collecting from searching, and provides leading questions for web
collectors and future research.
Why would anybody collect 'everything' about any particular topic?
------------------------------------------------------------------
* in dire need, e.g. a medical, legal, financial, problem
(see the alphabetical listing of Free Pint subjects at
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/guide/html/sgp11.html>)
* as a hobby, e.g. the many sites at <http://www.tripod.lycos.com>
* for market and competitive analysis
* to show you've completely scoured the web, e.g. patent due diligence
* to learn a new subject by applying your mental map to web content
* to build a web catalog and inventory for a business
* to avoid portals, being click-fodder, search once, then live
off-line
* as a baseline to track an evolving subject or network of experts
* to extend their profession, e.g. librarians
<http://www.bubl.ac.uk>, <http://www.clearinghouse.net>
* as datasets to study the web itself
(e.g. Search Engine benchmarks at <http://notess.com>
* for 'web infomercials', links to draw traffic to sponsors,
provide public information
Proposed terminology: the 'Collector' gathers URLs to answer multiple
questions over time, and organizes, saves, expands, and reuses the
collection. This contrasts with the more time-limited and focused
activity of the 'Searcher' who is looking for a particular answer to
an immediate need. Collections are organized around 'topics', such as
the work of a particular author, a technology, an industry sector, or
an article- or book-sized cohesive subject.
Characteristics of a Collection
-------------------------------
While many collections start with a kernel of good URLs and grow with
the collector's experience, a fresh collection often launches with a
query to many search engines followed by a combination of reading,
cutting/pasting, bookmarking, annotating, and more querying. Building
a collection takes great effort, costs somebody time and money, forces
trade-offs of quality versus quantity (less is better), and requires
predictability.
A collector can better manage the collection process by understanding:
1. Yield - How many URLs will you keep from those you get from a
broad web search?
2. Boundary - What's in the collection and what's irrelevant?
3. Redundancy - How many URLs, e.g. mirror sites,
can you throw away without losing significant information?
4. Liveness - How many dead URLs do you expect?
Will you lose information by pruning dead URLs?
5. Generality - Save representatives or multiple pages at a site?
point to author, or content, or both?
6. Webbed-ness - How many links among URLs are you likely to find?
Is there a real 'web', community, or mostly isolated URLs?
7. User patience - user tolerance for redundant, dead, or dud URLs?
What are the trade-offs in quality vs. quantity?
Most important, what is the purpose of the collection? What are its
long term uses? What's the monetary or personal valuation of the
collection?
And, operationally, a collector must consider:
1. Choice of search engines and/or metasearchers - can you calibrate
how well individual engines do on your topic?
2. Depth of search results - mundane problem, label and save the
results (engine, query, order)?
3. Formulating a broad enough query to get 'everything',
but not too much extraneous.
4. Processing the URLs to pick out the ones you want -
mechanically, how will you pick, choose, and record choices?
5. URLs or web pages themselves -
will you work primarily off-line or on-line?
6. Storing and reporting your results for general use?
database, HTML, XML?
These pragmatic questions pose quite a challenge, and we have yet to
address quality, relevance, authenticity, etc. We'll just assume for
now that you'll know a good URL (i.e. web page) when you see it,
according to your own criteria, but the unavoidable problem is how to
manage these masses of URLs so you can see both the forests and the
trees.
Rules of thumb for collection characteristics
---------------------------------------------
Tools we've been developing and several experimental collections
<http://www.twurled-world.com> suggest the following composite model
for what to expect in a fresh collection:
* 3000-5000 URLs delivered by search engines for reasonably phrased
search queries
* 1/2 plausibly on the topic
* 1/5 dead, moved, or otherwise unretrievable by a simple HTTP agent
* 1/5 redundant (mirror sites, better pages at a site)
* 1/2 of the live, plausible, non-redundant URLs actually relevant,
with good content or about 20%, i.e. 600-1000 unique pages, of
good content. (Your mileage may vary.) That suggests a lot of
effort required by the 'search-and-prune' approach. Alternative
approaches include 'expanding-kernel' and 'sampling'.
How about links? How webbed is the collection? We usually find:
* 3-5 links average per URL among just the pages of the collection,
counting not only the rare exact hits but also links to
neighboring pages (reflecting differing authors' choices).
* high concentrations of links to/from author/publisher (especially
amazon.com affiliates), professional associations, trade
publications websites;
* a handful (<10) of hubs (links out) and authorities (links in) as
individuals or expert networks
* frequent high value URLs NOT linked to by other sites, often
commentators, critics, and expert kibitzers.
This says we can make a partial web tour of a topic through backward
and forward links but must also rely on search engines to gather the
large number of potentially valuable unlinked pages.
The above data is drawn from topic experiments such as: 'Ellen
Ullman', author on programming and the computer industry; 'Information
Warfare', combining spooks, hackers, and policy makers; 'Process
Safety Management', an OSHA (US regulatory agency) training-intensive
compliance practice.
Getting the work done and staying sane
--------------------------------------
Now, consider the types of tools on the market for topic collection
(see <http://www.stroud.com>):
URL Collectors: By far the quickest, and often as accurate, are
desktop meta- (or multi-)searchers, such as WebFerret
<http://www.ferretsoft.com> and Bullseye <http://www.intelliseek.com>,
to collect 1000s of starter URLs. Plying individual search engines
helps sharpen queries, but can seem like a slow death from ads (which
flash by quicker on the desktop tools). Tip: use your browser's cache
to collect search results. WWW8 and earlier conference papers
<http://www8.org> suggest future topic-directed searching and search
result clustering tools.
URL organizers: Bookmark managers, including browsers, provide some
rudimentary capabilities. Improving features of desktop metasearchers
and intelligent agents provide filtering and ordering, as well as
automatic downloading and textual analysis (see Boureston 'Using
Intelligent Agents for CI' in 1/2000 SCIP magazine,
<http://www.scip.org> and 'Web Slavery - automating IR' in
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/280598.htm#tips>. Our (still
experimental) twURL <http://www.twurl.com> provides decision support
for 'triage' (keepers, losers, tbd, and unseen) in multiple views
(Internet domains, keywords, and links) and supports 'browsing in
context'.
Collection reporters: most tools export an HTML report for shared
browsing and e-mailing, while some provide easily parsed comma-
separated lists, and a few some form of structured XML.
For a motivational systematic approach ('farming', not 'mining') and a
broad overview of technologies, we especially recommend Richard
Hackathorn's information at <http://www.webfarming.com>.
Bottom line: This article provides one framework and criteria for
better collection support tools, since many of us search to collect,
rather than search once.
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Susan Gerhart is a web consultant, software developer, and researcher
at Research Outlet and Integration in Houston Texas,
<http://www.twurl.com>. After a varied career in software quality
research, as a software engineering educator at the Wang Institute of
Graduate Studies (R.I.P.), and a few stints in research management,
she's the developer of the twURL (Windows) URL analyzer. Her business
specializes in web collections for due diligence, publishing, and
website promotion. Contact: susan@twurl.com.
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Do you want to join our jousting tournament? Some garrulous Free
Pinters have been tilting at banks and financial institutions for
failing to face up to the challenges of ecommerce and the facilities
merchants now demand (2027). Will these institutions manage to lance
this one before their customers are forced to take their business
abroad? Credit card fraud is also a worry, but new measures are not
being implemented to assuage such worries (1899). Yet another
financial issue is that raised by recent distributed denials of
service (Ddos) experienced by high profile sites such as Yahoo!,
Buy.com, Ebay, etc. Has anyone insured against their ISP becoming
unable to provide services (2038), or any security breaches? If
existing financial institutions don't get into this melee, they'll
soon be unhorsed by new providers. No jokes about charges, please.
The smokiest part of the Bar has been occupied by developers, as
usual. Advice has been imparted on setting up a mailing list (1985)
and making sure that links are kept up to date (1998). There have
been a couple of requests for information on authoring tools, both on
and offline (2045, 2077). The subject of banks comes up once more,
image banks this time (2046). And the issue of security arises again
in the form of password protection (2054). Internet related
subjects ranged from banner advertisements (2043) to portal
statistics (2050), browser features (1933) to UK Web
statistics (1954, 2008) and information about the Internet as a
whole (1977). The matter of email policy is raised again with the
question 'Who owns Email?' (1924). Who owns yours?
Last issue's article on classical music should keep all enthusiasts
happy for a good while to come, but some have added to the list of
sites (1942, 2086). If you know of other good sites, please do let us
know. There have been several questions about filing and classifying
over the past few months, the most recent looking for software which
allows flexible filing criteria (1979). A request for financial
information on the Web demonstrated the continuing availability of
same (1930), but if you know about sources, feel free to post them
up. And if you know anything about the stock control system,
BookNet (1953), computer based training (1991), UK demographic
information (1999), a list of addresses for US academic
libraries (2048), or a directory of UK and Irish hospitals (2073),
don't hold back. We're all ears (and eyes).
This time two years ago, Northern Light was a new search engine and
an article in Free Pint rated it highly. Is it still bookmarkworthy,
or has it been overtaken by others? We also had an article about
push technology and content and the problems of information overload,
things much discussed currently. One year ago we ran an article on
environmental information on the Web and one about the plans to make
all public libraries in the UK part of the digital revolution. I
wonder if financial institutions can be persuaded to take part too.
Simon Collery, Business Development, Free Pint
Remember, to read this summary with activated hyperlinks visit ...
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/170200.htm#bar>
Free Pint this time last year ...
* Free Pint No.32 18th Feb. 1999 "Environmental Information on the
Internet" and "New Library: now comes the action"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/180299.htm
Free Pint two years ago ...
* Free Pint No.8, 19th Feb. 1998 "A New Light on the Horizon" (Northern
Light) and "Current Awareness Research on the Internet"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/190298.htm
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Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free newsletter written by information
professionals who share how they find quality and reliable information
on the Internet. Useful to anyone who uses the Web for their work, it
is published every two weeks by email.
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About this Newsletter
- Publication Date: 17th February 2000
- Plain text
- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/56
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