Information Technology
`and Collection
`Management for Library
`User Environments
`
`Joseph Walker
`IT Consultant, USA
`
`A volume in the Advances in Library and
`Information Science (ALIS) Book Series
`
`

`
`Managing Director:
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`
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`
`Published in the United States of America by
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`Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
`
`
`
`Walker, Joseph, 1981-
` Information technology and collection management for library user environments / by Joseph Walker.
` pages cm
` Includes bibliographical references and index.
` ISBN 978-1-4666-4739-8 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-4740-4 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-4741-1 (print & perpetual
`access) 1. Collection management (Libraries) 2. Libraries--Space utilization. 3. Libraries--Information technology.
`4. Libraries--Special collections--Electronic information resources. I. Title.
` Z687.W35 20
` 025.2’1--dc23
` 2013027878
`
`
`This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Library and Information Science (ALIS) (ISSN: 2326-
`4136; eISSN: 2326-4144)
`
`British Cataloguing in Publication Data
`A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
`
`All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the
`authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
`
`For electronic access to this publication, please contact: eresources@igi-global.com.
`
`

`
`Introduction
`
`behalf of their clients over the network; in other
`words, server computers execute an application
`for their network connected clients and then send
`that data to them upon request, so these shared
`applications do not have to run on each individual
`client. There are hybrid variations of this simple
`model, with some services executing partly on the
`server and partly on the client. Java applications
`and derivate technologies such as ActiveX as
`well as many others are a perfect example of this
`model, but no matter which ones you focus on,
`the basics are essentially the same. Whether these
`are services that we use on a regular basis such
`as file sharing, print service, or a Web service,
`i.e. hosting and sending a Webpage’s content to
`those who request it over the Internet, this layout
`is much like a centralized computing hub within
`the spider Web-like networking topography that
`we commonly see all across the Internet. This
`centralized structure model allows easy control
`of content and its flow, hardware and software
`maintenance, and monitored uptime for each of
`the services offered on the network. The down-
`side is the drastically increased cost of specialized
`hardware and software capable of providing such
`extensive services to potentially tens of thousands
`of client devices at once along with the massive
`bandwidth and support personnel needed to run
`and maintain them. It is not uncommon for com-
`panies to invest tens of millions of dollars in their
`networks and data centers–centralized clusters of
`server computers and file storage. With the great
`leaps in client computing power, this layout does
`not tap into the latent networking and processing
`power of these computers and peripheral devices.
`Like any centralized system, it is weaker against
`hacking and outages, including physical destruc-
`tion such as natural disasters, requiring more
`security and stricter operating procedures along
`with increase infrastructure.
`These individual clients and private networks,
`via their servers, exchange information over a net-
`work in different ways, using what the information
`technology industry calls ‘protocols’–standardized
`
`forms of digital communication between com-
`puters that can be transmitted over every known
`carrier signal. The Internet being the foundation,
`a series of networks have been developed, some
`more popular than others. The most popular is the
`World Wide Web (a.k.a the Web), followed up by
`email and the syndication protocols. Before we
`discuss the Web, let us review some of the first
`networks that brought the Internet to the world
`scene. In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects
`Agency Network (ARPANET) became the world’s
`first operational packet switching network (Figure
`3) which led to them developing and using by
`1983 the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol
`and Internet Protocol) suite of protocols. Its net-
`work and concepts, particularly the TCP/IP suite,
`became the core of the embryonic Internet and
`eventually to follow-up networking technologies
`such as email and the Web. Funding for the network
`was provided by the Defense Advanced Research
`Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States
`Department of Defense to expand communica-
`tions between the universities and laboratories
`conducting military research around the country.
`In 1980, a couple of Duke University graduate
`students patched together a few networking pro-
`tocols and developed the Usenet, which quickly
`developed into a worldwide distributed Internet
`discussion system. Usenet resembles a bulletin
`board system (BBS) in many respects, and is the
`precursor to the various online forums that are
`widely used today–including those integrated into
`blogs, social networking sites, and RSS news
`feeds. As with all information technology, new
`technology was built on the shoulders of the
`legacy technology that came before it, if not nec-
`essarily on the hardware or coding, then in con-
`ceptualization. On the Usenet, users read and post
`messages called articles or posts, and collec-
`tively termed news to one or more categories,
`known as newsgroups propagated over intercon-
`nected Usenet servers. The protocol allows for a
`quick propagation of the articles throughout the
`network, so even though clients access the Usenet
`
`19
`
`

`
`Introduction
`
`Figure 3. The birth of the Internet–the ARPANET logical network map in March 1977 showing the net-
`work nodes (rectangles) and the networking types (lines connecting rectangles) connecting them. Notice
`the combined wired and wireless networking types (wired cabling with the straight lines and the satel-
`lite circuit with the squiggle lines). Modern extranets of large organizations and the Internet in general
`still maintain similar typographies–though in the case of the modern Internet, it is a million-fold more
`complex and dispersed over the world (Copyright in the US public domain [CHM, 2010]).
`
`through different servers controlled by different
`organizations, or in some cases, people’s own
`servers, they can all read and comment on the
`same article. This is different from a social net-
`
`working site or personal blog where all the serv-
`ers with the stored information are controlled by
`a single domain or company–a very centralized
`model mimicking a decentralized type of network-
`
`20
`
`

`
`Introduction
`
`than the heyday of the first Hollywood films.
`Instead of hundreds of feature movies shown in
`theaters or on home media like VHS and DVD–or
`in the music industry, people listening to their ra-
`dios or going down to the music store to purchase
`albums, tapes, and compact disc from their favorite
`artist–there are literally millions of short personal
`clips and music files uploaded into the Internet
`and shared via hundreds of public and private
`Websites and peer-to-peer networks; all using the
`Internet as its communication foundation. Along
`with this generation of multimedia content driven
`network traffic comes the establishment of new
`and more efficient digital information formats to
`accommodate this music and video consumption.
`A more in-depth survey of these technologies will
`be conducted in later chapters. With increased
`information dissemination due to these informa-
`tion technologies, such as networking and freely
`available data formats and players, we have seen
`for the first time in history multimedia over-taking
`textual information consumption in the public sec-
`tor; so much so, that the multimedia forms have
`become cheaper to produce than the textual forms.
`This information consumption shift has markedly
`been notice in Website development, where the
`first Websites were largely text oriented with a few
`visual accents, much like in books, but are now
`fantastical multimedia portals with minimalist
`attitudes towards use of textual content. It is true
`that new technology and applications made this
`paradigm shift possible, but let us not place the cart
`before the donkey–the technology was developed
`because of the need, not the other way around.
`
`REFERENCES
`
`Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
`(ARPANET). (1968). Request for quotations:
`Interface message processors for the advanced
`research projects agency (ARPA). Washington,
`DC: Department of the Army – Defense Supply
`Service.
`
`The Internet stops where your private network
`begins, whether that is your client computer
`desktop, laptop, or peripheral device such as
`smartphones, or home and business network. In the
`IT industry, your network gateway and firewalls,
`usually a router for a multi-client network and in
`the case of a single client on an open network the
`device’s NIC (network interface card), acts as the
`delineator in the two communication broadcast
`domains. Everything on your side of the network
`fence is yours and under your control–we call
`this the LAN (Local Area Network). Privacy is
`assured on a level equal to your use of proper
`networking security, firewalls, and due diligence.
`On the other side of the networking fence–the
`WAN (Wide Area Network)–is a public arena
`where there cannot be an expectation of privacy
`except in very few situations and through the use
`of additional technologies. Though individual
`content may be protected under copyright laws
`written by the over 200+ nations and jurisdic-
`tions that have them, access to the information
`is publically made available; sort of like if you
`went outside and started shouting out all your
`private information for everyone on the street to
`hear. There are special protocols and applications
`that help to provide a secured level of privacy,
`via encryption algorithms and authentication
`certificates, for information temporary travelling
`through the Internet, such as SSL/TLS (secured
`socket layer/transport layer security) and VPNs
`(virtual private networks), but these are used in
`special circumstances and are not the traditional
`forms of communication and storage in the larger
`network. It is important for all users to understand
`the basic security differences between the public
`networks that make up the Internet and your own
`private network and your information that resides
`on both areas. Information privacy and Internet
`security will continue to grow exponentially as
`networks play a more important tool in our work
`and private lives.
`With the rise of public networking, the growth
`of multimedia has seen an explosion much greater
`
`22