3.11 References and Resources

Core URLs:

DITA Blog: http://inm348.blogspot.com/


3.3 Internet/WWW

First Website: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/first.html
Second Website: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/index.html
Third Website: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/tea.html


3.4 Images and Graphics

Website with Embedded Images: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/index.html


3.5 XML

My XML: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/myxml


3.6 CSS

First Website with CSS 1: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/firstwithcss
Second Website with CSS 1: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/indexwithcss
Third Website with CSS 1: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/teawithcss

First Website with CSS 2: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/firstwithcss2
Second Website with CSS 2: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/indexwithcss2
Third Website with CSS 2: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/teawithcss2


3.7 Databases

Sample SQL Queries: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/SQLqueries.htm


3.8 Information Retrieval

Sample Index: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/SampleIndex.html


3.9 Client-side Programming

Modifications to Hello Page: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/hellopage.html
JavaScript Application: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc176/BBC.html

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References & Resources:

3.2 Text/HTML

http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/literacy/lessons/ch04.html (Accessed 21 October 2009)
I accessed this website because I wanted to know more about text files. I had gained a basic understand of this file type from using Notepad in labs, but I needed some more information to help me understand the difference between text files and Word documents.

3.3 Internet/WWW

http://www.w3schools.com/html/ (Accessed 21 October 2009)
I used "A Beginner's Guide to HTML" both prior to and during the process of creating my first website. The site is very useful for someone who needs an introduction to HTML code.

3.4 Images and Graphics

City University Catalogue Search
I accessed the City University Library Catalogue to provide an example of the way libraries use graphics.

Wood Library Homepage
I accessed the Wood Library Homepage to locate an example of the way libraries make use of graphics.

Boston Public Library
I accessed the Boston Public Library homepage in search of examples of how libraries use images and graphics.


3.5 XML

XML (Accessed 15 November 2009)
I consulted this resource to learn more about Extensible Markup Language before writing my blog entry.

Document Type Definition (Accessed 15 November 2009)
I consulted this resource to supplement the information provided in the lecture notes about DTD.

Wikipedia - MARC Standards (Accessed 3 November 2009)
I consulted this resource for a concise overview of Machine-Readable Cataloging.

Wikipedia - MARCXML (Accessed 3 November 2009)
I accessed this site for a brief overview of MARCXML.

MARCXML - Overview (Accessed 3 November 2009)
I consulted this resource to learn about the uses and features of MARCXML.

How to write a DTD (Accessed 15 November 2009)
I used this resource to gain a better understanding of the concepts associated with Document Type Definition in order to create my own for task 3.5. (Link was inactive when I tried to access it on 14 December 2009.)

The XML FAQ (Accessed 15 November 2009)
I accessed this resource to supplement the information in the lecture notes. I used the information in this resource to help me create a DTD for a hypothetical library information management problem.

Webdesign/HTML:What is a DTD (Accessed 15 November 2009)
I used the information I learned from this resource to create a valid DTD.


3.6 CSS

CSS Tutorial (Accessed 9 November)
I used the w3schools CSS tutorial to teach myself how to write the code for styling my websites.

Amazon.co.uk (Accessed 19 November 2009)
Amazon.com (Accessed 19 November 2009)
Amazon.fr (Accessed 19 November 2009)
I accessed three versions of the Amazon.com website to illustrate the argument that CSS can be used as a tool to create a brand image.


3.9 Client-side Programming

Tryit Editor (Accessed 30 November 2009)
I used this resource to test out the code I wrote for my JavaScript program. When using the Tryit Editor, you input code and the editor will test to see if you have written the code properly. This is a useful resource for step by step checking of the accuracy of JavaScript code. Once a program is written, it is more difficult to locate an error. Luckily, this editor helps you find errors as you write code and saves you the trouble of retracing your steps to find the error in a finished program.


3.10 Information Architectures

Ann Arbor District Library (Accessed 9 December 2009)
Throughout my studies this semester, I have come across numerous resources that point to the Ann Arbor District Library as an example of web 2.0 best practice. Consequently, I chose to consult this library's website to find examples of how a library can make use of web 2.0 technologies to communicate with patrons.

3.10 Information Architectures

The technologies presented in DITA are fundamental elements of Information Architecture. Throughout the module, we learned that the accessibility and usefulness of information on the web is directly related to the decisions made about the organization and structure of the content on a site. Good information architecture facilitates fruitful information seeking behavior, while bad information architecture hinders the discovery of desired information. It follows that a well-designed library website enhances the information seeking experience of the user, encourages the use of available library services, and promotes a positive image of the library.

Libraries can incorporate blogs into the Information Architecture of their site. The Ann Arbor District Library makes extensive use of blogging to communicate with users. The site hosts blogs on the following topics: events, community, services, audio, books, video, research, as well as a Director's blog. In addition to targeted blogs, the website makes use of tags (metadata) to index blog content. This provides users with easy access to more information on a topic of interest like "Computer Classes" or "Local Events."

Knowledge of HTML and of the best way to manipulate graphics and images are useful when developing and maintaining a library website. The ability to create CSS is important when defining an image or brand for the library. Moreover, expertise manipulating CSS is important for librarians when working with differently-abled users to enhance their ability to access information on the WWW.

Relational databases may be used by libraries to support their online catalogues. The concepts underlying information retrieval help support the "Search the Site" function on a library website. Furthermore, libraries can use JavaScript applications to create online feedback forms to learn about the perceived quality of their services and to gain background information for making informed decisions about future improvements.

Information Architecture's goal of implementing effective navigation and searching systems complements librarians' goal of resolving user information needs.

3.9 Client-side programming

I found the task of creating a JavaScript program to be quite challenging. I practiced by editing the sample JavaScript in the "Hello Page." I added two additional questions and four prompts and used the document.write function to display the questions and the user input on the webpage. I created a form by adding a final paragraph containing the word "Submit" and using the attribute "onclick." When the user clicks on "Submit," an alert pops up thanking them for their time. Click here to view the document.

The first thing I did when creating my JavaScript application was to write the code to gather input from the user. I created three prompts to determine whether the user was interested in news or sports, and to find out what type of news or sports the user wanted information about. I then used the parseInt() function to tell the application to read user input as an integer and not as text. Throughout this process, I used the w3schools' tryit editor to test the JavaScript I was writing.

The next step was to write the code to process user input. I used a series of "if statements" to tell the program what to do with the possible inputs. I then wrote the code to tell the application what output to give based on each possible input. I used the document.write function to display a link to the section of the BBC website of interest to the user. Finally, I used a "while loop" to tell the program to display an error alert with further instructions if the user input was anything other than the predefined options. This exercise, while difficult, has taught me the basics of client-side programming. Click here to view my completed program.

3.8 Information Retrieval

Information Retrieval allows users to search through large sets of unstructured data to resolve information needs. The process of indexing prepares media for retrieval; keywords and concepts are assigned to aid discovery of resources. Indexing involves:

1) Identifying the fields (ex. author)
2) Identifying the words (ex. United Kingdom, UK, or U.K.)
3) Removing stop words (ex. a, the, to)
4) Stemming (removing suffixes)
5) Creation of Thesaurus of phrases/words (in some cases)

(Lecture Notes, Session 8)

During the lab session I followed steps 2-4 of the indexing process to create an index of two documents.

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My Information Retrieval Strategies

Before writing my blog entries, I consult the lecture notes posted on CitySpace. I view the PDF and enter keywords into the "Find" feature to locate information I need to review. Because I have already read through the notes, attended a briefing and participated in a lab session on the topic, this search strategy works well. I am aware of the key concepts of the topic, and I use this knowledge to locate information that will help me reinforce what I have already learned. The "Find" feature would not operate as efficiently for a user without knowledge of the keywords and concepts in the document.

If I still don't understand a concept, I turn to Google and enter a keyword or natural language question into the search box. Typically, I browse the results and find a relevant resource within the top 10 results. While Google is a useful technology, it presents the challenge of how to locate quality resources amidst the massive number of results returned.

3.7 Databases

The file approach to storing data is inefficient, especially for large data sets because it hinders access to information as data is stored in separate files and may even be stored in different formats. Data stored according to the file approach lacks interoperability because a specific application is needed to read the data. Moreover, the file approach can lead to duplication of data as well as outdated information, which occurs when a piece of data is updated in only one file rather than in all the files where it has been stored.

Databases are used to store very large, structured data sets. Databases are tools that allow the user to search through a large quantity of data and retrieve the information most useful to them. They eliminate the problem of data duplication because data storage is centralized. This feature also increases data security because access to the database is controlled by a database management system. Finally, data stored in a database is application independent, and therefore more accessible to users.

For the average user, the difficulty of formulating a syntactically-correct query presents one drawback of relational database technologies.

The general formula of a query in SQL is:
SELECT field(s)
FROM table(s)
WHERE condition(s)

(Lecture Notes, Session 7)

Click here for examples of two SQL queries I created and executed.

3.6 CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) contain a set of rules about stylistic elements such as font-size, font-style, background color, and the positioning of text and images on a website. CSS is an important tool because it allows website designers to separate information about presentation of a website from its content. When a single CSS is applied to multiple HTML documents, CSS becomes a useful tool for branding a website. Amazon.co.uk utilizes a style sheet to create a unified look on its website. The same style sheet is applied to Amazon.com and Amazon.fr. Regardless of where you live, Amazon's website has the same look and feel. In this way, companies and organizations can use CSS as a marketing tool.

When a company like Amazon.com wants to implement a stylistic change to its website, the CSS can be altered and the update will be reflected immediately on every webpage linked to that style sheet. This simplifies the potentially daunting task of maintaining and revising a complex website.

CSS also address important issues of user accessibility on the web. Because a user can apply their own CSS to the websites she views, a visually impaired person can increase the font-size or a colorblind person can change the font-color so that they can access the information they seek.

While CSS is a powerful tool with many advantages, there are disadvantages as well. One of the most frustrating of these is that your CSS is not always interpreted the same way by every browser. You may spend a significant amount of time designing your CSS and when you open it in Firefox, it does not look the way you planned. It is important to test your CSS in multiple browsers and make adjustments to ensure that the site maintains a consistent look and feel.

I created two different CSS to apply to my websites.

My first CSS:
First
Index
Tea

My second CSS:
First
Index
Tea

3.5 XML

MARC (MAchine-Readable Copy) was first developed in the 1960s.¹ MARC set the standards for creating metadata about the bibliographic items in a library. The metadata is used to catalogue the items, to make information about these items available for searching by users, and to simplify the exchange of information between libraries.

Today, the international exchange of library catalogue information is facilitated by MARCXML, an XML language based on MARC21.² MARC21 contains 5 types of data: bibliographic, authority, holdings, community, and classification data format; it has been adopted by "The British Library, the European Institutions, and the major library institutions in the United States and Canada."³ While MARC 21 was a step in the direction of worldwide library catalogue interoperability, MARCXML offers an even better solution. MARCXML was developed to allow "easy sharing of, and networked access to, bibliographic information" between library systems throughout the world.⁴ When library catalogue information is stored in MARCXML format, file conversion is lossless, the data is software independent and "flexible and extensible to allow users to work with MARC data in ways specific to their needs."⁵ Interoperability is crucial for the efficient functioning of the library of the 21st century.

I created a DTD to help a public librarian manage data about the acquisition of books for the library collection. My DTD specifies the following information: the title of the book, the author, ISBN, the cost of the item, the number of items to order, and if the item has been ordered. I then created an XML markup to represent the DTD.

While XML offers many opportunities to the field of librarianship, it is important to note that "relatively few current browsers are able to interpret it" (Lecture Notes, Session 5). As XML-compatible browsers develop, the potential of XML will increasingly be realized.

3.4 Images and Graphics

GIF has a palette of 256 colors and can compress images at a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 (Lecture Notes, Session 4). When GIF images are compressed, no data is lost. However, because the compressed files are only 1/2 or 1/3 the size of the original, embedding this image format in a website may result in webpages that load slowly.

JPEG has a palette of more than 16 million colors. This format compresses images at a ratio of up to 20:1 (Lecture Notes, Session 4). While this compression rate offers benefits for website design (images load quickly), the disadvantage of this format is that image quality may suffer as some data is lost during compression.

PNG boasts the best of JPEG and GIF. This format has a palette of over 16 million colors. PNG images cannot be compressed as small as a JPEG file, but the added benefit of a lossless compression makes this a useful tool when storing master copies of important images and documents. At present, this format is not supported by all browsers, but the trend indicates that with time, PNG will be a more common graphic format on the WWW (Lecture Notes, Session 4).

During the lab I chose to incorporate JPEG graphics into my website because of the previously mentioned benefits of using the format on webpages. I placed a local JPEG image in my public unix folder and embedded this image on my webpage using the <img src="imageOrig.jpg"> tag. I also embedded two remote images I found on other websites using the <img src=”http://URL”> tag.

In order to determine how libraries are making use of graphics, I visited a number of library websites. I started by running a City University Catalogue Search. The results page incorporated textual data (name of book, author, etc) as well as graphics (image of book cover). This is one of the most basic ways libraries use graphics on their websites. Another use of graphics by a library website is as an embedded image that links to another service (ex. OWWL graphic on the Wood Library homepage). The Boston Public Library uses images on its homepage to highlight current exhibits and upcoming events, thereby creating an interesting and engaging site.

3.3 Internet/WWW

I have been using the Internet for more than a decade, but I have never created a website. I thought that designing a website required vast technical knowledge - and the prospect overwhelmed me.

During the Session 3 briefing, Richard Butterworth emphasized that the following tags are all you need to create a website: “<HTML>, <Head>, <Title>, <Body>, <P>, <Span>, <A>, <Embed>, <Object>, <EM>, <HR>, and <BR>”. I began the lab session by consulting A Beginner's Guide To HTML to learn more about basic HTML. I created my first website using Notepad. It is very simple as it was my first-ever attempt at writing HTML code by hand. I then created a second website using EditPlus 2. This program provides a template for a website, so for my second and third website, I only wrote the code for the content of the pages. Now that I had made three websites, I created links between them and to external pages. I ran into very few problems using basic HTML during the process of making my simple websites.

The next step was to publish my websites to the City University Web Server. I transferred the three .html files to the W:Drive. This made them accessible on the University Unix machine, which has a WWW server. Public documents stored on a WWW server can be accessed from any computer with Internet. I entered the Unix system and issued a series of commands to place my three .html files in my public_html folder. I did not find the Unix interface to be user-friendly. Consequently, I struggled - initially - to comprehend the processes I was using to publish my website. However, I finished the session having successful published all three websites to my City homepage.

3.2 Text/HTML

A .txt file can store text and numbers; it cannot store any formatting information. The advantage of a .txt file is that it can be read by many different programs on different computers. ¹

A .doc file can store text, numbers, and formatting information. For example, a .doc file will process changes in font-style, font-size, etc. A limitation of Word documents is that for a computer to read the formatting information, the document must be opened by the same program on another computer or by a program that can convert the .doc file to a readable format. If you try to open a .doc file with a program like Notepad, the formatting changes appear as gobbledygook. This inhibits the sharing of information between computers.

To add metadata to a document and allow other computers to read this information, you can save the document as an .html file. If you open an .html file in Notepad, you will see the markup that communicates the formatting information. Now your formatting changes can be read by numerous programs on many different computers.

Sometimes a file is intended for use by one user on a personal computer. Thus, it is appropriate to save the file as a Word document. More and more, we are interested in disseminating information via the internet and sharing the documents we create with others. This requires a document-centered view of computing. Our documents are no longer self-contained in a single program; elements of a single document can be stored in different programs and even on different computers. Consequently, it is important to save the document in a universal format to promote interoperability. This style of organizing information allows for changes to the source document to be simultaneously reflected in all of the documents in which it has been embedded.

3.1 Introduction

I must confess I have been reluctant to participate in Web 2.0. In the past, I have made attempts to follow blogs, but I simply could not keep up with the information deluge.

After our first DITA briefing, I realized I have been participating in Web 2.0 for at least four years - since a group of my friends created a LiveJournal account to keep in touch. This tool provides a centralized forum to facilitate communication and minimizes the effects of the physical distance between us.

After listening to Andy's lecture, I realized that our LiveJournal is an interactive blog. Previously, I thought that blogs were subject-specific and authored by an expert. While these criteria may hold true in some cases, the nature of blogs is much more diverse. As Andy pointed out, blogs, like the one my friends created, can serve to build and maintain social networks. Blogs are a vehicle for the dissemination of information; the form they take is molded by the goals and creativity of bloggers. Consequently, a reader must be aware of the need to scrutinize the quality and relevance of a blog's content.

I have opted to use Blogger.com to create my blog. I wanted to start from scratch to learn the ins and outs of blogging infrastructure. Blogger.com is a user-friendly site that provides a variety of templates to choose from and facilitates the process of posting entries. When I login, I arrive at my "Dashboard." From here, I can manage my blog: create or edit a post, adjust the settings and layout, create a profile, and monitor my "Reading List." For ease of reference, I have decided to label all my coursework-related posts "DITA," and title them according to the titles given to each task in the coursework specifications.