ER&L Conference Keynotes Announced & Registration Deadline Approaching

Electronic Resources & Libraries 2007: thinkdigital_

February 22-24, 2007

Global Learning and Conference Center, Georgia Institute of Technology

***********************************************

Keynotes

ER&L is pleased to announce our keynote speakers: Rick Luce,
Vice-Provost and Director of Libraries at Emory University and Jane
Burke, VP of ProQuest Information and Learning, and General Manager of
Serials Solutions.

Just added:

Welcome Reception - Wednesday, February 21st, 6-8pm

Join the GA Tech Library & Information Center, latest winner of the ACRL
Excellence in Libraries Award, for a Welcome Reception including tours
of recent renovations of our Library Commons and digital projects space.

Topics

ER&L2007's 47 sessions fall under 10 timely topics including:
e-resources delivery & promotion, users & usability, collaboration in
managing e-resources, and digital initiatives.

http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/moodle/course/category.php?id=21

Re: NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007 (#2007-21)

I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
(May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
- to compensate them for their research and development.

A parallel thread just began on the FacetedClassification Discussion
(FCD)  list -- but the response has not been as robust as we see here.
I'd love to move some of the examples just given - especially
regarding the effect/impact on the open source work -  to this other
list with permission - or you can take this as an encouragement to
jump in over there --  http://poorbuthappy.com/fcd/ (occasional
traffic - but the archives are worth consulting).

As for Uta Priss' work I concur. Her CV:
http://www.upriss.org.uk/top/research.html contains links to many
relevant papers.
Other relevant work exists including that by Marti Hearst in her
Flamenco project -- recent pubilcations/tutorial are located here:
http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/pubs.html

Best,

Kathryn La Barre
Assistant Professor
Graduate  School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois

Re: NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007 (#2007-21)

I'd love to see a state university contest it. First, because they
have the pockets, and second, if that fails, they're probably immune
anyway:

From Samuel's _Illustrated Story of Copyright_ (p. 216):

"It appears that the federal government cannot enforce copyright laws
against states, and that states are thus free to infringe copyrights,
patents, trademarks, or a number of other federal rights with
impunity."

This loophole has generally emerged in pharma contexts—states use it
to threaten companies to lower prices—but it would apply to NC State's
faceting just as easily.

Tim

On 2/1/07, Kathryn La Barre <kathryn.labarre <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
> developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
> 2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
> which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
> (May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
> in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
> business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
> - to compensate them for their research and development.
>
> A parallel thread just began on the FacetedClassification Discussion
> (FCD)  list -- but the response has not been as robust as we see here.
> I'd love to move some of the examples just given - especially

Re: NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007 (#2007-21)

Kathryn,

You're more than free to redistribute anything I post... As a state employee, everything I write in my
official capacity is in the public domain anyway!

Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator
Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax)
dplumer <at> tsl.state.tx.us

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB <at> listserv.nd.edu]On Behalf Of Kathryn La Barre
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 9:31 AM
To: NGC4LIB <at> listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007
(#2007-21)

I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
(May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
- to compensate them for their research and development.

A parallel thread just began on the FacetedClassification Discussion
(FCD)  list -- but the response has not been as robust as we see here.

Re: Patents on faceted navigation: what's the impact?

Re: Patents on faceted navigation: what's the impact?

It probably also looks good in company reports to have X number of
patents under your belt. "hey look, arn't we innovative"

Marketing cynic. :)

--
Tim Hodson
informationtakesover.co.uk
www.timhodson.co.uk

Re: NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007 (#2007-21)

Kathryn La Barre wrote:

>
> I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
> developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
> 2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
> which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
> (May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
> in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
> business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
> - to compensate them for their research and development.
>

If search reaches the point where the public use of clusters (facets) needs
to be defended in the courts (or in the board room),
there is ample public evidence to support the contention that such
technology is part of the public domain.  The writing of Uta Priss  is
important. As you pointed out her CV at
http://www.upriss.org.uk/top/research.html, presents a lot of historic
references. Also as you point out, the work of Marti Hearst in her Flamenco
project, http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/pubs.html has historic value.  The
information produced by these authors precede Endeca by a lot of time.

Also there are records in the U.S.Patent office itself, including my patent
of 1986 (# 5,206,949) that disclosed what can only be seen as facets. (The
name wasn't around then but in the patent's example we divided hotels along
dimensions such as size, activities on site, proximity to airports and
businesses, etc.)  There is also a U.S. Patent filed about 3 months before
mine that does the same thing.  I'd need to look for the author and number
if it is of interest.

The patent history of any technology is useful in the public sector.  The
record that is created by the patent office often works to the advantage of
the public domain.  It's the innovators who pay the patent attorneys and
corporate lawyers who are at risk.

If Endeca is onto something else in search, that is their right, and we may
all benefit from it at least in some indirect way

Nancy Cochran
nancy.cochran <at> earthlink.net

Re: Patents on faceted navigation: what's the impact?

Nancy Cochran wrote (under a variant of this subject line):
|Also there are records in the U.S.Patent office itself, including my
|patent of 1986 (# 5,206,949) that disclosed what can only be seen as
|facets. (The name wasn't around then but in the patent's example we
|divided hotels along dimensions such as size, activities on site,
|proximity to airports and businesses, etc.)  There is also a U.S.
|Patent filed about 3 months before mine that does the same thing.
|I'd need to look for the author and number if it is of interest.
|
|The patent history of any technology is useful in the public sector.
|The record that is created by the patent office often works to the
|advantage of the public domain.

"Way back", in the mid to late 1990's, I remember the Magellan/Northern
Light search engine had its "Custom Search Folders", which was a
quasi-faceted (or facet-like or clustered)approach to presenting
results.  I remember the feature being quite the rage when it first
appeared.  But, of course, those were the days when every couple of
months a new search engine (Lycos, HotBot, Inktomi, FAST, etc.), search
technique, or search results presentation seemed to be invented and
appeared on the scene.  When the 800-pound gorilla Google came, it sort
of wiped everybody else off the map (even though they still exist).
Google fit the American ideal of "bigger is better" (rather than "better
is better")--the old quantity-over-quality debate.

Anyway, for those who might be interested, in searching for the Northern
Light patent I came across this "Internet Search Engine Patents" page:
<http://www.cptech.org/ip/business/software/searchengine.html>.  Enjoy!

Harvey

--
===========================================
Harvey E. Hahn, Manager, Technical Services Department
Arlington Heights (Illinois) Memorial Library
Desk: 847/506-2644 -- FAX: 847/506-2650 -- E mailto:hhahn <at> ahml.info
Personal web pages: http://users.anet.com/~packrat

Re: Patents on faceted navigation: what's the impact?

On 2/3/07, Hahn, Harvey <hhahn <at> ahml.info> wrote:
> When the 800-pound gorilla Google came, it sort
> of wiped everybody else off the map (even though they still exist).
> Google fit the American ideal of "bigger is better" (rather than "better
> is better")--the old quantity-over-quality debate.

Huh? Google was *tiny* when it started, and became successful because
it *was* better, heaps better.

Alex
--
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchymist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
------------------------------------------ http://shelter.nu/blog/ --------

Re: Patents on faceted navigation: what's the impact?

Alexander Johannesen wrote:
|On 2/3/07, Hahn, Harvey <hhahn <at> ahml.info> wrote:
|> Google fit the American ideal of "bigger is better" (rather
|> than "better is better")--the old quantity-over-quality debate.
|
|Huh? Google was *tiny* when it started, and became successful because
|it *was* better, heaps better.

By "bigger" I'm referring to the quantity of results returned, not to
the size of the company.  Same with "quality"--I'm referring to the
results set.

I still stand by what I said.  Many professional searchers get better
results with other search engines and search tools and prefer them over
Google, although Google obviously has its place.  (Google itself hardly
even uses its original PageRank algorithm any more because it was too
easy to defeat by commercial interests, something unanticipated in the
original doctoral dissertation.  The company is constantly researching
new algorithms that can accomplish its goals while being resistant to
"tampering".)

I always use the Google "advanced search" to specify my searches as
exactly as possible, but I find that too often I still have to scan
through many pages of 100 results each before I finally begin finding
what I'm actually looking for.  Due to the generally very large result
sets from searches, Google is a prime example of the greatest negative
aspect of keyword searches: lack of meaning.  Words out of context have
no meaning--they're merely a series of characters.  It's up to a Google
searcher to "impose meaning" when scanning results sets to see which
combinations of words have the meaning intended by the searcher.  To
have a machine do this for a human is the "holy grail" of search engine
research.

Thank goodness Google raised its limit on an advanced search from 10 to
32 words (except in Google Groups and Google News)!  (It permits a lot
more exclusions.)  I wish they had advertised that a bit more--it can
make a world of difference with a complex search.  The search [google
limit "32 words" site:google.com] returned NO results on Google itself
or its help pages (where the info ought to be).  The only results refer
to mentions in Google Groups.  The only Google "acknowledgement" of this
change is if you enter more than 32 words: where it used to say it would
ignore all words after the first 10, it now says, "xxxx (and any
subsequent words) was ignored because we limit queries to 32 words."
FWIW.

Harvey

--
===========================================
Harvey E. Hahn, Manager, Technical Services Department
Arlington Heights (Illinois) Memorial Library
Desk: 847/506-2644 -- FAX: 847/506-2650 -- E mailto:hhahn <at> ahml.info
Personal web pages: http://users.anet.com/~packrat