The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

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Software’s Future: Melding the Web and the Desktop

From the Knowledge@Wharton website

Until recently, most software ran entirely on the user’s computer. This so-called “desktop” software relies on the processing power of the individual user’s PC and provides the ability to store files locally on the user’s hard drive. While desktop software still dominates, the web has given rise to a new breed of application - exemplified by products like Google Docs, the company’s online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software, and Salesforce.com’s enterprise sales-support products - that runs within a web browser. These “webtop” applications use the local computer only to run the web browser and a few basic extensions and use the processing power and storage of banks of computers accessed remotely over the Internet. But as this drive toward hybrid desktop/webtop software illustrates, there are limits to both approaches, and the future for software may be a blend of the best features of both.


Teens and Social Media (Note: PDF)

From the Pew Internet & American Life Project website

The use of social media – from blogging to online social networking to creation of all kinds of digital material – is central to many teenagers’ lives. Some 93% of teens use the internet, and more of them than ever are treating it as a venue for social interaction – a place where they can share creations, tell stories, and interact with others.


A three-year study on the freshness of Web search engine databases (Note: PDF)

From the E-LIS website

This paper deals with one aspect of the index quality of search engines: index freshness. The purpose is to analyse the update strategies of the major Web search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.com. We conducted a test of the updates of 40 daily updated pages and 30 irregularly updated pages, respectively. We used data from a time span of six weeks in the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. We found that the best search engine in terms of up-to-dateness changes over the years and that none of the engines has an ideal solution for index freshness.


Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals: A Survey of One Academic Research Library's Licenses (Note: PDF)

From the E-LIS website

A perpetual access right to an electronic journal, defined as the right to permanently access licensed materials paid for during the period of a license agreement (not to be confused with the right to copy journal content solely for preservation purposes), is a concern of increasing importance to librarians as academic libraries discontinue paper subscriptions and retain electronic-only access. This paper explores the current environment for perpetual access to electronic journals.