Business and the web 

Business pros flock to Weblogs by Martin Wolk

Omar Javaid describes himself as a "pretty prolific" Internet reader who used to fire off hundreds of e-mails each week with news tidbits that might interest staff and customers of his consulting firm. Then about six months ago he began a sort of online diary known as a Weblog and began posting his thoughts and findings there instead.

The experiment has been so successful that Javaid says he plans to expand it until virtually everyone at his 60-person company, Mobilocity, has a Weblog. Javaid's brief experience has convinced him that far from an exercise in self-indulgence, Weblogs actually can be used to increase worker efficiency.

Javaid is hardly alone. Increasingly professionals in many fields are adopting a technology that until recently was considered to be largely the province of insomniac teen diarists and technology geeks.

Journalists use weblogs to build and maintain an audience. Lawyers use them to discuss cases in the news. Educators use them to encourage class participation and offer resources to students. [read more]

Web is the future for business

Business use of the web is about to get serious.

The next two years will see businesses start to remake the software they use to run their organisations as they start to put the net at the heart of everything they do, says a report by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers.

It predicts that the move to more web-centric ways of working will be aided by industry groups and software companies defining and standardising how programs should swap information via the net.

But it also warns that a lot needs to be done to make web-centred software secure and reliable before businesses start to use it in everything they do. [read more]

This is a joke, right? 

Browsers: Can They Be Stopped?

The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Booksellers Association have joined forcesÝ in an attempt to prevent Browsing, the customer practice which is believed to cost the industry millions of dollars a year.

"It's time we finally tackled this problem head on", said new APA President Greg Browne. "For too long customers have wandered about our shops, looking at our stock, leafing through our books, and not buying stuff. It must be stopped".

The Associations are working on a white paper on the issue, tentatively entitled Browsers: Can They Be Stopped?, which canvasses a number of possible solutions to the problem.

"The difficulty is making sure that customers feel compelled to buy lots of books, without providing disincentives for them entering the shop", said Browne. ... [read more]

Happy anniversary! RLG DigiNews is five years old 

RLG DigiNews: Taking Stock at Five Years

Five years ago, RLG published the first issue of RLG DigiNews. A lot has changed since then--and a good bit has remained the same. We're using this anniversary issue as a case study to reflect on those changes. This feature article discusses key turning points for RLG DigiNews from the access and preservation perspectives. Our FAQ asks "where are they now" as it follows up on two projects that were announced in the first issue. In the June 2002 issue, we'll report on several more. The fate of these projects, like the other changes that the editorial staff of RLG DigiNews has witnessed, are revealing of both the opportunities and the obstacles that line the shores of a swiftly moving technological sea.

RLG DigiNews had its roots in an RLG electronic group-based document, "Diginotes," compiled by members of PRESERV as a way to keep pace with the rapidly developing field of digitization. In the two "issues" distributed via email to a special RLG discussion list, "Diginotes" contained announcements on, and citations to, "library imaging technology and applications." Though "Diginotes" ceased after two compilations, the need for timely information on the topic of digitization did not. [read more]

Photocopiers and buggy whips 

Digital Copiers and Scribal Musings by Fred Stielow

A funny thing happened while shopping for photocopiers for the Walter P. Reuther Library of Wayne State University. They are apparently becoming obsoleteãgoing the way of the phonograph record, punch card, and fountain pen. The industry is quietly converging on digital scanning and the microchip. This new technology goes beyond a simple replacement. It has significant implications for the future of libraries and archives along with interesting echoes from their past. [read more]