The Web, Structure and History

a bit of history

Bush, Vannevar, “As We May Think” Atlantic Monthly 176 (1), 101-108. (link is to LIS 500 reserves)

O’Neill, Lavoie & Bennett, “Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998-2002”, Dlib 9 (4), April 2003

Why did the Web happen?

How would you explain packet switching to someone unfamiliar with it, but who uses the Internet?

How close was Bush’s vision to what we now think of as the Web?

What are the implications of the trends outlined in the O’Neill et al article for the traditional library/information world?

Do you find those trends to be intuitive?

Do you have any questions or concerns about their study’s methodology?

structure of Web documents

The Structure of HTML Documents (Web Developer’s Virtual Library)

Creating Web Documents (december.com)

How Does XML Help Libraries? (Kyle Banerjee, Computers in Libraries 22 Sept 2002)

What is XML? (HTMLGoodies.com)

Getting Started with XML (Eric Lease Morgan)

HTML tags describe logical components of documents (titles, headings, paragraphs, etc.). What other kinds of logical components could you imagine implementing as tags?

mechanics of search engines

How Search Engines Work (Search Engine Watch)

Search Engines What they Are, How They Work, and Practical Suggestions for Getting the Most Out of Them (webreference.com)

How Internet Search Engines Work (How Stuff Works)

The Anatomy of a Search Engine (article by Brin & Page delivered at 7^th Int’l Web Conference, describing technical features of Google before it was Google)

What happens, behind the scenes, when you type a query into Google?

impacts

“Point. Click. Think?”, Washington Post, 7/16/2002

“Has Google Won? A Librarian Says Students Have More Data Than They Know What to Do With”, Chronicle of Higher Education 1/23/03

Thirunarayanan, M.O.. "From Thinkers to Clickers: The World Wide Web and the Transformation of the Essence of Being Human" Ubiquity: an ACM IT Magazine and Forum 4(11) (May 13-19, 2003)

Graham & Metaxas, “"Of course it's true; I saw it on the Internet!": critical thinking in the Internet era”, Communications of the ACM 46 (5), 70-75, May 2003

What, if anything, is inherently wrong in starting research using the Web?

Can the Web really fundamentally impact our thinking processes?

How do you think the Web will change over the next 5 years?

some other interesting or fun things

How Much Information (2000) 2003 version (School of Information Management & Systems, UC Berkeley)

Choosing Quick Hits Over the Card Catalog New York Times 8/10/00

Ghost Sites

The Internet Archive

"The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine" Richard Wiggins, First Monday 6 (10), 10/1/2001

Kruschwitz, Udo, “Exploiting Structure for Intelligent Web Search” (PDF) Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference On System Sciences, 2001.

LIS 598 Google

“Print and Electronic Information: Shedding New Light on Campus Use”, Educause Sept/Oct 2002