
Vol. 22, No. 3/Spring 2000
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Tech Tips By Laura Mann On
a recent lecture tour, John Morse, publisher of the 10th edition of the Merriam-Webster
Collegiate Dictionary spoke about the Dictionary, the editing process,
and the social and technological changes that are shaping our language. Morse reports
that about 100 new words are being added to the dictionary annually, including techie
words like "spam" (e-mail, not lunch-related), "browser", and
"gigaflops." Newslibbers everywhere will breathe a collective sigh of
relief to hear Morse predict that one word we all came to dread in 1999 will never make it
into the Dictionarys hallowed pages. What word will disappear from
memory in a year or two? "Trust me on this," Morse states,
"Y2K." Hallelujah! If early January 2000 comments on the News
Library listserv are any indication, he may be right. While some minor and annoying
glitches were reported, most problems were easily fixed. Tim Rozgonyi of
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on January 3rd that his MediaStream library
system could not search for dates in the year 2000. He added, however, that
MediaStream worked quickly to solve the problem. Rozgonyi states, "I actually just
got a call from one of our reporters. Looks like were going to write this up
for the paper as an example of a Y2K glitch. That shows you how quiet things have
been on the whole." Pete Basofin of the Sacramento Bee reports that his library has just
installed the KwikDISC CD-ROM storage system, a 25-gigabyte stand-alone hard drive
that serves up CDs (up to 250 of them) to workstations on a network. Basofin
explains, "KwikDISC doesnt store physical CD-ROMs, but images, or copies, their
contents to the drive. Because the material is in a drive rather than a CD player,
response time is faster and more people can use it at the same time. Since there is
no monitor or keyboard, KwikDISC is administered through a web interface on another
machine." Basofin wanted to provide reporters with dictionaries, encyclopedias,
PhoneDisc, and other programs from a central server. He states, "This seemed to
be a better solution than a CD tower." He cautions, however, that many of these
products also require expensive networking licenses if used in this manner. Basofin
continues, "The product we most wanted on the network is TraceWizard National
Residential Locator, a 19-CD database of names, addresses, phones, and some DOBs.
The data is derived from public directories, voter registration and marketing lists, with
some unlisted phone numbers. Its not as good a people-finder as AutoTrak,
CDBInfotek, etc., but its a good tool to make available on every reporters
PC." Basofin feels that both KwikDISC and TraceWizard are not easy to set
up. He states, "I spent a lot of time calling product tech support, but I think
it was worth the time and trouble. I just wish these CD products would run on the
Intranet. I know there are ways to web-enable CD-ROMs through third-party software,
but Ive heard they are slow and problematic." More information on
these products can be found at http://www.boffin.com/products/kwikdisc/ and http://www.merlindata.com/TWFromCatalog.html.
Any finally, last year, we reported here that several papers in the U.S. were set to
replace their current pagination systems. In 1998, executives at Philadelphia Newspapers
Inc., decided to switch from the Atex system they had used for years, to the Hermes
system, designed by an Italian company owned by Unisys. For a candid look at the
bumpy road encountered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News in
switching over to the new system, read "A Bad Case of Hermes" at http://www.citypaper.net/articles/022400/cb.onmedia.shtml.
Hermes has been blamed for many hours of staffer frustration, as well as one
very embarrassing and widely reported Inquirer misprint. The article
concedes, however, that, Unisys has been very responsive in efforts to make the system
more user-friendly. |
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