EDITORIAL
The Internet gets busier and busier, and organizing and identifying documents for access gets more and more complex. A simplistic view, perhaps, but largely true. The Journal of Internet Cataloging offers an opportunity to explore and to document various issues in providing access to digital documents available via the Internet.
For over two decades, the CONSER program has provided leadership in cataloging serials. With many questions circulating amongst serials catalogers on how to treat electronic serials available through the Internet, CONSER has once again taken a leadership role. This issue contains an article describing CONSER's interim approach to treating multiple file formats of serials available on the Internet. Most of the debate prior to CONSER members agreeing on an interim approach took place by electronic mail, another essential component of today's digital world.
One author examines the usefulness of applying summary notes or abstracts and automated summarization techniques to cataloging or metadata of Internet documents and documents in other databases. Recommendations for both Internet and standard cataloging databases are provided. As many of the electronic documents, text and multimedia, are transmitted from one computer to another, awareness is growing of the many issues related to delivering documents across networks. Metadata, search engines, and browsers are necessary to conduct searches on the World Wide Web. These are treated in an article on networked document cataloging.
The fourth article describes TRSkit, a toolkit for building digital libraries on the Web. Originally developed for the Langley Technical Report Server and the NASA Technical Report Server, TRSkit is applicable to most simple distribution paradigms. Finally, News Editor Gerry McKiernan contributes the first of his regular columns, News from the Field.
Publishing, in print or electronic, requires authors, a publisher, production staff, and readers. In the case of a refereed journal, reviewers or referees are also part of the process. Even in those cases where author, publisher, and production are the same individual, and this can be the case in either print or electronic publications, the point of publishing is to communicate information or opinions. And, publishing and reading both require a commitment of time. Time is precious, it does not come back. Benjamin Franklin noted that "Lost Time is never found again."1 So we want the time we spend involved with publication - whether as author, editors, publisher, or reader - to be worthwhile.
As co-editors of Journal of Internet Cataloging (JIC), we want this publication to be of value to current and future readers. We would like your feedback on the issues to date and your suggestions for topics you would like to see in JIC. You can e-mail us at:
rob1@psulias.psu.edu (Roger) or rcc13+@pitt.edu (Ruth). We would like to hear from you.
Ruth C. Carter
Roger Brisson
I. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1738, quoted in Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, The Harper Book of American Quotations (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), p.552.