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This article reports that to begin a dialog between the information and intelligence communities, Open Source Solutions (OSS) Inc. held its First International Symposium during December 1-3, 1992, at Tyson's Corner, Virginia. The theme was "National Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions." With the Cold War collapse and global political changes, the intelligence community is restructuring and shifting to the use of open sources. Intelligence is facing decreasing resources and, at the same time, dramatic increases in the complexity of the international environment and technologies. Because classified capabilities had focused almost exclusively on the Soviet Union, the U.S. is now relatively unprepared to monitor and understand non-traditional Third World threats, explained Robert D. Steele, OSS president. Unclassified or open source (OS) information has been shown to be a substitute for and a complement to more expensive, or unavailable, classified intelligence. Open sources include the domestic and foreign press, associations, academia, government agencies, databases and personal interviews. Speakers warned, however, that open source information can be biased and misleading. It requires strong information analysis.

The article reports on the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from October 25-29, 1992. The theme of this year's meeting was "Celebrating Change: Information Management on the Move." The title was chosen almost two years ago, certainly a prescient selection. Regardless of title, a common thread of wisdom from speakers seemed to run throughout the plenaries, that is, to provide quality information. Also, user demands for the right information in the right place at the right time and in the right format have multiplied. Display is a component of quality. The user should be able to see the significant information for what can be life-saving decisions. Representatives from Ameritech, International Business Machines, and Dialog discussed their companies' involvement and perspective on acquisitions and partnerships. Stephen R. Nelson, President of Ohio Bell Communications, a division of Ameritech Information Systems, described what large companies look for in acquisitions and described trends. Small companies are often under-capitalized. In partnership, the companies share risk, validation, access to technology or expertise, and distribution channels. A large company may go with a small one that has a niche position, with the big company validating the small company's product.

The article presents information about the 33rd Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. The conference was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in March and was sponsored by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science, UIUC. Presentations also covered the licensing of images, preservation of photos and text, video image access and retrieval, and more. Keynote speaker Howard Besser, visiting associate professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information, compared technical capabilities in 1986 with today's and noted the extent to which we understood the problem of image storage and retrieval a decade ago in his detailed overview of image databases. Besser warned that vendors will put high-volume images on the Internet and let the rest lie fallow, a phenomenon he termed "the cherry picking syndrome." Any time there is scarcity of bandwidth, the vendor will select the large-volume materials.

The article focuses on the latest trends and growth in the field of computer imaging. Some of the people who brought images to the screen are now playing with new layouts for local and world news and other online dissemination. All this and more was featured at the 48th Annual Conference of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, titled "Imaging on the Information Superhighway," which was held on May 7-11, 1995, in Washington D.C. Walter Bender of MIT Media Lab says that where desktop publishing was the thing in the 1980s, description of context is the challenge of the 1990s. There's an interesting tug of war going on: efficiency vs. effectiveness. While compression technologies have been focusing on decreasing the number of bits used to represent content, at the same time the number of bits used to describe con- tent is increasing, for example, in the addition of indexes and heads. Bender adds that news in the future is about providing richly descriptive data, providing a variety of services to help access and use these data, and being aware of individual and community context. The engineering community will be preoccupied with context during the 1990s, he predicts.

The article presents information about the Alliance for Public Technology's (APT) conference held on February 23-25 in Washington D.C. "Titled Technologies of Freedom: State of the Nation," the Alliance's program focused on the progress of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). The APT is a grass-roots, nonprofit public-interest organization that brings together a wide range of constituencies on public policy issues. Their objective is to ensure equity of access to two-ways broadband telecommunications services and technologies. Hundreds of telecommunications issues are important nationally. Among them: number assignment, compensation arrangement, customer rights and privacy. Different jurisdictions nationally and globally are developing policies regarding local competition in telecom areas. Several panelists in the basic telecommunications policy and technology session remarked that libraries will play important roles in the NII. With that in mind, New York Public Library's Howard Dodson and members of the audience advised that scarce financial resources for libraries will be a problem.

The article reports that International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has launched its IBM Digital Library and associated technology to prevent unauthorized and unpaid use of their electronic text, image and sound products. The launch took place at the New York Public Library in March. Several features are particularly worth noting. First, the technology enables electronic watermarking of pages of text and images, and encoding of music, so it can be tracked. Second, there are management solutions for the full spectrum of information content to make them available on worldwide networks. Third, an infrastructure has been built in that includes automated indexing, cataloging, abstracting, and search by relevance ranking. And fourth, the solution, as IBM reports, embraces both IBM and non-IBM products into a single scalable architecture. IBM's Digital Library includes five functions: Content Creation and Capture; Storage and Management; Rights Management; Search and Access; Distribution. Library servers manage the index and search support data; object servers manage the digitized objects or the collection.

The article presents information about the Alliance for Public Technology's (APT) conference, "Technologies of Freedom: Bringing Home the Electronic Highway," held in Washington D.C., from February 24-26, 1994. The meeting included representatives of many diverse groups--federal and state governments, industry, libraries, foundations, associations, and public utilities from many parts of the country. The APT is a coalition of individuals and more than 40 nonprofit groups with thousands of members. Their platform--everyone should have full access to a switched broadband network that provides information and services as well as entertainment. They call for upgrading the public telephone network to a Broadband Telecommunications Platform that supports two-way interactive multimedia applications. By "broadband" they mean a network capable of carrying multiple channels of switched interactive multimedia communications. The network, they add, must have four physical characteristics in addition to its broad bandwidth--digital switching, interoperability, security and reliability, and usability.

The article presents information about the global interchange of information, and ways to protect creative property rights. Today, information reaches the policymaker through the open sources of newspaper, radio, and television before the intelligence office gets there, but the intelligence office brings credibility. Open source information must be accurate, timely, and credible. In the private sector, intelligence is the framework for developing a specific set of actions. As of September 7, 1993, more than 40,000 registered networks are there in 92 countries, and the Internet users are growing at 12 percent per month. Every 30 minutes another network is connected. Network users include institutions of all kinds, business enterprises, professional communications, the general public via local access providers and gateways, e-mail carriers, and other kinds of networks. While e-mail and file transfer are falling, other uses are growing, for example, moving video and voice through the Internet and meetings that are multicasts. Policy issues must deal with uses of the consumer broadband network.

The article focuses on the information services industry of Latin America. Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile will be significant marketplace suppliers and users of information. The rapid growth of information in Latin America is due in part to democratization and economic development and to technology that makes it easier to find and use information. Numerous sources exist, there is current, reliable information, it is widely dispersed in countries according to sectors, private and government information are under poor bibliographic control so that it is difficult for the U.S. to get information unless one is willing to dig in or go there, getting more access will change rapidly in the next few years. Most likely there will be a handy dandy information guide--such sources are about to spring forth. Latin American countries are becoming part of the Information Society. The U.S. press presents Latin America with images of violence, misery, instability, poverty, and earthquakes, said Ambassador Luigi Einaudi, U.S. Department of State. In contrast, he sees strengths and high technology.

The article discusses electronic books with reference to an event titled "Electronic Books 1993," held on September 28-29 in New York City. Two cultures came together at the event. The two cultures: the hardware-software segments of the information industry, and the publishers--some of whom are apprehensive and timid in facing the idea of electronic publishing--and others who are intrepid, lured on by the challenge of new products, new markets, and new profits. Electronic publishing is a hot topic these days. The content of the book attracts the hardware-software people. Electronic publishing concerns the traditional publishers, many of whom feel they are being forced into the new channels of production and distribution. The subject is of interest to lawyers who are pondering and advising on the rights and obligations of suppliers and users of electronic publications in areas of copying, licensing, networking, converting from one medium to another, and developing model agreements in the U.S. and internationally.

This article presents information about the conference of the Library of Congress held on July 14, 1993. The title of the conference was "Delivering Electronic Information in a Knowledge-Based Democracy." The goal was to examine critical public policy issues central to the development of electronic information resources that will be distributed over the emerging digital highways. The conference was organized around three themes: 1) building, locating and preserving the electronic store of knowledge 2)public and private sector roles 3) mechanisms for safeguarding intellectual property rights. Joseph Howard, director of National Agricultural Library, announced that libraries must be able to help people through the morass, organize data, be a library without walls, and a cooperator, not a duplicator. Michael L. Liebhold, senior scientist of Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer, talked about transactional and collective pay mechanism. Transaction is very difficult because of packet routing over the Internet. Policymakers should come up with the description of a universal wrapper that meets the international pattern.

The article presents information about "From Townhalls to Local Civic Networks: Democratic Reform for the 21St Century," an invitational meeting held by the Center for Civic Networking (CCN) in Washington D.C., from April 12-13, 1993. Sponsors of the meeting were Apple Computer Inc. and National Capital Area Public Access Network. Civic networking highlights local connectivity to the National Information Infrastructure--and applications useful to communities and institutions. Civic networks, explained Richard Civille, director of CCN's Washington D.C. office, are grass roots communications initiatives. They offer new ways to combine media to improve access to public information or enhance participation in government. Big Sky Telegraph out of Western Montana College, began its role as a rural telecomputing testbed by offering an online course via modem to rural K 12 teachers, many of whom were teaching in one- and two-room schools. Today the Telegraph is an information exchange network for educators, students, business people, communities, and organizations.

The article discusses some of the problems faced by many information professionals with business or consulting activities in Eastern and Central Europe. Major problems in West working with East result from the fact that the former Soviet Union's (FSU) perceptions, and to a great extent those of the neighboring countries, are products of their time and system. People in their early 20s are more flexible and more able to function in their developing situation and in working with Westerners. Faxon in Moscow is training young Russians in their early 20s in modern business techniques. Even people in their early 30s were found to be too ingrained with the old regime. The problems are more dramatic in the FSU than in Eastern Europe because of the longer period of Communism. The people in the FSU have no experience in sharing power, in compromising, and in negotiating. They have little or no knowledge of how to make a decision, since heretofore the pathways to decision-making were spelled out for them.

The article presents information various new CD-ROMs which have been launched recently. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has recently announced multimedia products "Columbus: Encounter, Discovery and Beyond" and "Illuminated Books & Manuscripts." Both were launched by James E. Dezell, IBM's corporate VP and general manager of Educational Systems during his keynote speech at CD-ROM Expo in Washington D.C., held from October 15-17, 1991. Additionally, there is an online dictionary of 200,000 words, 250 Quotes that represent 2,500 years of humankind's insight and queries and more. Annotation capabilities allow students and teachers to add their own notes and reactions to their excellence. IBM thinks the market for the products is K-12 universities, and libraries. They are promoting these products as taking advantage of the cognitive value of video, text, graphics and audio to create extensive libraries of information that are interactive, interdisciplinary, and multicultural. Interoperability is being defined today as the ability to access any CD-ROM using any data retrieval engine using any microcomputer system operating under any operating system using a common user interface.

This article highlights the White House Conference on Library and Information Services that was held at the Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. on July 9-13, 1987. Speaker Clem Bezold presented three possible scenarios for the library in 2005 and 2030. Meanwhile, Baltimore County Public Library director Charles Robinson predicted that in the end, the changes in the libraries will depend on the users. A collection of statistics in support of the ten topic areas of the Conference presented a vivid picture of the decline in library education degrees and an increase in computer and information sciences degrees.

This article highlights the discussion at the Imaging '90 Conference and Exhibition held in October 1990, which focused computer imaging and multimedia systems. The terms compound documents, compound information processing and multimedia are often used interchangeably. While the word multimedia has been around for a while, the new perception is that the document is changing from static to dynamic with the inclusion of voice, video and real-time data, explained William E. Clinton, director of Compound Document Services at BIS CAP International. One exhibit that was notable was desktop mapping. Computer mapping technology has been around for many years. Until recently it was available only on mainframe or minicomputer systems. While those systems still have a place, mapping systems have now moved to microcomputers.

This article focuses on the topics discussed at the third plenary session of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science held November 4 to 8, 1990, in Toronto, Ontario. As Robert Kahn, president of the Corp. for National Research Initiatives, described open systems and future technology, he pointed to the need of an infrastructure for information communication. Mitchell Kapor, chairman of On Technology and founder of Lotus Development Corp., concentrated on the end user, saying he has always taken the end user's views and needs.

This article provides information on the emergence of image information system in the information technology industry in the U.S. As of June 1990, image processing capabilities, software, and optical discs make possible image processing and electronic image management systems at both the mainframe and personal computer end of the computing scale. There is a major difference between digital images and the character information with which data processing and bibliographic systems. A generalized image processing system has several main components: the digitization of input, storage, processing, transmission and output.

The article presents information related to the four day ASIS meeting held in Chicago, Illinois in cooperation with the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID), which was celebrating its first centennial in 1995. FID has members in 90 countries in all regions of the world. More than 700 attendees came from 24 countries. In the conference it was asserted that potential of high capacity telecommunications networks, electronic publications, encryption, and voice recognition can alter the concept of information access and policy. A real waker-upper, the session on print in scholarly publishing was held as a debate, featuring, Participants, Walt Crawford of the Research Libraries Group and Greg Newby of the University of Illinois and Merri Beth Lavagnino of the University of Illinois. Among the cogent points made, Crawford said that electronic form includes an enormous swamp of stuff and lacks authenticity, verification, and veracity of content. Newby noted that scholarship is about sharing and discussing. In human communication people have feedback, they rethink, and the electronic medium allows for that.

The article presents information on the American Society for Information Science's conference held in Columbus, Ohio from November 24-28, 1993. Four plenary sessions addressed management, education reform, multimedia, and predictions for the near future. Paul Strassman, visiting professor of Information Management of U.S. Military Academy at West Point, called for "Systems Integration: Way of Information Management in Year 2000." Today, there are 50 million information managers, and tension exists between old management--which Strassman called the high priests in a religious war--and the new. , Strassman advises that to function in a distributed/decentralized environment--client-server or peer-to-peer, organizations must develop an Information Constitution to avoid bickering about whom and to whom information and responsibility rest. He said that a corporate Bill of Rights is needed--what's retained and what's delegated. Without this document, the Information Society of the future will be marred and slowed.

The article presents information on the Fed Micro 1993 conference that was held from August 31-September 2, 1993 in Washington D.C. The conference included how to make desktop CDs, the importance of labeling and packaging, and encrypting sensitive information which can apply to industry and business. CD-R is a new technology that allows individuals, corporations, publishers, and government agencies to produce a CD- ROM without mastering costs and the turnaround time normally required in CD-ROM production. According to Dataware Technologies, a CD-R disc with appropriate preparation software and hardware is fully compatible with any CD-R drive and can be produced at the desktop. The technology can employ a CD-R drive attached to a PC-based workstation and blank media-or use a CD-recorder without a PC. CD recorders have created a new CD-ROM industry of one-off, short run, and prototype discs. The CD-Maker from Alea/Knowledge Access drives a CD recorder without a PC. The CD-Maker features a front panel membrane keyboard with one-key mnemonic input of all commands.

The article presents information on the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) conference. Kurt Moihoim of the U.S. Defense Technical Information Center was program chairman and is the president of NFAIS. The true challenge of a changing information environment is not to cloud people's vision with old paradigms that inhibit the exploitation of information technology's vast potential. Barbara Lawrence of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presented an articulate paper on the future challanges for database publishers. Speaker Karen Hunter listed five areas of concern for publishers: research and education; fee structure; maintenance features; copyright and licensing; and added value. Secondary publishers are seen as complementary, not competing, with different services to be delivered to the market. The lecture by Monty Hyams, founder and life president of Derwent Publications Ltd. reviewed the history and brought the audience up-to-date on the progress of patent activities by the governmental patent offices of the world, the not-for-profit secondary services such as Chemical Abstracts, and the for-profits such as Derwent.

The article presents information on the Federal Library and Information Center Committee's 10th Annual Forum on Federal Information Policies that was held on March 25, 1993 in Washington D.C. The Forum focused on "Government's Role in the Electronic Era: User Needs and Government's Response." Keynote speaker, the Honorable Robert Kerrey, U.S. Senate, focused on the potential for and realities of state-based electronic libraries. The National Science Foundation in consultation with specific other agencies is authorized to make multi-year grants to states in order to develop electronic libraries that will provide access to databases, computer programs, and interactive multi-media presentations which can be carried over the Internet and similar networks. To While information services and products are the lifeblood, the information professionals are the connectors, argued Robert Wedgeworth, Interim University Librarian, University of Illinois. Careful planning, careful martialing of resources, and cooperation of national, state, and local services working together are required.

The article presents information about a meeting on the growth of supercomputing that was held on January 27, 1993 in Washington DC. Edward R. McCracken, president and CEO of Silicon Graphics Inc., in the meeting, introduced a new computer line that SGI claims puts the power of up to 18 Cray Y-MP class supercomputers in a single RISC-based system. The paradigm shift in supercomputing might well change both the computer industry and the technical computing community. Several relatively recent technological developments are responsible for the introduction of the RISC Supercomputer and the arrival of deployable supercomputing. Larry Smarr, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, commented that one needs to build systems to interact with virtual reality as one do with physical reality. Speaker Arno Penzias described the new computer paradigm in which the computer is like a human being, in fact, almost superhuman. Language processing is coming along famously with speech recognition and synthesis and natural language understanding.

The article presents information on the 1992 Mid-Year Meeting of the American Society for Information Science held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from May 27-30, 1992. It was predicted in the meeting that there was a new frontier of opportunity for information professionals and its focus was on the networks. The meeting was focused on "Networks, Telecommunications, and the Networked Information Revolution." In the first of the meeting's three plenary sessions, Vinton Cerf, Vice-President, Corporation for National Research Initiatives, described the Internet Explosion. The content, the maps, the traffic control, and the finding of the right information at the right time are enormously more difficult in the complexity of networks than in single online systems or in several databases. He challenged the information profession by setting forth network needs: be able to find messages, keep from losing information, develop tools to manage scaling, produce smarter software, and put needed intelligence into the system.

The article presents information on the conference of the Information Industry Association (IIA) held in Washington D.C., from May 17-19, 1992. The focus of the conference was "The Information Marketplace: New Rules of the Game." Key issues for the IIA--how the private sector will work with NREN and the Internet. Some industry-related issues: copyright, publishing, databases, privacy, regulations, and opportunities. One objective of the conference was to show participants how they can and should remain players. Stephen Wolff of the National Science Foundation explained the strategy to advance the leading edge of network technology and services. Robert A. Simons, General Counsel, Dialog Information Services Inc. noted that universities have been Dialog's predominant user on Internet. Lots of homework needs to be done to determine what data is being accessed. Providers need to solicit customers to ask them--and to ask the key questions. Today Telebase provides access to more than 850 commercial databases and runs on 14 database providers in 37 countries with one simple front end and uniform pricing.

The article reports on various computer softwares and products demonstrated during the Federal Computer conference (FCC) held in the Washington (DC) Convention Center from September 17-19 1991. Key products of more than 50 major vendors and eight federal agencies were showcased in the conference. OpenNet, a product built by CACI International Inc. was demonstrated at the conference. The product is based on open system standards. It has ability to integrate old IBM personal computers, X Windows, Sun Workstations, UNIX, Standard MS-DOS, text, data, images and multimedia on different database servers running different relational databases, different network and different standards. Many new hardware and software products shown at the FCC was a series of optical character recognition systems from Calera Recognition Systems Inc. All the products of Calera were very high in speed and fast in processing data. Some of the products of the company were MX2400, which can recognize text as fast as 2400 characters per second and MX600, which operates very fast. The article also reports on how some of the important organizations including the U.S. government are being benefited by using the products of Calera.

This article presents news items related to imaging. Computers are converging and so is imaging. There is no difference as to whether the product is analog or digital. One should know the purpose for which one is making the product. Virtual reality (VR) includes three dimensions: immersion, navigation and manipulation. What is different is learning via virtual reality: a participant moves from a reliance on written text to imagery, and from a reliance on abstract to experience-based learning. VR can be applied to learning how to teach and how to participate in hypertext reality. VR can explore existing places and things students would not otherwise have access to, such as archaeological sites, museums in distant lands and the ocean floor. Said to be the information industry's first CD-ROM development and retrieval software based on Standard Generalized Markup Language, CD Author HyperText and CD Answer HyperText was demonstrated at FOSE CD-ROM by Dataware Technologies Inc.

The article discusses the problems and solutions related to the conversion of a file to digital image. Some of the benefits of file conversion to digital image include the improvement in the speed of retrieval and flexibility of use. The documents and the equipment should be considered in file conversion. In terms of the indexing of images, it can range from serial numbering to structured descriptions. Low level intelligence decisions should also be considered when indexing some images. According to experts, the management of details is very important in the conversion process.

This article discusses computer graphics and images of the real object. Computer graphics, the art and science of creating graphic images with computers, is radically changing the way people use computers in art, business, and science. Infinite Illusions: The World of Electronically Created Imagery, a nine-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Smithsonian Resident Associates, brought together internationally known leaders in computer graphics and state-of-the-art computer hardware and software. Areas of special interest to information professionals include electronic publishing and virtual environments. In many offices today, electronic or desktop publishing has virtually eliminated the traditional print shop, transforming it into a service bureau that offers computer-based publishing and hardware and software.

The article reports that the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946 requires each lobbyist to file such information available in an image information system provided by the U.S. House of Representatives, Office of Records and Registration, Office of the Clerk, in September 1990. The definition of a lobbyist includes three concepts: the one who lobbies must: 1) receive something of value, compensation; 2) have as a primary purpose the intent to influence legislation; and 3) use direct communication with Congress to exert influence.

The article focuses on the American Society of Information Science 1995 Mid-Year Conference on electronic publishing, which held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 24-26. The conference drew more than 420 people from business, academia, government, medicine, the arts, and more from many parts of the U.S. and from countries as distant as Australia. Bonnie Lawlor, Advanced Research Technologies, was Technical Program Committee chair. Vance Opperman, president of West Publishing Company and member of the U.S. Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure, highlighted some numbers that demonstrated the size of the printing and publishing industry, and then added more astounding numbers on the electronic publishing industry. A cataloging model and characteristics of cataloging materials that are part of the electronic world was proposed by Ling H. Jeng, University of Kentucky. One of the hot topics at the meeting was the news that the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Press-the oldest in the country-is now one of the newest to offer its scholarly journals over the Internet via the World Wide Web. This initiative, named Project Muse, was discussed by Todd Kelley, one of its co-founders. Currently, three of JHU Press' 42 journals are available online: the goal is to have all 42 online within three years.

The article discusses the issues related to the security of computer networks and competitive intelligence in the U.S. Some of these issues were explored at the Third International Symposium on National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions, in Alexandria, Virginia. The meeting was a production of OSS Inc. When technology is developed, someone somewhere finds it how to use it in a malicious way. Bonnie Carroll, representative of Information Interna- tional Associates Inc., addressed the issue of the sheer amount of information being generated and made accessible. One needs to distinguish between searching online databases and surfing the Net, as Reva Basch, Aubergine informa- tion Services, explained. Usually secondary information is based on the primary publication. There is integ! rity of the information, with assurance that the data are complete and the database or document is the only one in circulation. Firewalls are secure. If something is found in a commercial database, it is because more than one person thought it was of value.

This article reports that much of the talk at Internet World 1994 conference held in Washington D.C. on December 6-9, 1994 focused on the Internet's becoming commercial, with publishers testing cyberspace as a medium for books and journals, and consumers taking control. The crowds at Internet World 1994 were dense. Not only the Internet changes as it grows. Developers and users seem to be exchanging their jeans for suits. Bill Washburn, senior VP of Mecklermedia, predicted that more people will be in formal business attire. That, too, tells a story about the Internet. Part of the switch in clothing reflects the change, business people are entering the arena. The objective of the business of James Clark, CEO of Netscape Communications Corp., is to be the premier company for commerce software on the Internet. Clark formerly founded Silicon Graphics. Large companies including those in Europe are coming online, making the Internet what it is today. Protocols will change and grow as bandwidths are added, said Clark, and the Internet protocol will evolve and become multimedia.

The article presents information on a conference named "RAIO 94," held at New York City, in October 1994. Researchers and practitioners from many countries gathered to discuss Intelligent Multimedia Information Retrieval Systems and Management-prototypes, operating systems, and applications. Several presentations focused on the extraction and representation of the content of video clips and images. These were done well enough for a computer to select material that met the needs of a wide range of users and purposes. Key frames can be sorted depending on their content, and motion can be analyzed. Detectors are tuned to found specific things in the video like camera motion, foreground, background, and people's faces. Personal names and name checking present more problems in searches than other types of data, according to several experts at the conference. Machines have trouble with them because names can be corrupted in various ways.

The article presents information on the American Society for Information Science's (ASIS) annual mid-year meeting that was held from May 21-25, 1993. The meeting titled "Navigating the Networks," attracted the largest registration ever for a mid-year meeting of the ASIS. The 509 registrants came from eight countries and as far away as Europe, Australia, and Asia. While the title might lead one to think that the conference concentrated on techniques, the presentation focused largely on social, legal, and ethical concerns. The final session, moderated by professor Pat Moholt, Columbia University, focused on what new information the attendees will take home. Six participants representing six points of view assessed the program and speakers. One of the speakers focused on social computing and noted that social computing will have an extraordinary influence on work groups with those in universities as more permanent, less fluid than in big government labs. The other speaker recalled that issues like intellectual property and copyright, relevance, and search techniques have been discussed at ASIS meetings since the 1960s but they have slightly different meanings now.

The article focuses on a paper about rural development by Ross Todd and Joan Parker, School of Information Studies, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. The study was presented with the weighty title "Tapping into Author/End-User Knowledge Structures: A User-Based Classification." The story is really about the redevelopment of Woolloomooloo, a section of Sydney, Australia and it is a lesson in indexing terms built with civic participation. The long-term goal of their project, as Todd and Parker explained, is to develop a hypermedia database to meet the needs of researchers, past and contemporary activists, journalists, and community workers. Their special interest comes from the fact that in the 1970s Australia experienced intense community action about the shaping of the urban environment. The Green Ban Period, as it was known throughout the country, saw unionists refusing to work on sites where resident activists were fighting to keep their housing. The Green Ban group had a language unique unto themselves, but the usual indexing language and process fails to capture the messages and meaning of this group.