Information and the Future

Antiquated technology

2009-07-27T11:52:00.002-05:00

Wired's article on 100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About lists a whole host of resources and methods that were common in our generation, our parents generation, or even our grandparents generation, but, hey, times have rapidly changed.

For a good laugh and a trip down memory lane, have a look at this article.

Here are a few things from the list that relate to libraries:

Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
Phone books and Yellow Pages.
Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
Privacy.

Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.

How do we explain the value of the library?

2009-07-22T11:27:00.004-05:00

In my last post I mentioned that Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon are each taking a different approach towards making money in this online tech economy. Namely:

Microsoft: Software = Money
Google: Services + Ads = Money
Apple: Hardware = Money
Amazon: Content = Money

I think these four options are similar to messages we send about the value of libraries. Libraries are valuable and should continue to be funded and used because...

They create the metadata that facilitates finding and efficiently using information.
They provide bibliographic instruction, reference aids and other user services.
They build academic commons - spaces that encourage conversation and learning.
They collect lots of valuable stuff that users need access too in order to learn.

The easy answer is to say that we do (or should do) all of these things. However as a response to both the general uncertainty about libraries continuing relevance and the competition for funding, I think libraries would do well to identify a core competency and focus our message around it. This does not abandoning the other listed items but it does mean relegating them to secondary status.

So which one to choose? I think the choice needs to be number 2. I believe we need to position ourselves as information experts who can help users understand and use all the information technology tools at their disposal. Of course the presupposes that we actually are information experts who have this knowledge - we may need to start by acquiring it. This will not be an easy position to market when simplicity and un-mediated access is the siren song of technology marketing but I think there is currently and likely will remain a need for educated guides to teach information skills and assist those who are awash in data to make sense of it.

Briefly reviewing the other options:
1. In the world of Google and Wikipedia it is hard to argue that librarians are necessary to find information (even if that is true at a deeper level).
3. Wonderful buildings are nice but seem like a shaky rock to build on as more things move online.
4. Some of us may indeed have collections that are truelly unique and of obvious value but as Google and others make millions of resouces available anywhere I think physical collections becomes a very hard point to sell (but thanks Anthony for trying!).

Google announces OS plans

2009-07-09T15:22:00.006-05:00

Google has announced plans to build an operating system based on it's Chrome web browser. You can read C-Net's coverage here and additional commentary here.

Reportedly the plan is to try to target the netbook market at least initially. One of the questions this raises is would you rather have an OS you pay for like Windows or one that uses advertising to offset at least some of the cost presumably like Google's OS.

I also think it is fascinating to watch MS, Google, Apple, and Amazon among others try to both anticipate the computer marketplace and manipulate it. Although a bit too simplified, I think fundamentally there are 4 different models in play for the future of IT.

Microsoft is a software company, Google is a service/advertising company, Apple is a hardware company, and Amazon is a content company. All are trying to make the case that their speciality is the piece of IT that is truly valuable and worth paying for/investing in.

We in the libraryland are also trying to figure out what is truly valuable (in the eyes of stakeholders) and how to position ourselves. Should we champion our software (Catalogs, Subject Headings, Call Numbers etc.); or our reference and instructional services? What about our "place" as an intellectual commons or do we focus on our collections?

I know the easy answer is to say yes to all of the above but when resources and attention spans are short - which vision do we push? What offering are we willing to stake our future on?

New search engine

2009-06-08T14:17:00.002-05:00

I was just reading this article about a new search engine that's supposed to answer your questions directly, instead of directing you to websites:
Like Google, Only Much, Much Worse

For example, you can ask the box office results for a movie, and it will give you the dollar amount. The problem that the article points out is that it's limited in its scope. It searches reference works like CIA World Factbook, U.S. Census reports, Wikipedia, and "about nine-tenths of what you'd see on the main shelves of a reference library." So it points out that it's not able to answer as many questions as a Google search can.

I find it interesting that this limitation is the same one that we have for our print reference collections. It is now sadly true that for many questions, you can't find the answer in a reference book and it's better to go to Google. (Reliability questions aside)

Wikipedia hoax

2009-05-12T16:07:00.003-05:00

Here's a new story about a hoax on Wikipedia:
Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote

A student posted a fake quote on Wikipedia about a musician who had just died. Several new sources picked it up and quoted it, before the student announced he had made up the quote. As the article notes, what is scary is that once these more "reliable" sources published it, it gave the quote added credibility. Someone maliciously making something up could then cite those as an authoritative source.

Slowing our patrons down

2009-05-08T09:27:00.002-05:00

I thought this was an interesting paragraph from a recent ACRLog post:

For Abrams, it is all about the mystery. He says it “demands that you stop and consider - or at the very least, slow down and discover”. Isn’t that what library research is supposed to be about? You begin with a question to which the answer is unknown or uncertain. You don’t know how it’s going to end. Then you go through a process to collect the information needed to answer the question and resolve the mystery. Just like a good puzzle, in research you need to assemble the pieces correctly to discover the big picture. How do you communicate the natural enjoyment and challenge of the research process to a generation raised on the pursuit of spoilers and cheats? Taking the time to learn to research and then go through the discovery process, they must conclude, is for fools and suckers only.

This goes right along with some conversations we've been having in the library. I look forward to trying to think about practical steps we can take to make our library a place where the enjoyment, challenge, and pace of good research are all celebrated.

See also this ACRLog post on the new Kindle as a threat to libraries and possibly to the understanding of research espoused above. The "faster and easier" promise of technology involves trade offs that I think are rarely considered.

Now Twittering

2009-05-08T09:25:00.002-05:00

Failing to post as regularly here as I would like, I've begun using Twitter. I (Matt) try to post the single most interesting thing I read in library blogs there each day. Feel free to check it out.

http://twitter.com/mosterca

Google Books

2009-05-07T15:22:00.003-05:00

A student just asked me if we would be subscribing to Google Books, so I was investigating to see if there have been more developments regarding this.

I came across an article where librarians are expressing concern about the possibilities, fearing that costs could be very high, and also issues with privacy:
Libraries skeptical of Google books settlement

Another article said that librarians are asking for a judge to monitor the settlement so costs don't become too high:
Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement

I didn't find anything that sounded like prices or details had been set yet. Has anyone else heard anything more?

Kindle debate continues

2009-04-27T07:33:00.003-05:00

Here's one interesting (and relatively brief) take on the downside of Kindle.

Can't say I weigh in too much with my own opinion because I don't anticipate having the funds to splurge on such a device. I still haven't bought an iPod with enough space to download podcasts, sermons, and audiobooks, so the Kindle isn't in my future.

Interestingly enough, my aunt's husband recently purchased a Kindle and he's been reading fiction books on it and apparently likes it. I hadn't seen one up close before then, but it was a bigger device than I anticipated.

Bookless libraries

2009-04-13T13:40:00.003-05:00

The professor for my class posted an article in Moodle about how Stanford was planning a bookless library:
Blind Spots: Humanists must plan their digital future

Stanford was planning on digitizing all their books in their engineering library, moving the physical books to off-site storage, and turning the building into a computer commons. The faculty objected, and so they've put the plans on hold. But the faculty have submitted a proposal for what they think should be developed. They suggest creating "research portals" that could mimic as closely as possible what faculty value about browsing real books.

One of the author's main points is that planning the future of online libraries shouldn't be left to librarians and technologists. At first, I was prepared to be offended that he didn't think librarians were competent enough to do it. But then I realized that I could agree with his argument that faculty should be working with librarians and technologists to decide what should be done. It would be better to be working closely with faculty to determine what will be most helpful for them and their students. Sometimes we can be too cut off from faculty, which prevents us from really serving the academic community effectively. The author ends by saying, "Unless scholars in the humanities help design and model the environments in which they will work, they will not be able to use them."

Copyright and Free Speech

2009-03-31T15:43:00.002-05:00

Kevin Smith has blog about a recent lecture he attended given by Anthony Falzone. These paragraphs caught my attention:

In setting the context for his discussion of fair use, Falzone made the fairly common point that copyright is a monopoly, which is something we usually disapprove of in the US as economically and socially inefficient and harmful. Jamie Boyle, in his book on The Public Domain, discusses the reluctance felt by Jefferson and Madison over copyright for this very reason. But Falzone went a step further to stress that copyright is a monopoly over speech. For me this fell into the category of things I knew but had not fully considered; Tony helped my really think about what it means to give someone a monopoly over expression in a nation where free expression is the first guarantee in our Bill of Rights.

The message I came away with is that fair use is not really primarily about who has to pay whom, when and how much. Rather, fair use is a safety valve that protects one of our most fundamental values. Do we really want a copyright owner, for example, suppressing an expression of political speech such as the Barack Obama HOPE poster or the Ben Stein movie Expelled? From this perspective, fair use is a fundamental and absolutely necessary part of the fundamental structure of copyright in the context of American values. It is an incentive for creative expression just as much as the exclusive rights themselves are. Without fair use, I asked myself, would copyright’s monopoly be unconstitutional?

He goes on to talk about our (Universities/libraries) need to exercise and protect fair use and not cave in at the first threat of a law suit.

Screens like paper

2009-03-25T16:59:00.001-05:00

Christopher and I were talking about the new screens they're coming out with that will be like paper - the same size and flexibility. This article also says they will have the same clarity as a printed page. (The article is hopeful it could save the declining publishing industry!)
The end of paper?

The postmodern information-retrieval culture

2009-03-23T16:42:00.003-05:00

I was reading an essay for my class ("Heidegger and Borgmann on Technology" by Dreyfus and Spinosa). They were talking about how our culture has changed from modern to postmodern. They labeled the shift as a change from a "library culture" to an "information retrieval culture." In the "library culture" there is a focus on careful selection of texts, authenticity, classification and organization, and permanent collections. In the "information retrieval culture" there is a focus on access to everything, inclusiveness of all texts, diversificiation of ideas and paths to follow, and dynamic collections. They say "the user seeking information is not a subject who desires a more complete and reliable model of the world, but a protean being ready to be opened up to ever new horizons."

I hadn't thought about this before - how post-modernism, with its relativism and ideas about constructing truth, could affect research. Certainly if you don't believe in a solid truth or reality, you won't be as concerned about trying to find it. If you think that all ideas are equally valid and that we can create our own truth, then why trust a scholar more than a random person on a blog? The random person may be as useful as the scholar.

I've encountered this somewhat when I'm teaching (even older students) and I'm trying to convince them why they should be finding scholarly rather than popular sources. And to some extent I can agree with them - one student asked why a scholar would be better than a pastor for a pastoral issue. (Especially since many scholars are more liberal.)

So how does this affect how we teach students to evaluate information? Perhaps more and more we'll be fighting against an entire worldview that says that each idea is equally valid. How much should we fight it and how much should we work within that worldview?

Cyberbully attacks Dead Sea Scroll scholars

2009-03-20T12:02:00.002-05:00

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has an article about a cyberbully who was using different aliases to attack Dead Sea Scroll scholars on blogs and via email. He is the son of a Dead Sea Scroll scholar, and was using this method to try to defend his father's views and attack his opponents. One of the scholars he attacked was an IT person, who tracked him using the IP addresses of the different aliases. The cyberbully also impersonated another scholar and sent email messages with his name.

I don't know enough about the Dead Sea Scroll debate to know which side we would agree with, but one of the attacks charged that there was a "Christian agenda" to an exhibit (apparently a horrible charge!).

It reminded me of Lee Seigel's complaints about anonymity on the web. I was a little curious why the scholars involved were so concerned about this, when they should know the web isn't reliable anyway and are full of flame wars. But they said that the web can influence people who don't know a lot about the topic. There was also a comment that scholars should take more responsibility to use the web to educate the public with accurate information. -Of course, it would help if they could prove they are who they say they are and aren't being impersonated!

Google Books

2009-03-12T14:44:00.002-05:00

I was just reading more about Google Books new agreement with libraries:
Google Book Settlement Agreement

There were a couple of things that sounded like we should pay attention to.
-- The in-copyright, out of print books that Google had scanned from libraries had previously only had snippet views. Now they will allow page views like other books.
-- People will be able to pay to access full books online (including out-of-print books).
-- Libraries will be able to purchase subscriptions so that their users can access the books. (I wonder how much that will cost?)

Thoughts on Twitter

2009-03-11T10:21:00.002-05:00

So far I've not set up a Twitter account and generally been a skeptic about micro-blogging. In my mind I've thought of Twitter as basically a different way of sending Facebook status updates - a feature of Facebook that I don't use particularly well.

But as I've talked to twitters about their tweets (what a fun sentence fragment that is!), I've learned they don't think of them as status updates. Instead they tell me that Twitter is best used to send out interesting links preferably with snarky comment attached. Seldom do they actually try to communicate much in the 144 character limit other than point to useful information or reply to people who've done that. One of the big advantages of Twitter thus far over Facebook is that you can search Twitter for info you want.

I'm sure others use Twitter differently but this use makes sense to me. A common mistake with new web technologies is to use them to do the wrong thing or to try and make one tool work like another. If we are going to use Twitter, Facebook, or even blogs I think it is important we try to understand what the technology does well and use it for that.

Twitter might be a good way for us to send out suggested link of the week (or more often) to the TIU community.

Using Twitter and Facebook

2009-03-06T09:54:00.002-06:00

You may have noticed in the today@trinity announcement that the graduation office is using Twitter and Facebook to communicate with upcoming grads. I wonder if this will be a growing trend for announcements on campus? And I wonder if students will get annoyed if they get too many announcements that way? Maybe if they volunteered to sign up for it, like in this case, they would be okay with it. I wonder how many would voluntarily sign up for library announcements? Probably some dedicated library users.

60-second lectures

2009-03-05T10:21:00.003-06:00

The Chronicle of Higher Ed had an article about a university that is creating 60-second lectures for their online program. Professors have to take their one-hour lectures and condense them into 60 seconds. It sounds like it's been very popular - the program has grown quickly. The students do spend time after the lecture with hands-on assignments that help them learn the material. I could actually see this as a positive thing. Students are likely to learn something better if they're actively engaged in the process, instead of passively listening to a lecture - especially if it's online from a distance.

But it's also interesting to think about the decreasing attention span of people. As a few professors in the article noted, you can give brief information but you can't make a sustained argument you need longer than 60-seconds.

But the short-attention span is probably something we'll have to increasingly consider in the library. We may have to make our instruction sessions more concise and to the point. Information on the website may have to be as brief as possible, which still conveying needed information.

ebook Reader Comparison Guide

2009-03-05T07:35:00.001-06:00

Check out this comparison guide for ebook devices put together by Charlotte Hoffman of SIU-Edwardsville and William Harroff of McKendree University.

Netbooks & Kindle

2009-03-04T16:28:00.002-06:00

I wanted to share a couple of news items that got my attention recently.

First, the New York Times is reporting today that Amazon plans to sell ebooks for Apple products breaking from their previous practice of only selling ebooks for the Kindle. Amazon is hoping not only to extend their dominance in the print book world to the ebook world but also that people exposed to ebooks on iphones and ipods will want to buy the Kindle for a better reading experience. I think this is a significant step forward for ebooks and an interesting strategy to sell more Kindles.

Second, in the March copy of Wired magazine there is an article about netbooks (not yet online). These are small, cheap lap tops with little memory but the ability to connect to the web. Originally designed as a way to get children in poor countries onto the internet they have proven quite popular with adults in rich countries. This goes against the trend of people buying more and more powerful computers and suggests that consumers are starting to realize they don't need super powerful computers to check email, facebook, or twitter. As cloud computing matures many of the most popular computer tasks can be done in a browser that requires less resouces from your computer.

So we see the continued progression of trends toward small, very mobile computers or phones that can function as computers. I'm not sure what all this means for libraries but I think these are trends we need to be thinking about as we plan for the future.

Wide vs. narrow research

2009-03-02T16:50:00.003-06:00

My professor asked me what I think about the new search tools such as Google Books vs. the old-fashioned method where you would actually go to the shelf and browse the books. I answered that I thought it was a different style of research. Google Books and other tools like that allow you to get much more specific in your research. I've been using it a lot lately for my research. It helps me to pinpoint which books cover something related to fairly narrow topics that I'm researching. I don't have to wade through as much unrelated material to find what is useful.

Although that made me wonder if I am missing something by not doing that. Perhaps I get too narrowly focused on my specific topic and miss some of the broader perspective of the larger topic. It reminds me of what history class, where we learned about how at the end of the 19th century there was a trend toward increasing specialization in education. Before that time, professors were more generalists, and were knowledgeable in a variety of subjects. But there was the increasing trend toward doctoral studies being focused on very narrow topics, and professors becoming experts in their niche.

I do appreciate the new tools that enable me to more quickly research exactly what I'm most interested in, and thereby to make more of a unique contribution. (Speed and efficiency probably play a role here too!) I do want to avoid the danger of becoming so narrowly focused that I miss the big picture. Perhaps I can try to address it to a certain extent by reading some broader overview works - and wasting time browsing (both online and in print).

RE: Online Community

2009-02-27T15:57:00.005-06:00

The video Matt posted was interesting. I was especially struck by what Hipps said about looking for people who agree with you online. In a PBS video, Growing up Online, that was a major thing young people said they liked - being able to find people online who were like them, when they felt misunderstood in their real world communities.

We had an interesting conversation related to this in class this week. There was a youth pastor who said he had grown their youth group largely due utilizing online communities, such as a Sony community. He noted how it created another way to connect with the kids, since often they would share things more freely online than they would in real life. He did say, however, that you need the real life interactions in addition to the online. (Someone else I talked to said there's also a problem when the kids will share something online but are unwilling to talk about the same thing in person.)

Someone brought up the example of Christ - how he could have chosen to connect to people on a mass scale, but he chose to come in a physical body to a few people. But another person also noted how there was a form of technology even in the early church - Paul wrote letters that he sent to the churches. He wasn't there physically, but still managed to have influence and some form of relationship with a large number of people from a distance. (Although he did say he wished he could see them in person!)

Shane Hipps on virtual community

2009-02-23T13:08:00.002-06:00

I really appreciate Shane Hipps' thinking about media and communication especially as it relates to the church so I thought I'd share this video of him talking about virtual community.

I discovered this video by reading a discussion of it on the Jesus Creed blog. Scot McKnight has a more positive view of virtual community that is also worth reading.

Reading Machines

2009-02-20T15:58:00.002-06:00

Speaking of the future of reading, I just ran across a book on the topic:
Ex-foliations: Reading Machines and the Upgrade Path by Terry Harpold.

I didn't quite understand what it is all about. Apparently it looks at early ideas of hypertext, such as the Memex and Xanadu. Memex had the idea of storing a large research library in a machine (now true!) and was supposed to be a "Memory Extender." The book also examines hypertext fiction, and looks at "questions of media obsolescence, changing user interface designs, and the mutability of reading." The author proposes that "we may detect traits of an unreadable surface—the real limit of the machines’ operations and of the reader’s memories—on which text and image are projected in the late age of print." (Whatever that means!)

One of the interesting things when I was looking at the book was that it was set up so it could be a print version of hypertext. Each paragraph had a number, and there could be references in one paragraph to a different paragraph using the number.

Librarians' role

2009-02-20T14:32:00.010-06:00

I was pondering more my question about what librarians will have to offer that regular professors wouldn't. As I thought about it more, I think that at least for the foreseeable future librarians will have a very valuable skill to offer to professors - being more up-to-date on the latest research methods. I taught a class recently, and the professors were very impressed with the latest tools they didn't know about (particularly Google Books & Google Scholar). I think even with all the new technology available (or perhaps because there is so much new technology), students (and professors) need help learning how to do good research.

A while ago I read an article that studied what professors thought about teaching research: "What Faculty Think–Exploring the Barriers to Information Literacy Development". They discovered that many of the professors learned to do research on their own through trial and error, and figure that students should learn to do it that way as well. I've actually talked to professors who have said that it is the students' fault if they don't know how to research properly.

If that was ever true, I think it's even less so now, because it's very easy for students to fall into poor ways of researching that seem to work. So I think it actually takes more education to teach them how to break away from that and do higher quality research. And it seems like it should also be something that builds on itself: they should be taught to do higher levels of research in college than they did in high school, and grad school than undergrad, for example. Of course, professors have to expect higher-level research for that to work. And so part of it is also educating professors on what they can expect from their students.

I find Matt's ideas about encouraging reading intriguing. It would be fun to have a book discussion group in the library. Although the students here have so much reading already and discuss books in class, so I wonder if they'd want to add something else on. I bet a movie discussion group would be more popular. In fact, I was talking to a couple students who thought that our campus should have that - opportunity to view and discuss theological ideas in movies. (Of course, that wouldn't fit with Matt's idea of encouraging reading!)

Another idea - at Lake Forest College, when a professor published a new book, the library would host a forum for the professor to talk about their book and for people to ask questions. They were quite popular - especially with the other professors and members of the community. (Here I imagine students would also be very interested.) We have such great authors here, it would be cool to do something like that.

Research in a Digital Age

2009-02-19T14:44:00.003-06:00

So far, we have found that no matter where students are enrolled, no matter what information resources they may have at their disposal, and no matter how much time they have, the abundance of information technology and the proliferation of digital information resources make conducting research uniquely paradoxical: Research seems to be far more difficult to conduct in the digital age than it did in previous times.

This is the preliminary conclusion of Project Information Literacy, a research project from the University of Washington. A project that is interviewing students across the country at a range of schools from community colleges to Harvard and UIUC.

The researchers suggest that the biggest struggle for students is "context" - understanding the big picture, the appropriate language, the task, and the tools available. The study also looks at similarities and differences between academic and non-academic or personal research with the former being rated much harder by students. The study is interesting and you should read the report.

I wanted to briefly relate this report to the conversation we've been having on this blog. I think that one reason research is perceived to be harder today is that traditional research at least in the humanities, is rooted in a world of books and presupposes a practice of reading that seems increasingly rare, esp. in undergraduates. Rebecca helpfully asks if courses like college writing, already cover this which is not something I'd thought about previously. But when I talk about reading below, I have in mind a set of skills that are developed by practice and may (ideally) nurtured by a community. I think of it like learning music. You may have a course that explains music theory but you only become a musician through a cycle of practice and performance.

If research dependent on traditional ways of reading is valuable (as I suggest here) then as librarians, I think it is part of our task to foster the type of community that nurutures the practice of reading. This may in part be explicit instruction, but also has to do with the type of space we provide, making book review and literary publications available, having space for people to intentionally discuss what they are reading and probably much more (ideas?).

Participating in this reading community and developing good reading practice will be helpful for understanding the context of research - how reference books relate to journals and monographs for example and for learning to understand and question text.

Finally, it is not my position that this is all the librarian is about - we also need to help people understand digital technology and appropriate it effeciently and constructively. This is where I cycle back to the need to articulate what research is and why it is important as the first step towards tying together these disparate strands (i.e. our responsibility with respect to both print and digital technology).

Librarians as professors

2009-02-18T17:23:00.002-06:00

In response to Matt's post below, I could see librarians moving in more of a direction of being more professorial in the future. I think it's already a trend with more librarians teaching credit courses on research.

Some of the skills Matt mentions on reading sound like skills that are (or should be) taught in basic English classes on reading and writing. But there is overlap with research as well. In the research class I teach, I definitely teach some of those things (when to skim, reading the texts critically, etc.).

So... do you think librarians will move toward doing some of the things English professors do now? Or working more with them to supplement what they do?

Evaluating sources

2009-02-18T17:10:00.004-06:00

I was thinking more about some professors' strategies to not have research projects so that students can focus their attention on the class texts. I could see some value in this. However, I also think that in the information age we live in, it's important for students before they graduate to know how to navigate the wealth of information out there. They will need to know how to do this in their personal lives and for their jobs.

It is true that new technology could help students with finding more reliable sources. But there are still other elements of evaluation, such as determining if a source really fits their specific needs. Born Digital talked about how different people have different needs for information, depending on who they are (a doctoral student versus a high schooler, for example) or what they're using it for (i.e. personal interest vs. scholarly study). Although it sounds like Web 3.0 technology might address this too! Apparently they're working on search engines that could learn what the person's level and needs are and return results based on that information. -I could see problems with that (what about if you switched from doing mostly personal research to more scholarly research?) but I imagine they could tweak it.

But given that, it still takes some level of human discernment in deciding what to use and how to use it. That's also part of the creative, human process in crafting a paper, reflecting on what you've found and creating something new based on it...

Technology & Research - Continuing the Conversation

2009-02-18T16:42:00.002-06:00

I would like to continue the conversation Rebecca and I have been having on technology and the future role of librarians. In a comment to a previous post Rebecca writes:

This takes it a step further to look at integration and use of the information. However, it makes me wonder about the librarian's role in this. (Always a blurry question with instruction.) It seems like this is something that fits with the professor's role in teaching the students to think more deeply about the topics they're teaching.

First, I think this raises an important issue - are (or should) librarians be considered faculty? I don't mean simply in rank but are or should there be similar expectations of scholarly expertise and expert level knowledge of fields beyond librarianship? Not perhaps at the exact level of the faculty but close enough that librarians can speak with authority on various disciplines. I think scholarly acumen used to be more commonly expected of librarians and perhaps we should reclaim the idea of librarian as scholar.

Second, I think there is a need to teach a basic literacy that moves beyond the content specific instruction of the university classroom. The helpful blog post, Academic Research a Painful Process For Students, points out that many students struggle with basic skills such as formulating a topic.

I think we can't assume that students have experience reading serious and lengthy books (and articles) and that the ability to do so is not a trivial accomplishment. Nor is this something likely to be covered in most classes. So I think librarians may have an opportunity to help teach the skills and especially foster the practices that lend themselves to understanding the world of books. Among those skills are:

Imagination
Concentration
Vocabulary
Grammar
Ability to understand metaphors
Ability to question written texts
Ability to persevere with a text
How and when to skim and how and when not too

This is all off the top of my head and I could say more but will stop for now.

Book Reading - A Disappearing Skill?

2009-02-17T13:35:00.004-06:00

Sunday's NY Times had an article about a local school librarian entitled "The Future of Reading - In a Web Age, Library Job Gets Update."

After talking about all the information literacy instruction now provided by school librarians the article ends by reporting this exchange:

“Does anybody like books?” Ms. Rosalia asked. Several students stared blankly. The Russians, who spoke some English, shook their heads.
So Ms. Rosalia pulled up the home site for Teen People magazine, and Katsiaryna Dziatlouskaya, 13, immediately recognized a photograph of Cameron Diaz. Ms. Rosalia knew she had made a connection.

“You can read magazines, newspapers, pictures, computer programs, Web sites,” Ms. Rosalia said. “You can read anything you like to, but you have to read. Is that a deal?”

I have sometimes thought that as librarians we hold onto books mainly b/c that is what we know and change is difficult. That is a natural human reaction. But I think we do lose something important if we lose the skill of reading and comprehending books. Specifically the ability to handle complex stories and nuanced argument as well as an important connection with our past.

I think it is important to teach what we've come to think of as "information literacy." Namely how to discern quality information from dubious facts and how to navigate the digital world. But as I suggested yesterday, I think we (academic librarians) may need to think about how to teach an older kind of literacy - the ability to concentrate and analyze long passages and digest complete works.

If we accept this as a task, I think it will inform the way we organize and present our library collections and the type of spaces we house them in. More broadly, I think that as educational institutions if we wish to encourage students to move from skimming to reading we need to look at the assignments we give and the way we assess students. I don't think we can (or should) simply go back to an earlier time but I do think identifying things we like to change can be an important first step towards bringing that change about.

h/t Owen Strachen

On the human task of research

2009-02-16T09:53:00.002-06:00

Below Rebecca wonders aloud about the future prospects of our species. Specifically if our place will be eclipsed by machines. I think this is an important and relevant questions for librarians to be engaging with.

In my experience, typically when someone suggests that human can be replaced by machines it is not b/c the machines are so great but because their few of humanity is so small. If research, for example, was only finding and evaluating information and then summarizing and arranging the data it is possible that machines could do all of that. But I think that misses the point of research.

I believe that research, on the one hand, should be about asking questions, specifically the creative, philosophical questions that only a human can ask. Beginning with the research problem, or thesis, the question asking continues as data is found and explored from different angles. Angles that are often most fruitful when they connect with our own stories and experiences. Posing philosophical questions, like appreciating sunsets is something that I think is crucial to being human and not the type of things that microchips can do meaningfully.

On the other hand, I think that research is a practice which bestows great rewards to the practitioner. To take on a research project is to embark on a quest to discover what you don't know. Along the way the researcher (hopefully) develops patience, diligence, and the ability to empathize with different points of view. It is likely that the development of these character traits is often more to be valued then the results of the research. Thus I think research can be understood as promoting virtue - helping us discover the good in a moral not mechanistic sense.

Unfortunately, I think the library profession does not do enough to highlight these aspects of research. It becomes easy for us to make finding more and better sources the focus of research often leaving the researcher so swamped with data that they have no time to ask meaningful questions and spend time simply pondering. Likewise, in our attempt to help make the process as efficient as possible we diminish the character building aspect of research. The final paper becomes more important than the practice. Research is just a hoop to jump through to get the degree and the more the process can be expedited the better. So much so that one wonders, can't a machine just do this so we don't have to be bothered.

There is a lot more that could be said on this topic. I know that if I were ever to assign a research project in the future, I would encourage students to spend more time with fewer texts hoping to encourage more thinking and less hunting for more and more data.

Humans obsolete?

2009-02-12T10:54:00.006-06:00

I was pondering more on Matt's question (below) about the role of libraries and librarians in the future. It was interesting, because for all the roles I saw, I could envision technology in the future doing the same thing better than we can. For example, the role of evaluating, selecting and promoting quality information - there is speculation that Web 3.0 could do just that. It sounds like there is technology being developed that could read, interpret and give a quality assessment for the massive amounts of information out there. It could do this quicker, cover more information and potentially do a better quality job than us.

If in the future technology could do all our tasks better than us, what would be our role? Would it be to provide the human contact? Even for that, there is speculation about robots in the future who could simulate human relationships. I would argue no matter how closely these robots were to humans, there would always be the essential humanness missing. But many people might think that loss worth it to have most of the positives of relationships without the negatives.

In my technology class today we watched a video of a technologist talking about how he sees technology as being the next stage in evolution:
Kevin Kelly - "How technology evolves"
Of course, all this brings up questions about whether humans would even be necessary in a world where technology is superior to us in every way.

I feel like I'm becoming a technology pessimist! But as Dr. Mitchell pointed out in class, the struggle is how to be technologists, while resisting a trend that wants to evolve us out of existence.

Physicists change the publishing system

2009-02-11T17:10:00.002-06:00

In the Jan. 30 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education there was an article about researchers and libraries are putting pressure on physics publishers to offer free online articles. The way it would work is that the libraries would all agree to pay fees to a non-profit organization, who would then give money to the physics journals, who would then provide their journals free online.

The publishers are understandably nervous about this, probably wondering what would happen if the libraries decide to pull out after a while. But it does sound nice from a user's and library point of view, especially given the high price of science journals!

Google, Amazon, and Libraries

2009-02-11T10:38:00.002-06:00

I wanted to share a couple of blog post that have caught me eye recently.

In this post Karen Coyle discusses the future impact of Google books on libraries now that they've settled with publishers. She asks if administrators and government officials will be able to tell the difference between Google books, which promises instant access to 7 million volumes and counting, and libraries. Other than the obvious difference that Google books is bigger and likely to seem cheaper than most libraries.

In a different post Jim Stogdill ruminates on Kindle, Google, and the end of history. He theorizes that we are becoming so accustom to instant information that if something does not exist in digital form, it simply does not exist. He thinks we are losing the will and the skills to track down information in dusty physical world.

These posts lead me to reconsider the idea that libraries are primarily about providing access to information. If that is true we are losing badly to the Googles and Amazons of the world. I think we need to re-articulate are role as the owners and preservers of information. We collect materials and that is an important task.

Second, I think we need to start a serious conversation about what information is and why it is important. Is all information equal? What is the relationship between information and reality? How does information help us or further our education? Is the process by which we obtain information significant - why or why not? Is information more like a common tool or a priceless treasure?

How we answer these questions will go a long ways toward helping us decide if paying for a librarians, library buildings, and library collections is a good investment or if we should accept the "every book available to download in 60 seconds" promise of Amazon.

The New Kindle is Announced

2009-02-09T11:53:00.002-06:00

Amazon officially announced the release of Kindle 2 today. The announcement on Amazon's home page boasts increased memory, sleeker design, and improved display.

More information and videos can be found on the Kindle 2 page.

The Kindle community blog Kindleist.com was/is hoping Amazon will also announce that their ebooks will be able to be read on other platforms. Kindleist fears that Apple and/or Google may be positioning themselves to become the leading ebook distributor and that Amazon's dominance in the book world is based on selling titles not devices. It will be interesting to see what moves Amazon, Google, and Apple make.

One might think that libraries would play a part in determining what the new book distribution channel will look like but that seems unlikely to me.

Our New Blog

2009-02-05T12:00:00.002-06:00

Today we are announcing our new library blog entitled ThInc.

Whereas the blog you are reading is primarily to discuss information technology and changes in library practice, ThInc is an attempt to communicate with the student population of Trinity.

Monograph librarian Rebekah Hall will author the posts on the new blog. She has stated the mission of ThInc to be: engage, expand, explore. Rebekah will not only be posting library announcements on the blog but also sharing her thoughts on living faithfully at school. We want to encourage people to see the library not just as an institution but also as a collection of knowledgable and dedicated people and to enhance the unique community that exists at Trinity.

We would also love the new blog to open up a new channel of two way communication where we as staff can hear from the library users. I hope you check it out.

Multimedia sources for information literacy

2009-02-04T14:02:00.001-06:00

I just got sent this wiki that contains multimedia sources (mostly videos) to use when teaching information literacy. I got in the spirit and contributed a couple of fun videos I've used in a class before!
http://infolitmultimedia.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

White House website

2009-01-20T18:26:00.004-06:00

The White House website switched over to Obama's new version during the Inauguration. The New York Times blog discussed the changes:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/obama-renovates-whitehousegov/?hp

It looks like it includes more modern Web 2.0 elements. A blog is featured prominently. It sounds like the want to encourage more interaction. They have rotating images, and there is a boxy widget style on the bottom portion of the page.

I discovered this page that had archived the different versions of the Clinton website. They were fun to look at - it was like a trip through internet history! I especially loved the one with the little waving flags:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa012201b.htm

Born Digital's view of librarians

2009-01-05T16:46:00.008-06:00

I'm reading the book Born Digital by Palfrey and Gasser right now. The introduction had a line about librarians:
"Librarians, too, are reimagining their role: Instead of primarily organizing book titles in musty card catalogs and shelving the books in the stacks, they serve as guides to an increasingly variegated information environment."

When I first started reading, I was wincing at the depiction of librarians, but I thought he ended with a pretty good description of the direction we see ourselves going. Later on he also mentioned that they used research done by librarians and talked to librarians about the issues surrounding "Digital Natives."

Against the Machine

2008-12-18T15:07:00.011-06:00

I am taking a class on "Technology and Culture" next semester. I started reading one of the books, and I thought I'd do a review of it here. (Sorry if it gets long!) The book is Against the Machine by Lee Siegel. Although I didn't agree with some of what he said, some of his ideas were thought-provoking.

The author seems to have a personal grudge against the internet. I wonder if this might be because of his personal experience. He's a writer for the New Yorker, and he had a blog where he was getting nasty comments from people. So he made up a fake username and posted comments back attacking his attackers and praising himself. When this was discovered he was suspended from the New Yorker. However, he says this whole thing actually helped him - it gave him more fame and got him the contract to write the book. Which is ironic, since this is one of the things he criticizes in the book - how internet sites use scandals to keep people's attention and get noticed.

One of his big criticisms of the Internet is that it is too entangled with business - "business values define the internet." For some reason, he thinks this corrupts the internet (he has a very anti-business mindset). I thought that he failed to recognize that most other innovations usually have business interests as well, including formats he lauds, such as book publishing, radio, and newspapers.

He fears that the "democratic" nature of the internet (anyone can publish and be heard) will suppress true creativity and excellence. He complains about how the internet pushes things that are popular (which is true, since Google puts the most popular sites at the top and you often find things by following other's links and suggestions). But I can't agree with his statement that "popular culture used to draw people to what they liked. Internet culture draws people to what others like." -TV shows, books, newspapers have always been based on what was popular (and the selection was usually chosen by someone else). It was just much more limited in what was available. It is true that the sheer quantity of available material online could bury what is out there. But that doesn't mean that true excellence can't still rise to the surface - and that people can't still find what they like. This probably falls under the importance of educating people to be discerning and to recognize excellence. And I imagine in the future our ways of finding and promoting the good things available will become more sophisticated. It has already improved dramatically since the internet began.

He also blames the internet for social problems that are larger than and existed before the internet - such as increasing isolation, self-centeredness, fear of intimacy, etc. However, I could agree that the internet is partly popular because it fits well with people's desires as a result of societal trends. He says the internet being attractive because it takes away our limits - we can be anything and do anything. His comment that "we find it hard to deal with our limitations of being simply human" reminded me of the biblical sin of wanting to be like God.

I think there is some truth in his comment that people use the internet to hide from real world problems. Interactions with people online can seem safer. We have some distance and control over the relationship. As he says, the relationships "exist too much in our heads to be real." We can imagine the other person how we'd like them to be. I had been thinking about why people can spend hours each day online in a virtual world like Second Life. It probably feels safer and more pleasant than real world interactions - especially for people who have trouble interacting socially. (I saw an article recently that said that Second Life was helpful for people with social disabilities.) But as he says, this can only increase the problem. "The world will shrink to ourselves, and we won't understand the real world."

He also talks about the problems with online pornography and its effect on sexuality - which probably is one of the biggest problems with the internet. He says that it has normalized pornography and the taboo. Pornography is readily available and it exists in situations alongside normal life. People can shop, chat with friends and view pornography from the same computer (and even at the same time). It comes to seem commonplace.

Pornography fits with the problems listed above of people being more isolated and fearful of relationships. It also allows you to be in control of the relationship without risk of rejection. He talks about the future of sex with machines, which would be the next logical step. It allows sex without any of the risk, both physically and emotionally, experienced in real life. But in the process, we lose what's truly valuable about relationships - intimacy with another human being, with the accompanying vulnerability and risks of being hurt.

So overall, I thought he was often overly negative about the internet. But he does raise some interesting things to ponder about our culture and where we are headed.

The Tail Actually Is Not So Long

2008-12-04T09:26:00.003-06:00

Boston.com (Boston Globe online?) ran an article entitled Group Think that reports on studies that the Internet may actually make it harder for ideas that challenge the scholarly consensus to gain a hearing. The reporter writes:

This study adds weight to concerns, shared by other Internet analysts, that the rise of online research has costs as well as benefits. Internet search tools are not neutral: they tend to privilege the new and the popular. And for all the frustrations of older research methods, their very inefficiency may have yielded rewards. Leafing through print journals or browsing the stacks can expose researchers to a context that is missing in the highly targeted searches of PubMed or PsychInfo. The old-fashioned style of browsing, some say, can provide academics with more background knowledge, and lead to serendipitous insights when they stumble upon articles or books they weren't necessarily looking for.

Personally, I'm not sure that it was the potential for serendipity that resulted in "old-fashioned" research having more width, as the discipline to track down every lead which seemed to be more prized in the print libraries of yesterday, but now seems pointless when confronted with all the keyword generated hits.

The relation of technology to knowledge is a very complicated one and this article reminds us to be cautious and think critically about the hype.

Digital scholarly communication

2008-11-24T10:46:00.002-06:00

There's an article in the 11/21/08 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education on all the issues related to scholarly communication nowadays - professors wanting to put their own published work on their website, copyrights for course packs, open-access repositories, etc. The article said that libraries are taking the lead in addressing these issues, and many are hiring librarians who are experts in copyright and intellectual property.

I've always hated copyright issues because they seem so complicated. But this was making me think that it's something I should probably pay more attention to...

Google Book Settlement!

2008-10-28T16:44:00.003-05:00

Google books has just settled the lawsuit brought by authors and publishers alleging that the scanning of copyrighted books violates copyright law. The settlement leaves the legal question unresolved but could make a big impact for libraries. Read about it here (Google). Or here (NY Times).

According to the settlement out of print books still protected by copyright will be available for purchase from Google. Libraries will be able to pay a subscription fee to access all of the out of print books. Publishers will have the option to sell books still in print through Google.

This means libraries could pay to have electronic access to (probably) millions of books all at once. I have not seen what this will cost. It will be really interesting to see how this changes libraries as we know them.

h/t to John Jaeger

Google Books back-up

2008-10-27T12:36:00.003-05:00

It sounds like a group of universities has been working on a back-up to Google books. They are creating a collective database of the digital books Google Books has scanned from their libraries. It's called HathiTrust. It sounds like they don't have a search engine for the collection yet, but they're working on. They also will publish a comprehensive list of what is included (unlike Google, which hasn't done that).

And an interesting tidbit on Wikipedia... A study was done of 100 words from history textbooks, which were typed into Google. Wikipedia came up as the first hit 87 out of 100 times. It was the second item listed 12 times, and third once. So wikipedia was listed among the top 3 Google hits 100% of the time. (I have to confess - I've started going to the wikipedia links most often when I'm doing a google search. The definitions are often more straightforward than other sites, and it seems comparatively more reliable than sites put up by one person.)

Wikipedia and the financial crisis

2008-10-16T12:46:00.005-05:00

I don't quite understand this article, because it gets into financial things, but it's interesting. From what I picked up, it sounds like someone had written an article a few years ago warning people about a dangerous stock trading practice called "naked short selling." It wasn't published, and the author claims it was because other journalists were getting their information about the practice from wikipedia, and the relevant articles there had been controlled by one person using different accounts, who successfully painted a different picture of this practice. One of the most interesting quotes was "At some level, you can control the public discourse from Wikipedia." Wikipedia has power - that's kind of scary!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/01/wikipedia_and_naked_shorting/

ATM of books

2008-10-09T16:45:00.002-05:00

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is installing an "Espresso Book Machine" which will print digitized, out of copyright books, both from the library's collection and from online sources. It takes 5-7 minutes, and it costs about $10 per book.

Cha Cha

2008-10-09T15:54:00.002-05:00

I just read about a new service called ChaCha. You can send it a question by text message to a network of people and get an answer. Their website (http://www.chacha.com/) says it uses technology to send the question to the most knowledgeable person on that subject. People can volunteer to be a "guide" on the website, after passing a series of tests.

The article was discussing it in the context of students cheating on tests using their cell phones. But I thought it was also interesting as a librarian who answers questions!

Technology and students

2008-09-23T15:30:00.003-05:00

The Sep. 19, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has a section that discusses how technology affects students. Here are some highlights:

"Generational Myth" denied the claims made about the "digital generation," particularly the ideas that all students are good at technology or that they don't like the print format.

"Online literacy is a lesser kind" talked about how people read webpages (they skim it in an "F" shape), and said that focusing on technology in education is not helpful, since it doesn't involve slow reading.

"The real impact of virtual worlds" looked at how students think about technology. They tend to see technology as play, including negative aspects such as insults and outrageous activities online. They often have fictionalized personas to fit into different groups (which happens in real life too!). They use online community to compensate for loss of community in the real world.

Government 2.0

2008-08-11T15:25:00.005-05:00

This article talks about how the government has begun using web 2.0 tools. For example, cities are using Google maps to track crime, the CIA and FBI have been using password-protected wikis to share information, and the State Department has created an embassy in Second Life.

It also discusses some issues related to it - for example, it could be a way of giving more power to the people, for there to be more direct participation, openness and accountability. But it also raises the question if the collective wisdom of the people will really be wise.

L Gordon Crovitz (2008, May 12). From Wikinomics to Government 2.0. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com on May 12, 2008, A13.

Sites to spy on friends

2008-08-11T09:45:00.005-05:00

I was just reading this article that talks about different sites that make it easier to find personal details about people, including their birthdates, personal pages, value of their homes, and campaign donations. It's kind of interesting - and scary!

Vauhini Vara (2008, May 13). New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com on May 13, 2008, D1.

Texting Library Catalog Displays

2008-08-06T10:00:00.003-05:00

Lorcan Dempsey at OCLC recently posted here a screenshot from the Tripod Catalog of Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore which gives patrons the opportunity to text details of a search to their cell phones. I thought that was interesting in light of our discussion of hand held devices earlier this year.

On Becoming Stupid

2008-07-23T09:14:00.003-05:00

Another article, this one from the Times Online, on how the digital age is making us stupid by ruining our ability to concentrate. In addition to referencing the "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" essay, it discusses a new book on the topic, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, by Maggie Jackson and Bill McKibben. A lot of what he says in the article makes sense to me, as unnerving as that is.

Tweet Tweet

2008-07-02T16:26:00.002-05:00

Just found this article on Twitter. I realize Twitter is not real new but we were recently discussing it and scratching our heads trying to figure out why (1 million) people would be micro-blogging.

The article gives some examples of general and library uses. If you have a chance to start our summer book, how do you think Shane Hipps' analysis would apply to Twitter?

Maybe ... it extends our ability to observe others with our eyes and ears; it recaptures living and working in close proximity; taken to an extreme our lives can be lost in a pile of tweets;

PS a Twitter entry is restricted to 140 characters this post is 530 characters long.

Wiki Bible

2008-06-19T12:04:00.006-05:00

On Moody radio this morning they were talking about a wikipedia translation of the Bible, where anyone can contribute to a new translation. The speakers were of course concerned about this; you wouldn't be able to tell the translators' expertise or their perspective which might affect their translation.

I did a google search trying to find out more about it. I didn't find a wikipedia Bible translation, but I did find BibleWiki, which is a wikipedia Bible commentary. That would be open to the same criticisms.

On an interesting side note, I found a wiki that is translating the Bible into LOLspeak. I think it's like the shorthand used for IM, but another characteristic seems to be that almost everything is misspelled. Sigh - what is happening to young people these days? :)

"Is Google Making Us Stupid"

2008-06-18T10:31:00.002-05:00

In July/August issue of Atlantic Monthly is this interesting article by Nicholas Carr on how our pervasive use of the Internet may be changing the structures of our brains and how we interact with and process information. Carr, author of The Big Switch, discusses changes he's observed in his own reading habits and those of his friends, recent neurological research, and historical changes brought about by inventions such as the printing press, the mechanical clock, the typewriter and the assembly line. He is concerned by the technologization of our thinking processes and the loss of mental space for contemplation. The article reminded me of the warnings of Quentin Schultze and Sven Birkerts.

Microsoft Ends Book Scanning Project

2008-05-29T09:02:00.002-05:00

Last week Microsoft announced that it was "winding down" its Live Book Search and Academic Search, the MS answer to Google Books and Scholar. Microsoft says that to date those projects have scanned 750,000 books and indexed 80 million articles.

Here is an interesting quote from the official Live Search blog:

Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner. For example, this past Wednesday we announced our strategy to focus on verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel, and offer users cash back on their purchases from our advertisers. [. . .] Based on our experience, we foresee that the best way for a search engine to make book content available will be by crawling content repositories created by book publishers and libraries.

It sounds to me like they didn't think they were going to make enough money to justify the expense and they figure that if they wait others will pay to scan the material. Of course Live Search as always struggled to compete with Google and Google's lead in providing access to print material surely is another factor. One wonders how the failed(?) negotiations with Yahoo! may have factored into this decision and if it is part of a larger shift in Microsoft's web strategy.

OCLC and China

2008-05-23T14:15:00.003-05:00

I just became aware that the National Library of China has agreed to add bibliographic records into OCLC. 1.5 million records are expected to be added this year. You can read more in this OCLC press release.

Publishers on Copyright

2008-05-13T14:54:00.002-05:00

This short article on the May 2008 copyright conference in Manhatten appeared on the Publisher's Weekly web site.

It gives a glimpse into the ongoing (at times heated) debate about the ongoing role of copyright. Is it an important tool to ensure a profit motive for artists and their publishers or is it an unhelpful device that prevents the spread of ideas and unduly limits exposure of creative material.

It is easy for librarians to be caught in the middle on this one. I think many of us are worried about overly restrictive copyright interpretations that challenge the very core of what we do (provide free information to others). However, if all information was freely available, say on the computer network you are currently reading, then that also promises to challenge our position as information mediators. Interesting times...

On other quick observation the article raises the question of the relative merit of electronic vs print information when reviewing Rowling's suit against the Harry Potter Lexicon. It notes that Rowling apparently was ok with an online lexicon but is opposed to the print manifestation and asks why the print is more onerous then electronic copy. I had not seen this issue framed this way and thought it was intriguing.

Data warehouses

2008-05-08T10:20:00.002-05:00

There is an article in the May 9 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education that discussed the possibility of schools having huge databases of student information. Florida has assembled such a database, which allows them to track students from "kindergarten through graduate school and beyond." They said this kind of information can be very useful for assessment and research. They can do studies to see if their education is having positive effects.

But of course their are concerns about privacy. There is concern that it could violate FERPA laws. And a security breach into the system could be a major problem. Research studies must be careful as well. Even if personal information has been removed, if they are looking at a small group (say a class with a few students) it could reveal too much.

The article also mentioned that there have been several news reports lately on "fusion centers" at law-enforcement agencies that can quickly pull up personal information on anyone.

2008-05-05T11:55:00.000-05:00

Has anyone heard about LinkedIn? They were also talking about it at LOEX, saying it's the Facebook for adults. They said to recommend students get on it to develop professional contacts for when they graduate.

Diigo

2008-05-05T11:49:00.003-05:00

At LOEX, I learned about a new tool called Diigo (www.diigo.com). It is similar to del.icio.us, but it allows users to add notes, bookmark and highlight. You can also send messages from it sharing links in Facebook, blogs, or twitter. They were recommending using it for research guides. This would allow students to personalize them. And librarians or faculty could add notes for specific classes.

Flickr now has video!

2008-05-02T16:06:00.002-05:00

Just when our library was finally starting to use Flickr for still photographs they introduce Flickr video. They only allow 90 second clips however so not directly going after YouTube.

Research guides in Del.icio.us

2008-04-21T12:03:00.002-05:00

American Libraries had an article about using del.icio.us for research guides listing websites. They gave some examples of libraries that are doing this:

University of Michigan
Dublin City Public Library
Menasha Library

I'm not sure if I'd be quite ready to switch our research guides over to del.icio.us - particularly since it's for a list of websites, and we include books in our research guides. But it's a trend in libraries that we should perhaps keep in mind for the future!

Why Digital Avatars Make the Best Teachers

2008-04-04T16:49:00.003-05:00

The Chronicle of Higher Ed (4/4/08 issue) had an article on virtual classrooms where the students and teachers have avatars. It sounds like there is digital equipment that senses both students' and teachers' movements so the avatar does the same thing. The author was arguing that the technology can help teaching. For example, the avatar can never show angry expressions. Also, the teacher avatar can be programmed to subtly mimic the students motions, which studies have shown cause a person to pay more attention. All students can have the "best seat in the room" (which he said was right in front of the teacher). And the author created a program that would encourage the professor to more evenly give eye contact to everyone.

It all sounded kind of far out to me! I'm not convinced that digital interaction can be better than real life.

Wikipedia in the classroom

2008-03-26T15:58:00.002-05:00

I was reading an article about using Wikipedia as a part of classroom projects (having students create or update an article, for example). It sounds like Wikipedia itself has a page with ideas and examples of ways university classes are using wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects

It sounds like an interesting idea for information literacy classes.

University gives away iPhones

2008-03-19T14:52:00.004-05:00

Abilene Christian University is giving away iPhones to all incoming freshmen. (Similar to how some schools gave away laptops.) Some people are criticizing it as a publicity stunt, but they say it was as a result of studying how technology could be integrated into the university. They have a video on their site that's supposed to show how it would work with classes:
http://www.acu.edu/technology/mobilelearning/index.html
I tried to download it but it wasn't working... Maybe someone else would have better luck!

Online book clubs

2008-03-19T14:40:00.003-05:00

My sister was telling me that she just signed up for an online book club at her public library. Each day, they send her an email with a 5-minute excerpt from one of their online books. After a week, you'll have read 2-3 chapters.

Here's a link to her library's site on it:
http://www.supportlibrary.com/su/su.cfm?x=110889

It reminded me of an article I just read in the Chronicle of Higher Education talking about how fast-paced students today are. They try to do everything at once. The author was bemoaning this fact, and urged professors to help their students slow down and focus on something. But he also talked about other professors that do work to fit with these new types of students. I can see both sides. From a library perspective, it seems like we do have to recognize that people do live in a fast-paced world, and reading five minutes a day will be more than most people do!

Google Books in the OPAC

2008-03-13T16:45:00.003-05:00

Google announced today the release of a Google Book Search API (Application Programming Interface) that allows you to display links from bib. records to the Google Book version of the book using standard numbers such as ISBN, LCCN, and OCLC number.

You can see an implementation of this API at Northwestern here (look for the "Preview of Google Books" text under the title).

You can also read more about this on the Librarything blog including how this API will be implemented on LT.

Google also announced static URLs based on standard numbers for linking to titles in Google books. This will make lists like the one on our Faith and Film page much easier to do.

Stephen Abram at NSLS

2008-03-04T14:41:00.002-06:00

Today Rebekah and I got to hear Stephen Abram talk at NSLS. Here are some highlights that stood out to me:

Libraries need to get better at communicating what they do and why it is important.
We need to align ourselves with the technology users are using not what we are comfortable with (or think we can afford)
We will probably not have DVDs around much longer
Much of what we think we know about groups of people probably isn't correct eg.:

People don't read as much as they use to (they read more)
Women don't play video games (he said the avg gamer is a woman...)
Only young people play video games etc. (and she's 31 years old)

Abram suggested we should be planning for the Facebook generation not the Google genteration
We should ask people why they use/value libraries - often library staff get this wrong

The slides of the presentation are here.

Wireless Electricity

2008-02-29T14:52:00.002-06:00

Since we were talking about handheld devices today I thought I share the link to this article on wireless electricity. The goal is to create ways to recharge lap top, cell phone, and Ipod batteries that don't require plugging the devices in (and maybe someday don't require batteries).

Here is the article.

Faceted browsing in Libertyville

2008-02-28T16:08:00.002-06:00

The Libertyville Library (my public library now) just switched catalogs. It's called Encore, and it appears to use faceted browsing. When you do a search, you can refine it by format, date, etc. and there is a tag cloud. I think you can also post reviews (although I'm not seeing that now). I'm enjoying the features - at least for public library types of searches, it works quite well!

iReports on CNN

2008-02-28T15:02:00.002-06:00

I was just noticing on CNN there is a section for iReports, where people can upload their own videos, pictures and news stories.
So now the general public can also create the news!

The shushing librarian

2008-02-25T20:31:00.003-06:00

I just read Academic Libraries: "Social" or "Communal" by Jeffrey Gayton that is cited below.

Gayton is not pleased with the trend (he might prefer fad) of positioning libraries as academic commons. He helpfully reminds us that serious, silent study may still be social and may benefit from being done in a public space. He fears that cafes and conversations in libraries may ruin the library as a setting for deep contemplation leaving little alternative for people who study best away from the distractions and noise so prevalent on campuses. He attempts to support this argument by appealing to statistics that suggest this quiet atmosphere is why people come to the library and that yes people still go to libraries.

I was not convinced by his statistical case nor completely convinced that we have a real dichotomy here between social and communal. But found the article helpful for pointing out the connection between pedagogy and library service. Is knowledge socially constructed by communities actively engaged in dialog with peers? Or knowledge earned by carefully and attentively sitting at the feet of our intellectual ancestors? I don't feel prepared to give an intelligent answer to these questions, but our answers (conscious or not) do impact how we position our libraries.

While Gayton feels that libraries are not the endangered species they are sometimes portrayed. I wonder if his serious, silent, scholars are the real endangered species. Some studies seem to suggest they are. The struggle of many in our culture to engage with material in a patient and thorough way seems to strike at issues more profound then the place of libraries. I think many of us would like to see libraries' fate be separate from the fate of that type of scholarship not because we don't value it but because we find it a very uncertain foundation.

Perhaps we should make resisting the snack culture our top priority, Gayton thinks we'll be rewarded for it, or maybe we hedge our bets by selling snacks in the library.

Academic Libraries: “Social” or “Communal?”

2008-02-22T10:47:00.003-06:00

Continuing with the conversation on developing community in the library, there is an article in the January issue of Journal of Academic Librarianship on the topic. I haven't read the article, but I thought I'd share the abstract!

The apparent death of academic libraries, as measured by declining circulation of print materials, reduced use of reference services, and falling gate counts, has led to calls for a more “social” approach to academic libraries: installing cafés, expanding group study spaces, and developing “information commons.” This study compares these social models with the traditional academic library, whose spirit is best understood as “communal.” It argues that this communal spirit is unique and greatly valued by academic library users. Efforts to create a more social academic library threaten this communal spirit and may do more harm than good.

There is also a book that was just published called Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online by Meredith G. Farkas.

Open Library

2008-02-21T10:01:00.002-06:00

Have you all heard about Open Library? It was news to me... It sounds like one of the designers of RSS is creating a book catalog that anyone can edit, like Wikipedia. It's supposed to go live in March. The Chronicle of Higher Education said many librarians are wary of the mistakes that could occur with non-librarians editing content. But other librarians are supporting it, saying it could make library collections more visible on the internet. The creator is also thinking about integrating his database with Wikipedia and LibraryThing.

Organizational Learning in the library

2008-02-20T10:38:00.003-06:00

On an encouraging note... Also in the Jan. 2008 issue of "College & Research Libraries" there was a research article on whether libraries have cultures that encourage the librarians and staff to continue learning. Most of the libraries that they studied had problems with organizational learning. The problems they found included management which discouraged new ideas, low worker motivation, high work intensity, lack of communication, and unresponsiveness to people's ideas, among other things.

I was encouraged that our library seems to do well in this regard, as evidenced by this committee!

Engaging users: the future of academic library web sites

2008-02-19T10:28:00.002-06:00

The January issue of "College & Research Libraries" has a study that examined 111current library web sites and made recommendations for integrating web 2.0 principles from O'Reilly. Some of the web 2.0 things they currently found included RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasts, user responses, homepage customization, and virtual tours, among others.

The author recommended making the homepage a portal, where users would identify themselves, and this would then lead them to specific resources for their group. Another option would be to have "My Library Space" which allows them to customize which tools and links they want to display. They could also save things to this area and interact with others. Online communities could be encouraged through online publishing and sharing tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasting and tagging.

They mentioned doing something like this would require heavy collaboration between librarians and IT, which is true! I'm curious if something like this could be accomplished in myTrinity or Moodle...

Quitting Facebook

2008-02-13T16:59:00.002-06:00

There were a couple of articles in the New York Times talking about how it's difficult to remove all of your information from Facebook.
How sticky is membership on Facebook?
Quitting Facebook

It mentions how this is a problem for privacy and security. If someone joins and then decides to leave because they don't want others to see their private information. (They use an example of someone who doesn't want their co-workers to see their info.)
But it sounds like FaceBook is working on making it easier to wipe your information when you quit.

LOEX conference

2008-02-13T15:46:00.002-06:00

I am registered to go to the LOEX conference which will be in the area in May. I was looking at some of their workshops and breakout sessions, and quite a few sound relevant to our task force:
Research 2.0: Research Blogs as Windows of Opportunity
Learning (2.0) to be a Social Library
iTour: How We Stuffed 6 Floors of Milner Library Into the Palm of Your Hand
Game On (and On): Adapting and Extending the Open Source Information Literacy Game
Wiki-ing Your Way into Collaborative Learning

Depending on which ones I am able to make it to, I can give a report afterwards!

The library in your pocket!

2008-02-06T08:39:00.000-06:00

I saw the following announcement (more info here) on the Hekman library's website and since we are discussing hand help devices at the next IFTF meeting I thought I share. I think this is definitely going to be a growing trend.

Stay tuned.... who knows which CATLA school I'll highlight tomorrow :)

Innovation at JKM

2008-02-05T13:45:00.000-06:00

JKM Library has created a set of del.cio.us (or see their nifty web site) book marks to help their patrons find web sites of interest. I think this is a cool idea and given the social nature of del.icio.us could be something that other ATLA schools could contribute too.

Now Chad Pollock at JKM is working on creating a customized Google search of religious web sites and per his post on ATLANTIS he is looking for others to contribute to this as well.

Thanks to Chad, Anthony Elia and the rest of the JKM staff for leading the way.

Blogging in academe

2008-02-01T15:55:00.001-06:00

I thought I'd share an article I read recently that relates to Matt's post on a TEDS student putting his research paper in his blog.
The article was

Blogging Their Way Through Academe in U.S. News & World Report.

It told some anecdotal stories about how grad students are using blogs in connection with their research. Many are using it as an informal way to talk about what they are doing, work through frustrations, and ask for advice. Students say they “especially value the ability to connect with others in their fields in mere minutes, as opposed to the months or years it can take to publish in journals.” Some students post under a pseudonym if they are talking about something controversial. The article also talked about using blogs to get an inside look at a college you’re considering.

Blogging a TEDS research paper

2008-01-29T16:19:00.000-06:00

I discovered this Cultural Hermeneutics paper posted in sections on Luther's Stein, a blog by T. Robert Baylor who is studying for his M.Div. at Trinity.

The paper is on Second Life, which in itself is interesting given previous discussions of that metaverse on this blog, however what struck me was the act of posting your in progress research paper online for comments and feedback.

On the one hand this kind of activity may continue to erode the notion of writing as a solitary activity. Although the comments I read on the paper\blog posts were more encouraging than substantial critiques this practice (in general) may raise questions about final product as a reflection of the students intellectual work.

But on the other hand I think sharing students work with the general public has the positive possibilities of moving the student to a deeper engagement with the topic by opening up dialog between the student and others who are wrestling with the same issues. Particularly in a seminary setting, the possibility of receiving comments and constructive criticism from those actually ministering in the church and thus crossing the divide between pew and academy is intriguing. I'll be interested to see if this catches on.

Kindles Can't Be Loaned by Libraries?

2008-01-29T10:21:00.000-06:00

Tim Spalding of LibraryThing posted a link to this discussion on the blog Tinfoil Raccoon (live-blogging notes on the Kindle here)of whether Kindles can be loaned by libraries. Tim's comments here. Right now it looks like Amazon is sending mixed signals as to whether Kindles can be loaned. One application it suggested to me, if Kindles can be loaded with documents then unregistered and loaned, would be special genre or subject Kindles. You could load one up with C.S. Lewis' books or load one with different biographies and then allow a person to check out several books on one topic at a time, but only counting one toward their patron limit. Obviously most libraries couldn't afford very many Kindles at once, but at up to 200 titles a piece, how many would you need?

Reference! - the video game

2008-01-25T11:44:00.000-06:00

A library themed arcade? They may not be Halo but these two Carnegie Mellon library video games are worth checking out on a cold Friday.

YouTube professors

2008-01-24T14:08:00.001-06:00

The Jan. 25 Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about colleges which have put lectures online. Colleges can set up "channels" which they can brand with their logos and colors. YouTube has been surprised by how popular the video lectures have been. One academic also said it improves the professor's lectures if they know they're being taped.

To find university channels, change the search box in YouTube to search "channel" rather than "video." You can then search for a specific school, or search for "college" or "university."

The article also mentioned a couple of new sites:
Big Think has video interviews with academics and other thinkers.
FORA.tv calls itself "the thinking man's YouTube" and streams lectures and debates.

AquaBrowser in the News

2008-01-24T10:26:00.000-06:00

The Columbus, Ohio Metropolitan Libraries just implemented AquaBrowser. The Columbus newspaper ran an article about the change and patrons' mixed response. Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC Research and a CML patron discusses the article and AquaBrowser on his blog here.

Cellphone Novels

2008-01-22T10:52:00.000-06:00

As we consider the various uses of hand held devices we now need to consider them also as authoring devices. This article in the New York Times (free registration req.) discusses the popular Japanese phenomenon of novels written on cellphones. Tom Peters comments on the article at the ALA TechSource blog here. Given the popularity of other Japanese low-art forms like anime and manga among American teenagers it will be interesting to see if cellphone novels catch on here as well. Peters concludes his comments this way:

"If cell phone novels become suddenly and overwhelmingly popular in the United States, will libraries be involved in this boom in reading among teens and young adults – something for which we say we ardently wish? Maybe librarians should be proactive in fostering cell phone novelists and readers here in the U.S."

"Go fearlessly into the future"

2008-01-17T11:34:00.000-06:00

The library, which will be attached to the new building, is being refashioned as simply a warehouse for books.

Xavier is among at least three dozen colleges that have taken the drastic step of merging their library and technology departments. The mergers are happening at small liberal-arts colleges after take-charge leaders — usually CIO's — arrive and see traditional boundaries between library and technology work blurring. Those leaders observe increasing amounts of scholarship being digitized, students doing research online, library books sitting unused, and a constant stream of requests for computer and Web support. They want the flexibility to allocate funds where they are most needed, be it hiring an instructional technologist or purchasing an e-book collection.

The preceding quote is from this Chronicle of Higher Education article [update: it appears on the cover of the Jan. 18th print ed]. The title quote is from Xavier's take charge CIO David Dodd in the same article.

A couple of thoughts on this. 1. The boundaries between IT departments and libraries are very grey. The wedding of information to technology is a fact that often seems unaccounted for on organizational charts. My hope would be that librarians would emerge more as leaders rather than obstacles to clearing up this mess.

2. We need to be able to articulate a clear vision of what we do in the library to counter the warehouse metaphor. I think that education should lie at the heart of that vision but ultimately it is not talk but action that will convince people of our value.

3. If you'll indulge one more thought. This is why I keep coming back to community. I believe that education for many people happens in community and that we at Universities can not take for granted that our students are finding it. Further, by fostering community as librarians we open channels of communication between librarians and students that can be used to educate them.

I still believe (most days) we can cast a vision and formulate a plan that will allow us as librarians to go fearlessly into the future but the time to act is now otherwise the future will be chosen for us.

Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future

2008-01-16T15:41:00.000-06:00

The British Library and JISC did a study to identify how researchers of the future are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years. They hope to help libraries anticipate new behaviors in the `Google generation’.

This study touches on the experiences, expectations, and limitations of the upcoming college students and how libraries can improve our own philosophy and practices.

A very interesting read.

Social Networking sites

2008-01-15T12:21:00.000-06:00

The December issue of College & Research Libraries News had an article on social networking sites. They talked about mySpace, Facebook, and sites that had useful information for librarians using them. One thing I hadn't known was that JSTOR provides a Facebook application to search its database. (Perhaps that's something we could include on Rolfing's Facebook page?)

OCLC also just released a report on a study they did of social networking and issues related to libraries, called "Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World:"
http://www.oclc.org/reports/sharing/default.htm
One of the interesting facts they discovered was that people don't think of library websites as more private than others, and they don't care too much about privacy in their searching.One of the interesting facts they discovered was that people don't think of library websites as more private than others, and they don't care too much about privacy in their searching.

Student Generated Content

2008-01-14T15:58:00.000-06:00

Higher Education needs a new framework for promoting the value of information and technology skills for undergraduate and graduate students. -- Karen Lippincott in Student Content Creators: Convergence of Literacies.

Lippincott argues that we should encourage the integration of technology skills and online content creation within University classes and thereby teaching students not only how to be good historians or chemists, but also how to participate in online publishing and culture. Exposure to emerging modes of communication should be part of the University education complementing more traditional research and writing assignments. Indeed bringing the writing and critical thinking skills typically taught in the classroom and helping students translate those skills to online outlets including multimedia outlets.

In my last post on defining community, educationally purposeful was the first principle of healthy campus community. One of the educational aspects of the library's web presence may be to provide a platform for students to publish their work for their peers at the University.

I can imagine professors assigning students to write book reviews that could be posted on the library website, maybe compiled in the form of annotated bibliographies or added to individual bib. records. Students or groups of students may also create videos that could be featured on the library's website perhaps with the possibility of others commenting and dialoguing with the creators. Or creating a wiki that several classes contribute too.

The goals in all of this would be to help students learn to research within their discipline, to teach students to create digital content, and to help acclimate students to the protocols for online discussions. I think a further goal would be connecting students with each other and giving them a shared experience of community. In a dorm you hear all about your suite-mates projects and papers and this often sparks interesting discussion and learning but as students spend less times in dorms either b/c of work, activities, or they live off campus this might be away of exposing them to more of the intellectual milieu of the university.

Pandora Radio

2008-01-11T17:08:00.000-06:00

Have any of you used Pandora Radio? Someone just told me about it, and I found it interesting. If you enter an artist or song, it picks songs it thinks are similar based on musical "genes" - or what the song sounds like (melody, rhythm, etc). At first I was wondering if the computer somehow analyzed the songs to compare them. But it sounds like they actually have people who analyze the qualities of all the songs. I think they must also use data people enter, because you can choose whether you like the song or not.

I don't know if this has any relevance for us, but I thought it was an interesting technology!

Defining community

2008-01-09T15:38:00.000-06:00

I would like to see the library be more intentional about fostering community on campus and so I've started to think about what that means.

When I think of community at college, I think about staying up late in dorm rooms engaged in conversations that constantly rambled back and forth from academic to non-academic topics. For me at least these conversations were not only enjoyable but an important part of internalizing and working through the new material I was reading and learning in class. So important in fact that it is hard for me to imagine college without this type of community.

In trying to move beyond anecdotal experience to a more generalized definition of campus community, I discovered the report Campus Life: In Search of Community issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1990). This report lists 6 principles that "Define the kind of community every college and university should strive to be." (p.7) They are:

1. Educationally purposeful
2. Open - freedom of expression protected and greeted with civility
3. Just - each person treated with dignity
4. Disciplined - people accept responsibility and work for the common good
5. Caring
6. Celebrative - rituals affirm both tradition and change

I think that these principles capture much of what I appreciated about the informal community I described above. In future posts I hope to look at how libraries, and especially libraries' web presence may foster this type of community but I'm curious would you add to this list of principles or qualify any of them?

Second Life

2008-01-07T12:42:00.000-06:00

Has any one else checked out Second Life? I tried it while I was home at Christmas. (Since I don't have internet at home, and Second Life is blocked here, it was my one chance!) It was fun. It is definitely a social type of site. There are various things to do there, but it's most interesting if you meet and chat with other people.

It looks like librarians have a pretty big role there. There is an island called "Information Island" which is set up and regularly staffed by librarians. You need an MLS to be a reference librarian there, but other people volunteer to be guides, which don't require an MLS. I was amazed at how helpful they were. And I'm afraid I discovered I myself have a mental stereotype of the role of librarians! At first I didn't think I had anything to ask the librarian, since I wasn't doing any research (except about libraries in Second Life). But she kept pressing me about any questions I might have, until finally I asked her about problems I'd had changing my shape in Second Life. She contacted an expert in Second Life, who came right away and fixed me up. I was impressed! So Information Island isn't just for research but to find help with Second Life. I started referring other new people there who had questions. I think it's great that librarians are playing a role there. It shows how we can have relevance in an online age!

There were also a few islands for churches and Christian groups, which I found interesting. There were churches which have live feeds of their services in Second Life. I asked someone and they said 20-30 people usually show up. I also met a woman who was leading a woman's Bible study in Second Life, which also has good attendance.

I wish I'd had more time to explore Second Life! Although it's probably just as well, because it was kind of addictive...

Gen Y the biggest users of libraries

2008-01-04T10:54:00.000-06:00

I first saw this mentioned in the news last week: a survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that the biggest subgroup of Americans who used public libraries last year is Gen Y (aged 18-30.)

Many commentators seem surprised by this, as it's apparently a reversal of a study done in 1996 which showed declining use of libraries by that age group. But apparently, the more information-savvy you are, the more likely you are to head to a library -- Internet users are more likely to use libraries than non-Internet users. And while it's true that many of those users report using the Internet while at the library, it's not the only reason they're going -- they're also making use of library resources.

I find this fascinating, particularly in light of those who've seemed to assume that the Internet (all that 'freely' available info) would eventually be the death of libraries. It's also interesting, I think, given the conversations we've had about how young people view libraries and the acquiring of information.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/12/31/internet.libraries.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140922-pg,1/article.html

Changing minds

2008-01-02T14:04:00.000-06:00

This maybe slightly off topic for this list (although our topic is quite broad here) but...

I stumbled upon the internet site for the World Question Center where a group of academics (mostly US it seems) answer the following question: "What have you changed your mind about?"

There are a lot of responses, some short and some not so short, and I just skimmed over a handful but I found it really interesting to see what people would admit to changing their mind about and why they decided to change, actually it was refreshing in an age where it seems people are polarized on every issue and simply talking past each other. Most of the contributors that I read work in science and technology but a surprising (to me) number of their comments discussed religion.

I promised to post more on community and will hopefully deliver soon. As I'm writing this it occurs to me that the ability to discuss issues and safely change your opinion would be a mark of the type of learning community that I hope exists at universities. Hopefully at school "flip-flopping" is understood to be a potential and honorable result of genuine engagement with ideas and not as a sign of weakness or disloyalty.

Thinking about being an access point.

2007-12-19T16:42:00.000-06:00

Jennifer Bartholomew started a discussion about this article in the Theological Librarians group on Facebook.

The article by Dan Chudnov is on the way social networking sites use individuals as access points. Jennifer (a fellow ATLA Wabash 2007 alum) asked for reactions. Here is my rather lengthy response to the article:

I agree that the power that technology has to connect us can also mask what makes us unique and human or in other words can turn us into commodities. One possible response to this would be to build even stronger walls between my actions, indeed who I am and the prying eyes of outsiders. I would be interested in listening to those who choose this, but it seems to me this type of chosen isolation is likely to become stifling. In the library world, for example we could do nothing with user data (or the user could act in ways that prevent data collection) which may help avoid seeing the people who use are resources as data points but would this make for a better library?

Another option, while perhaps not touching on Chudnov's deepest anxieties, would be to allow people to freely customize their data contribution and thus import some of the unique and human into what might otherwise be a sterile exchange of commodities. In Facebook it is interesting to watch people work hard to individualize their pages, even if many are unaware (or unconcerned) with how they are "giving themselves away" as Chudnov says. In libraries, I think we should investigate ways that allow the patron's interaction with the library to be more personal (more human). This might mean making spaces for patrons to interact with the information we provide and with each other in our online spaces. It might also mean presenting more information about ourselves as individuals rather than as an institution to our users as a first step toward humanizing their interaction with the library. Visual media I think could really help with this as pictures and video often come off more personable then lines of text.

Finally, I think it is important that we remember that information is not an end in itself, just as people are not ultimately access points or profit generating things. As theological librarians we believe God is not only to be studied but also worshiped. In a world that is eager to monetize all things, we need to be advocates for the significance of all the beautiful things that are good in and of themselves. The challenge is how to appropriate technology to further this advocacy.

Anyway those are my thoughts... What do you think?

Some more on ebooks

2007-12-17T11:47:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd add a couple of more links to Cindee's discussion of ebooks below.

First is this helpful post from Tim O'Reilly on the economics of ebook publishing. He cautions against simply assuming the economic model that works for itunes will work for books, mostly because of the greater time commitment involved in reading a book vs listening to a song. Thus it may not be true that lowering the price of ebooks will drive up demand with significant enough numbers to justify the price cut. O'Reilly also shares lessons they've learned from distributing O'Reilly ebooks and suggests looking at cable companies packaging of different channels as a possible economic model for ebooks.

Second, I thought I link to this post on Jesus Creed where Scot McKnight asks his readers for their comments on the Kindle. The response is a mixed bag but I think it is worth hearing the different perspectives especially since they come from similar types of people that we are likely to provide service to in our library.

Finally here are more of my book marks on ebooks, ebook readers, and Kindle.

Changing How not What

2007-12-13T14:15:00.000-06:00

Eric Lease Morgan has posted a lecture (in text form) he gave this month entitled Today's Digital Information Landscape. I find that his stuff is generally worth reading and this is no exception.

In the lecture he argues libraries don't need to change what they do but rather how they do it. ELM identifies the "what" that libraries do as "collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination." In the lecture he talks about specific opportunities afforded to the library community by XML, databases, indexes, computer networks, and more.

As I read this I wonder, do we really know or think about what we (academic librarians) do? We know how to do lots of things, acquire and catalog all types of material, circulate it, answer questions, etc. But when we are claiming serials or cataloging DVDs, what are we doing?

ELM writes that, "The catalog needs to be defined as the content needed by the students, instructors, and scholars necessary to do their learning, teaching, and research." He goes on do discuss the catalog as the place where collections and services connect. How we populate this catalog and the types of services we offer may need to change but finding and supplying the content needed by our community will not.

This leads me back to the topic of community. If we as librarians are not connected to what our community needs, both their information needs and their educational or instruction needs, we are left doing what we know how to do whether it is appropriate or not.

Finally, I also wonder if building community is part of what libraries do. Though we may think more pragmatically about our interactions with patrons, Stephen Abram for one argued that it is the uniquely human connections and the social network they create that makes libraries and librarians valuable.