My personal conclusion about tagging is still undecided. I know for sure that it could never replace subject headings and the control and precision that comes with them. It has the potential of complementing subject headings because of its reliance on natural language - seems to me that if you somehow marry the two, you get the thesaurus you need to navigate what can be the confusing world of subject headings.
I think this passage from the Wikipedia article lays out pretty well the pitfalls of tagging -
"In a typical tagging system, there is no explicit information about the meaning or semantics of each tag, and a user can apply new tags to an item as easily as applying older tags. Hierarchical classification systems can be slow to change, and are rooted in the culture and era that created them.[10] The flexibility of tagging allows users to classify their collections of items in the ways that they find useful, but the personalized variety of terms can present challenges when searching and browsing.
When users can freely choose tags (creating a folksonomy, as opposed to selecting terms from a controlled vocabulary), the resulting metadata can include homonyms (the same tags used with different meanings) and synonyms (multiple tags for the same concept), which may lead to inappropriate connections between items and inefficient searches for information about a subject." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata)
Thus, you get increased retrieval, possibly increased relevance, but you clearly sacrifice precision in the process, especially if the process is open to everyone and anyone.
An example of this would be to go onto Flickr and search for "depression glass" under the Tags Only feature (with the quotations). You get 1359 results, and one particular photographer has used that tag for just about every one of her photos, so I saw a silver plate ladle, a cross stitch table runner, and a framed print of a child praying. Other users had employed that tag for tatting lace, a picture of a 1969 Macy's flea market, and a black glass gravestone, of all things. Without the quotations, you get 339 results, some related to depression as a mental health condition, clearly not what a searcher probably wants. It was interesting to me that I got a lower retrieval rate without the quotations; the quotation search found some accounts which had used a tag combining the words into depressionglass or a tag of depression glass as a phrase, and the quotations had the system search for intact phrases. The 338 result search clearly was doing a Boolean search, requiring depression and glass to be two separate tags within a record. As expected, depression alone gave way to 20,000+ results, and glass alone yielded 810,000+ results.
This is not unlike problems we have in cataloging, where the individual cataloger decides on subject headings that may or may not match the user's notion of what a particular title is about, or where one cataloger's poorly done record is replicated a million times through copy cataloging and now hundreds of library catalogs are affected (I have just experienced the frustration with this problem while trying to create a bibliography of books on disasters and survival). So, no system is perfect.
When you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen you can arrive at a wonderful meal, or a mish-mosh. It just depends. I think tagging is definitely here to stay, and I hope that tagging will evolve into something that will allow a user to impose, intuitively, more precision at the point of search, so that each search does not yield more results than can be waded through in a reasonable amount of time.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Ning and Nang
I checked out Ning, declining to create my own account. I found it pretty intuitive and easy to navigate, although the wealth of information on the site is a bit mind-boggling.
My first search for a network was depression glass, as I wanted to see if I could find information about depression glass rather than site after site of sellers of depression glass. I got 289 hits, many of which were not relevant; interestingly, several networks related to careers and women, i.e. the glass ceiling thing, were included in the results. Depression Glass in quotations came up with zero hits, so clearly there's little out there just on depression glass.
Rather than click through pages and pages of network listings, I chose the first hit, The Vintage Village, because it had depression glass in its tags. But from what I could tell as a I surfed around, it was mainly pages of sellers of various types of vintage collectibles. I did find a couple of pages that discussed and posted pictures of vintage jewelry marks, and this would be very helpful for my vintage jewelry collecting. In one section, the only thing related to depression glass was a link to About.com, which I have found to be pretty useless in the past.
I then searched for networks connected to the city in which my farm sits, just to see what I would get. 377 hits, many of which were alumni associations for universities in Illinois. I did find a network of Illinois librarians listed, and clicked on that - it only had 24 members, so obviously not a very large group. Perhaps all the Illinois librarians are too busy to network! There was an alumni site for my undergrade university, with 2077 members - but wouldn't Facebook or LinkedIn be a better choice for business networking?
Then I tried drum corps, and found 475 networks, and clicked on the Drum Corps Historical Society, looking for information on the Santa Clara Vanguard, because a friend of mine used to travel with the corps in the summer. I wondered to myself why I would go through Ning to get to information on SCV, when I could easily just Google SCV and go to the source. Maybe someone doing research would like to access every single thing about a group or topic.
My conclusion - Ning is fun, could be useful for hobbies and such, and I like the 'folders within folders kind of ideology about the setup. But in terms of creating a presence on the web for your library, I think a page would get lost. Ning, to me, is like most of these social networking sites - a time sink. I am still searching for a good article on how to manage this stuff efficiently. So far Google Reader has been the most useful.
My first search for a network was depression glass, as I wanted to see if I could find information about depression glass rather than site after site of sellers of depression glass. I got 289 hits, many of which were not relevant; interestingly, several networks related to careers and women, i.e. the glass ceiling thing, were included in the results. Depression Glass in quotations came up with zero hits, so clearly there's little out there just on depression glass.
Rather than click through pages and pages of network listings, I chose the first hit, The Vintage Village, because it had depression glass in its tags. But from what I could tell as a I surfed around, it was mainly pages of sellers of various types of vintage collectibles. I did find a couple of pages that discussed and posted pictures of vintage jewelry marks, and this would be very helpful for my vintage jewelry collecting. In one section, the only thing related to depression glass was a link to About.com, which I have found to be pretty useless in the past.
I then searched for networks connected to the city in which my farm sits, just to see what I would get. 377 hits, many of which were alumni associations for universities in Illinois. I did find a network of Illinois librarians listed, and clicked on that - it only had 24 members, so obviously not a very large group. Perhaps all the Illinois librarians are too busy to network! There was an alumni site for my undergrade university, with 2077 members - but wouldn't Facebook or LinkedIn be a better choice for business networking?
Then I tried drum corps, and found 475 networks, and clicked on the Drum Corps Historical Society, looking for information on the Santa Clara Vanguard, because a friend of mine used to travel with the corps in the summer. I wondered to myself why I would go through Ning to get to information on SCV, when I could easily just Google SCV and go to the source. Maybe someone doing research would like to access every single thing about a group or topic.
My conclusion - Ning is fun, could be useful for hobbies and such, and I like the 'folders within folders kind of ideology about the setup. But in terms of creating a presence on the web for your library, I think a page would get lost. Ning, to me, is like most of these social networking sites - a time sink. I am still searching for a good article on how to manage this stuff efficiently. So far Google Reader has been the most useful.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
RSS Feeds
My comment about RSS feeds is that, just like blogs, there can be a point where you get sucked into a world of TMI (too much information) and TMMI (too much meaningless information). Then the technology becomes the end instead of the means, and one finds it extremely difficult to absorb and digest everything that is being posted on the feeds.
I wonder to myself what kind of ratio there is to total rss feeds and rss feeds used in a meaningful way. A million to 1? And how much time is spent creating rss feeds, blogs, plus Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. posts? Seems every newspaper in the world has a presence on all of those. Is it just a matter of creating one text and uploading to multiple sites?
Using Google Reader to subscribe and manage the RSS feeds you want to view is much easier than I-Tunes, in my opinion.
Just as an aside, a really good portrait of feeds gone awry is M.T. Anderson's novel Feed, in the YA section. If that ever comes to pass, hold on to your hats...
I wonder to myself what kind of ratio there is to total rss feeds and rss feeds used in a meaningful way. A million to 1? And how much time is spent creating rss feeds, blogs, plus Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. posts? Seems every newspaper in the world has a presence on all of those. Is it just a matter of creating one text and uploading to multiple sites?
Using Google Reader to subscribe and manage the RSS feeds you want to view is much easier than I-Tunes, in my opinion.
Just as an aside, a really good portrait of feeds gone awry is M.T. Anderson's novel Feed, in the YA section. If that ever comes to pass, hold on to your hats...
Blog Readers
A very very useful tool!!! This is one I will pass on to my spouse, as he loves to read newspapers from around the country.
From what I could tell, this replaces the original email updates that Google News used to offer, and in my opinion, much more efficient, as the email updates tended to just clutter my inbox and build up to a point that 'update' became a meaningless term. I like the way I can control when I view something.
My husband and I are both news junkies, and I can see Google Reader being heavily used for this. I added rss feeds from NPR shows and a couple of newspapers. It was interesting to see how many subscribers there were for each. The NYT feed of course had the most 1.7+ million.
I also searched, in vain, for the rss feed for the Librarians' Index to the Internet. I had tried to add them through I-Tunes but found I developed computer problems, which may be related to Bloglines more than my computer. But I thought Google Reader might accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, a search through Google Reader yielded everyone else's mention of the LII feed, but not the feed itself, including a feed from Bloglines talking about how Bloglines was down for maintenance. I'll keep trying...
From what I could tell, this replaces the original email updates that Google News used to offer, and in my opinion, much more efficient, as the email updates tended to just clutter my inbox and build up to a point that 'update' became a meaningless term. I like the way I can control when I view something.
My husband and I are both news junkies, and I can see Google Reader being heavily used for this. I added rss feeds from NPR shows and a couple of newspapers. It was interesting to see how many subscribers there were for each. The NYT feed of course had the most 1.7+ million.
I also searched, in vain, for the rss feed for the Librarians' Index to the Internet. I had tried to add them through I-Tunes but found I developed computer problems, which may be related to Bloglines more than my computer. But I thought Google Reader might accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, a search through Google Reader yielded everyone else's mention of the LII feed, but not the feed itself, including a feed from Bloglines talking about how Bloglines was down for maintenance. I'll keep trying...
Image Generators
I enjoyed using the FX app from Big Huge Labs, and this one is titled, "Corn Never Looked So Bad". It reminds me of some Blair Witch Project or M. Night Shyamalan film, or maybe a post-catastrophe world. I'm half expecting to see a zombie come walking through the corn!
My farm doesn't look this bad. Really. The actual photo shows corn stalks tall and green and gorgeous.
Flickr Mashups
I think I would title this one, "Magic, Magic, Everywhere". These are photos of a recent trip to Disney World, and I don't think anyone would dispute that it is a magical place.
I enjoyed looking at all of the different ways to manipulate photos from Flickr. It seems like it would be useful if you had a large collection of photos with which to work, ones that you didn't have to spend oodles of time finding the proper CC license to use. Professional photographers, I am sure, just love this kind of stuff.
I used Big Huge Labs to create this - I appreciate the many and diverse methods offered through that portal.
Library 2.0, Random Thoughts and Musings
My reactions to Library 2.0, at the risk of becoming the class curmudgeon...
I read the Blyberg blog post and watched the Wesch video posted on Shifted Librarian. If we look at Sarah Houghton's definition and stop, right after "community needs", it's pretty obvious that there is nothing revolutionary about Library 2.0. There may have been a time in the 80s when libraries were not considered to be relevant, but I fail to see anything of the sort today. Indeed, libraries are even more utilized today simply because someone/something needs to help people make sense of the glut of information out there. Even those living in very affluent communities are warming to the idea that they just can't become fully informed over the Internet. At least that's my perspective.
I agree with Blyberg's statement that "libraries will feel increasing pressure to provide services that both compliment and diverge from Google." Google has actually done libraries a big favor; Google has shown people the value of knowing. So I am really not all that worried about Google supplanting libraries. Google will never get all the world's knowledge digitized - not mathematically possible, never mind financially possible. And Google will never help all people make sense of what they see on the net.
Spending so much time mulling over just what Library 2.0 is takes away precious time from providing the services that an individual community needs. I sometimes see a quiet desperation on the part of organizations in this regard, i.e. we've got to get on the technology bandwagon, or we're sunk. It's been my experience that organizations which focus on those they serve, without worrying about whether they match the way some other organization discharges their duties, are in the end the most successful. It's also been my experience that without community input and buy in and assistance, any attempt to serve that seems 'new and fresh' has a huge risk of failure, not whether or not there's a cute fancy name attached to what they do.
Thinking that we have to offer gaming, have to do blogs, have to be on Twitter, etc., is pretty short-sighted and wastes energy. What we have to do is serve our population, of all ages. I resented Blyberg's description of a "dwindling elderly population, the soon-to-retire baby boomers", as if those generations are to be dismissed as important. What I have found as I have gone through life is that a balance of young, stars-in-our-eyes ideas and "yeah, but" wisdom seems to work pretty darn well in developing products, systems, and services that last and have staying power. Think of the adoration Craig's List has gotten for so many years - new, fresh, exciting, freeing of pesky regulations, etc. Until someone is murdered as a result of its Wild West atmosphere. Think of the MySpace issues with bullying, including adult impersonators doing the bullying, and the result. MySpace doesn't look so great after that, right? Maybe there's a need to pull on the reins, which some think is anathema, but which helps, in the end.
Change, of course, has always been a part of human existence. And I am sure that the perception of the rate of change has always been one of, “things are moving too fast”.
And then there's the Wesch video posted on the Shifted Librarian link. All nice and glitzy, resounding, pounding, emotionally exciting background music. A clever, “Matrix-like” title. But, it told me this – 1) things are changing in an amazing way, and 2) you (meaning me) had better have brain wiring that is capable of keeping up with this video, because if you don’t, you (meaning me) won’t be able to keep up with the things that are changing in an amazing way.
I say hogwash. I think we are at least two generations away (maybe more) from the majority of the worldwide human population having brain wiring capable of keeping up with that video. And I think it’s disrespectful to present a concept in such a manner with any other expectation. There may have been something there, but how could someone not a geek comprehend it? My ADHD son, whose brain wiring requires multiple things happening quickly and simultaneously, would absorb it without difficulty. But what would he absorb? I saw no thoughtful analysis of the issue. At the end, Wesch flashed a dozen conceptual words that he claimed we must reassess: “copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.” (I paused the video multiple times to write them down) All of which require much more than the flash of the word on the screen to make sense of them. Shakespeare certainly didn't think that his themes of love, ambition, and human frailty could be examined as such.
Where is the invitation to think in that kind of presentation? Does Wesch assume that we with the ‘slow caveman brains’ are incapable of weighing in on the issues? Does he believe that non-geeks are not able to learn this stuff because we don’t learn this stuff at his expected rate?
I am not arguing for a ‘stop the presses’ approach to change within libraries. What I believe is that when the introduction of a change is tailored to a specific generational group, we all lose. My experience with ‘flavor of the quarter’ management theories (MBO and TQM come to mind immediately) has taught me that without adequate reflection of a new concept, without adequate and varied experiential input, and especially without buy-in from key players on all levels, change sputters, falters, spins wheels, and leads to demoralization, apathy, and resentment.
It really is OK to want to see Library 2.0 as something which "challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level"; but in the end, half of what is being considered will be disregarded as unusable. So let's not think that the challenge needs to be accomplished in a week.
I read the Blyberg blog post and watched the Wesch video posted on Shifted Librarian. If we look at Sarah Houghton's definition and stop, right after "community needs", it's pretty obvious that there is nothing revolutionary about Library 2.0. There may have been a time in the 80s when libraries were not considered to be relevant, but I fail to see anything of the sort today. Indeed, libraries are even more utilized today simply because someone/something needs to help people make sense of the glut of information out there. Even those living in very affluent communities are warming to the idea that they just can't become fully informed over the Internet. At least that's my perspective.
I agree with Blyberg's statement that "libraries will feel increasing pressure to provide services that both compliment and diverge from Google." Google has actually done libraries a big favor; Google has shown people the value of knowing. So I am really not all that worried about Google supplanting libraries. Google will never get all the world's knowledge digitized - not mathematically possible, never mind financially possible. And Google will never help all people make sense of what they see on the net.
Spending so much time mulling over just what Library 2.0 is takes away precious time from providing the services that an individual community needs. I sometimes see a quiet desperation on the part of organizations in this regard, i.e. we've got to get on the technology bandwagon, or we're sunk. It's been my experience that organizations which focus on those they serve, without worrying about whether they match the way some other organization discharges their duties, are in the end the most successful. It's also been my experience that without community input and buy in and assistance, any attempt to serve that seems 'new and fresh' has a huge risk of failure, not whether or not there's a cute fancy name attached to what they do.
Thinking that we have to offer gaming, have to do blogs, have to be on Twitter, etc., is pretty short-sighted and wastes energy. What we have to do is serve our population, of all ages. I resented Blyberg's description of a "dwindling elderly population, the soon-to-retire baby boomers", as if those generations are to be dismissed as important. What I have found as I have gone through life is that a balance of young, stars-in-our-eyes ideas and "yeah, but" wisdom seems to work pretty darn well in developing products, systems, and services that last and have staying power. Think of the adoration Craig's List has gotten for so many years - new, fresh, exciting, freeing of pesky regulations, etc. Until someone is murdered as a result of its Wild West atmosphere. Think of the MySpace issues with bullying, including adult impersonators doing the bullying, and the result. MySpace doesn't look so great after that, right? Maybe there's a need to pull on the reins, which some think is anathema, but which helps, in the end.
Change, of course, has always been a part of human existence. And I am sure that the perception of the rate of change has always been one of, “things are moving too fast”.
And then there's the Wesch video posted on the Shifted Librarian link. All nice and glitzy, resounding, pounding, emotionally exciting background music. A clever, “Matrix-like” title. But, it told me this – 1) things are changing in an amazing way, and 2) you (meaning me) had better have brain wiring that is capable of keeping up with this video, because if you don’t, you (meaning me) won’t be able to keep up with the things that are changing in an amazing way.
I say hogwash. I think we are at least two generations away (maybe more) from the majority of the worldwide human population having brain wiring capable of keeping up with that video. And I think it’s disrespectful to present a concept in such a manner with any other expectation. There may have been something there, but how could someone not a geek comprehend it? My ADHD son, whose brain wiring requires multiple things happening quickly and simultaneously, would absorb it without difficulty. But what would he absorb? I saw no thoughtful analysis of the issue. At the end, Wesch flashed a dozen conceptual words that he claimed we must reassess: “copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.” (I paused the video multiple times to write them down) All of which require much more than the flash of the word on the screen to make sense of them. Shakespeare certainly didn't think that his themes of love, ambition, and human frailty could be examined as such.
Where is the invitation to think in that kind of presentation? Does Wesch assume that we with the ‘slow caveman brains’ are incapable of weighing in on the issues? Does he believe that non-geeks are not able to learn this stuff because we don’t learn this stuff at his expected rate?
I am not arguing for a ‘stop the presses’ approach to change within libraries. What I believe is that when the introduction of a change is tailored to a specific generational group, we all lose. My experience with ‘flavor of the quarter’ management theories (MBO and TQM come to mind immediately) has taught me that without adequate reflection of a new concept, without adequate and varied experiential input, and especially without buy-in from key players on all levels, change sputters, falters, spins wheels, and leads to demoralization, apathy, and resentment.
It really is OK to want to see Library 2.0 as something which "challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level"; but in the end, half of what is being considered will be disregarded as unusable. So let's not think that the challenge needs to be accomplished in a week.
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