The focus of Cahoy’s presentation was on the library’s web interface. She spoke about using the library’s web site as an instruction tool. Many sites have too many dead ends and roadblocks. Libraries need to create a system that doesn’t need to be taught. Libraries need to move beyond using their web sites as reflections of their organizational models to viewing them as an application and teaching tool. Cahoy believes that students want to follow their own paths and not our links. Students like interactive sites and visual representations that bring our collections to life. The time is right to reinvent the web.
Cahoy pointed out several libraries with good examples of interactive and/or visual representation on their web sites: University of Minnesota’s assignment calculator; Maryville University’s Firefox library toolbar; Brigham Young University Library web page; the use of AquaBrowser on the Queens Library web site; and the open source Nelsonville Public Library site.
Cahoy believes libraries need to use their expertise to make the library’s online presence approach the simplicity and power of the internet. We can get there by involving students in all parts of the process. Public services people need to be involved as well.
Cody Hanson, University of Minnesota, was the second speaker. His presentation, “A Lesson from Web 2.0 for Academic Libraries, focused on adding value to the information we provide to patrons by putting the expertise of librarians “out there.� Examples of sites included Readit and Newsvine. Both allow users to read news events and add their own. Newsvine gathers the latest news and displays it based on what users find important. Digg.com is “all about user powered content. Everything is submitted and voted on by the Digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote stuff that's important to you!�
Difference between Digg and library is that Digg is publicly vetted by users. Ratings are visible and users can determine the reliability of an article by looking at the raters history of “digging�. Librarians do a good job of evaluating, but in our case very little of the process is visible. Online identity is big part of our patron’s lives and we need to be there, too, by personally and professionally evaluating books and articles. We need to put our expertise out there by exposing our selection process and expertise. By doing this we will add value to the information we provide in the same way we add value by staffing our bricks and mortars buildings
Emily Barton, from Michigan State, focused her remarks on getting the physical building into the flow by providing the right kind of services in the library. We need to know who our users are (Wired, March 2007, article on the “Snack Culture�). Look at their needs from their perspective, not from the view of traditional library services. Librarians need to go out and see what students are really doing. Play is learning the 2.0 way. We need to assess and evaluate what we are doing, how services are being used, and by whom. Libraries need to continually evaluate and assess. Keep an open mind and keep up with users. The best thing libraries can do is prove our value, not just profess it. If you have to tell people it is cool, then by definition it isn’t. Legacy services and functions that seem right for retirement or have no continuing value should be let go. There is no longer a set definition of what an academic library is. We need to do what we can to be relevant on campus and to students
Yes, another a shameless attempt at discovery....
]]>IU instance of Sakai called “OnCourse.� They create templates for class web pages and push them into OnCourse using the library content management system. Instructor does not need to initiate request—librarian can do this for any class, but some faculty members prefer to create pages for library resources themselves. One advantage of having the librarian webpage: when students from the class ask a reference question, reference librarians can refer to the class web page for more context.
Susan Hollar, University of Michigan. Sakaibrary
U-M instance of Sakai is called “CTools.� CTools is basic campus infrastructure. Sakai was not designed to include library resources—“Sakaibrary� proposed to integrate licensed library content. A tool for citation lists is the first development priority and will be included in the Sakai 2.4 release later this spring. Instructors can search library resources via Metasearch from within Sakai, and add citations to their class web resources list. Added a “role� for librarians within CTools. Library Reserves list are sent to course CTools sites via RSS. U-M is developing a new tool to add “Ask Us� link to email reference to CTools.
Usability test findings of the value of this tool:
Next steps:
John Butler, University of Minnesota. UM Portal Project
The University has developed a personalizable portal for the university website. As part of this, they developed “affinity strings� for individuals to describe the academic/administrative categories they inhabit: “tc.grad.ps.phd� could be the code for a PhD student in Political Science on the Twin Cities campus. There are 9500 different affinity strings, based on combinations of location, status, program and department. The university can develop templates for as many as they choose.
The library has added a MyLibrary tab, and developed templates for many affinity strings. As individual add resources, their choices can be reflected back to their affinity group. Resources can be grouped by who chose it—librarian, enduser, community
Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe UIUC. Immersive Environments (Second Life etc)
Definition of an immersive environment:
Second Life has a high experimentation and abandonment rate. 4.7+ million people inhabit it. UIUC teaches a class in “Introduction to Metaverse Building.� One course, “Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World� was taught in Second Life and a GSLIS class met in Second Life. ]]>
I posted the video Finding Time (played during my presentation) on our library's web site. It's in the original QuickTime format, and is much clearer than the one posted on YouTube.
You can find the video at: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruction/time.mov
What a pleasure it was meeting and learning from you all at the conference!
]]>I know... a shameless attempt to get readership.
]]>Researchers there report that playing action video games, specifically first-person, an hour daily sharpens visual acuity. Slower, puzzle-style games, such as Tetris, showed no effect. Although video games don't have any effect on the size, shape, and thickness of the eye, all which influence "normal" vision, researchers feel that video games can substantially increase spatial resolution of their vision - the ability to see small, closely packed letters on eye charts. Video games may also be useful for patients suffering from amblyopia, or "lazy eye."
On the flip side, staring at a bright screen for long times can strain the eyes and disrupt one's biological clock.
Keywords: distributed, open/collaborative, diffuse, engaged, recombinant, process-based, experiential, and community.
Wendy structured her remarks as questions: What are our library assets? Is it all about search/discovery? Are library data shareable? What is "added value"? What do users want? What do users do? Can the library sustain identity in the flow? Does consortial activity diminish institutional identity? Can social tools work in a serious environment? Final questions: Whither innovation? What can you do? What can CIC do?
The session ended with a selection of clips from the videos that can be seen on the blog in full with reflections, comments, etc. from participants.
Notes by Lisa Hinchliffe
]]>"What open access research can do for Wikipedia" by John Willinsky:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/willinsky/
it includes “Wikipedean’s Guide to Open Access Research and Scholarship,� as an appendix:
]]>Structural design of shared information environments – so people can find what they are looking for. But this is broader than the web. Interface design involves a balance of art and science. Be creative!
Emerging discipline and community of practice - bring principles of design and architecture to web.
To businesses – Peter helps corporate and public entities find multiple ways to find the same information – not about “one right way�
Search interfaces depend on labeling – tremendous pressure on one or two word labels – need to bubble up categories – what lies beyond door #1.
Find this presentation at: http://semanticstudios.com/cic.pdf
Notes contributed by Loanne Snavely and Ellysa Cahoy
Some important questions to ask yourself about your library web site:
Can your users find your organization’s website?
Can they find their way around?
Can your users find what they need in spite of your web site?
Is your organization’s web site accessible?
Credibility – do users trust our information? Visual design has a tremendous impact on perceived credibility. Who are vast majority of visitors to your site? – In Peter’s example of cancer.gov – the largest audience was the public seeking information on different types of cancer. “Cancer� is the single most common search, but in more specific searches “breast cancer� or “lung cancer� the National Cancer Institute does not come up on top link on those searches. Must focus on having information relevant to all of the popular queries coming into your site readily indexed and findable.
CSA, Proquest CSA--Peter worked with them to refine their search interface down to a single text box– a quick interface that looks more like Google and was pleasing to students. Didn’t have to select database first – could choose between 4 major categories (this was also a change from the old CSA interface, and Peter opined that he wished they would do away with all of the subject categories as part of the initial search interface.)
Info architects need to have one foot in past and one in future – we are always designing systems into the future – have the bigger picture for tomorrow. Findability – locatable and navagible – an object or the whole system – to what degree a system supports wayfinding, navigation and retrieval.
Peter discussed ambient technologies. – These are new innovations that take everyday objects (pinwheels, pens, watches, etc…) and use these objects to link users with dynamic technologies (i.e, the pinwheel that spins when your email box is full)
In information age – most people in developing countries do not have access to a wealth of information. But we live in age of overabundance – creating absurd amounts of information – “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.� Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate Economist
Examples of new and upcoming technology:
Importing and combining physical information –google maps and earth – astonishing amounts of metadata rendered searchables. Mash-ups; Google Maps – success was beauty of interface, but value lies in text instructions.
Smart phone – convergence w/ GPS, can share info as needed. GPS Wrist watch for child – lock onto wrist, track location, breadcrumb feature – trace child’s path.
Bruce Sterling – in a keynote at an OReilly conference---discussed the Internet of objects – won’t be here for 30 years (googling the location of your socks from bed) using RFID tags to track objects –Track and return wheelchairs in hospitals. Also a wayfinding tool – people get lost in hospitals and other public places. A dynamic “You are here� sign.
The web presents scary issues and exciting potential – a combo – the web in our pocket – high resolution, higher speed is coming. The Transparent Society. (book on privacy issues.)
Findability challenge is increasing – intelligent agents and visualization solutions are not helpful in finding info.
“Revenge of the Librarians. Not your mothers metadata, free tagging environment “The old way creates a tree. The new rakes the leaves together� David Weinberg
Piles of leaves rot, and make food for trees that live a long time. Peter: find ways to bring new and old technologies together.
“Library thing� has worked. Tagging works when users tag their own stuff – not when asked to tag items owned by other entities. Lots of web architecture in web 2.0 – most of Peter’s work doesn’t relate to 2.0.
The Future of search – is the search box (go). (for at least the next 5-10 years)
Amazon is tremendously dense. Has done more in offering a complex interface – searching and browsing.
Peter showed some interfaces that he thinks are on the leading edge:
ENDECA NCSU interface example. Top level tagging taxonomy
Flickr – clusters – is only going to get more complex.
Podzinger – speech to text – making it searchable. Audio and video content rendered searchable – coming soon on large scale.
The relationship between Google and blogs – an inverse fishing net – bringing user to my blog.
Wikipedia – putting people into info systems
Del.i.ci.ous library – scan in personal collections.
Peter recommended the book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug: A common sense approach to usability.
To wrap up: Peter told the story of 3 stone cutters – wandering in the wilderness to quarry. 3 stonecutters; what are you doing? 1. Making a living; 2 best stonecutter in county; 3 I’m building a cathedral We must be like the third stonecutter, and focus on the big picture, the end result (not on the little tasks and details that come together to comprise a larger effort).
He offered four messages and a disclaimer. This messages: Web 2.0 is the social web, people connecting to people, applied social psychology, and the long tail.
The disclaimer is that he does not claim to know what these mean for academic libraries.
He structured his session around the top 10 websites as measured by Alexa. The top 10 are Yahoo!, Google, MySpace, MSN, eBay, Amazon, YouTube, Craigslist, Wikipedia, Facebook and (#11) CNN.
By exploring features of these sites, John highlighted features of the social web including tagging; recursive linking; customer-customer linkages; recommendations; and, scale and speed through mass participation.
Notes by Lisa Hinchliffe
Will look at the Alexa's top 10 web sites.
1. Yahoo
Tags. Tag clouds.
HubMed, something someone put together in delicious
GeoRef tags in Flickr
GroupLens did a study about different types of tags and how people feel about them:
-Factual tags (anime) are overall considered useful
-Subjective tags (surreal) are less useful, but everyone feels their own tags ARE useful
-Personal tags (mydvd) are not useful, but 87% people value them for organizing
Delicious tag studies: non power law of tags and tag frequency showing the dropoff of tags after the first 7 or so.
Social structure of the environment may be the very thing that is leading people to create valuable tags.
Can a useful ontology be created in a folksonomy? Is there any way to encourage that?
]]> 2. GoogleGoogle changed their search algorithm to deal with Word Farms and people who they feel are trying to engineer their page rank.
Rich get richer. People are more likely to find sites heavily linked to.
The long tail in blogspace. More than 50% of readings happen out in the long tail because there are so many of them.
NetFlix: you'll be happier with a title they recommend than one you pick yourself. They just offered $1M to someone who can build a better recommender.
3. MySpace
Heather Ann Tucci's statement online about August 19, 2006 accident and people who died eventually led to her conviction because she had, effectively, confessed.
4. MSN: too boring to talk about
ISP and Content Provider
5. Ebay
People make more money if they have a higher reputation
Sellers punish buyers who give negative feedback and this is one of the reasons why people don't give honest feedback on ebay
6. Amazon
Most important resource is customers. Customers selling to other customers (recommend products to other customers).
7. YouTube
"Video by amateurs" according to Google.
Almost none of the most popular videos are by amateurs, most of them are copyrighted content. Right before YouTube was acquired by Google, they made a deal with CBS to allow CBS to look for their content, and if they found one, YouTube would pay CBS most of the profits from advertising for that content.
$1.65Billion for YouTube is about $25million per employee (65 employees)
$16 per 100 million views per day. Google already had video technology, they were buying the community.
8. World of Warcraft
8 million worldwide
Fayejin funeral on WOW. at Frostfire Hot Springs. Another group, the sworn enemy of her trip, found out about this and decided to raid the funeral.
People who spend a lot of time in WOW are very ambivalent about this.
8. Craigslist.org
Renting apartments in NYC. craiglist had to add a $10 fee for NYC so that people would stop reposting ($2.5m / year). Estimate that Craislist could generate $500M/year with banner ads. Craig said "Users haven't asked for banner ads"
9. Wikipedia
Movielens is a recommender site run at UMN. 120,000 registered users so far. 10,000 movies. Wanted to see if they could get users to maintain movie database.
Scale (slashdot, users moderate, only way to keep up)
Speed (viegas did a study to show that users are quick to undo antisocial things like graffiti)
Robustness against change (protection from one user quitting)
Direction-setting: where are we going with this?
How can you manage the quality of contributions? Knowing that their work will be reviewed increases the quality.
What happens if you review after publication (wikipedia) instead of before?
Expected quality is higher in wiki model
WikiPedia: How do you help people find work to do? Randomly, chronologically, communite needs, alphabetically.
People did four times more work when work was routed to them through an intelligent recommender system.
10 Facebook
90% thought peers would look
only 3% thought professors would look
11. CNN
CNN now does RL news in Second Life. Can get a pager in Second Life that you carry around
Reuters has a bureau in Second Life and reports on Second Life news to the Real world
QUESTIONS
Will this be taken seriously by the academy?
Don't know, there's so much effort reflected in these activities though, would like to think that there will be a payoff for the greater social good.
Where are business models, and what is the economics?
Did talk about economic theory (for ex. analysis of eBay about motivations) but didn't actually talk about money.
What about the effect of popularity and people who want to be with people like them on the social web, not with older people who found out about it later, etc.?
Yes, there will be a first wave that will leave when it gets too crowded, but then there will be a second wave.