Social Media and Cataloging

In your opinion, what's enduring about the introduction of social media such as tagging?
Well, to me the important contribution that social media and tagging has for us as catalogers is that we are seeing the democratization of metadata, and more broadly data as a whole. Of course, metadata is a new term, but to this point there has been little interest (and practically no methods to do it) in the “crowd-sourcing” of metadata. It’s really within the past five years that methods have been implemented to allow practically anyone to generate metadata about really any object. Librarians should be thrilled with this for two reasons:
First, we don’t have to do quite as much of the heavy lifting of metadata generation - others are doing it for us.
Second, as Tim Spalding points out, libraries have always been (for the most part) about the democratization and spread of information, and the democratization of metadata is simply the next, logical step in the spread of information.
And following on this, how do we decide which aspects deserve investment of time and money?
I think the first logical step in this new phase of information is that libraries should open up their catalogs, and by this I mean OCLC as well. Why do we have to so tightly control all this information? What an amazing resource for “mashups,” for example. Tim Berners-Lee talked about this recently in his talk at TED in 2010:













http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_worldwide.html








To be fair, library metadata might not be as useful as bike accidents, but I am sure people in the wider world will find uses for the metadata we in the library community have never thought of.
We truly need to find some way to integrate social tagging of “aboutness” and the juggernaut of LCSH. LCSH is so slow to change and grow that some form of integration between social tagging and a controlled vocabulary needs to be found. As a matter of fact, the amount of information in the world (as I read yesterday) is growing at such a fast rate that search engine bots and crawlers can’t even keep up - so how can LC be expected to keep up? Social sourcing is one way to help libraries and their information resources adapt to this world. I would say then that perhaps LC is not the best organization to head LCSH if this integration occurs. Imagine all the linked words and knowledge web type stuff if we could meld the two (semantic web?). And what should happen to all of this? It should be free to all, online. Of course, this precludes some form of organization and funding, which our profession is uniquely equipped to do - we advocate, we organize, and we connect people with information. This brings me to a bit of a soapbox that many librarians have trouble with (or so it seems to me) it is our job to share information (in any form) not hoard it, and through this we will stay relevant in the information age.
How do we evaluate the effects and utility?
I think we look at data usage - specifically, how is the data we create and share used by the larger world? Perhaps licensing the stuff we share through a Creative Commons license that requires attribution will help us to track usage while not abrogating the “fetter-free” access to the data we share.
Of course, you can also look at the raw data - hit-counts, page views, and such. But, as we all know this doesn’t really show user impact, and nor is it reflective of the broader purpose of libraries. To me this ties in with Dr. Lankes’ concept of Participatory Librarianship - using libraries to help people “make stuff.” To make the impact user centered, you have to look at the outcome, or the end product of the work enabled by libraries, or librarians.
Thinking about the various components of cataloging and catalog records individually, where is there the most promise for integration of social media: description, classification, subject headings, linking of works, expressions, manifestations and items?
Subject headings, as I mentioned before, are seemingly full of promise for integration with social media. I feel sure you read enough about this above, so I won’t say any more about it here.
Linking of works - The next major push online is the development of a semantic web of knowledge, where many things are linked to each other online, improving (in a way) collocation and classification of information on the internet. This also helps people to better understand terms and ideas, as they are presented in some sort of context, as opposed to the stand-alone model we see in the internet today. Of course, this can flow freely into our catalogs, but it can go other places as well from the catalog - IMDB, Dictionaries, Wikipedia, WolframAlpha, and many others.

Ok, that’s plenty - sorry I wrote so much! I am curious to know what you all think!

What’s Next: Cataloging

This week, I am writing a paper about the use of social tagging in library catalog records, and so cataloging and future changes and manifestations in that area are forefront on my mind. As I was going through my “blog topics” tagged items in Evernote this morning, I came across an article about cataloging horizons from ALA’s American Libraries Magazine. Here are some excerpts from that article:

Library catalogs have evolved over time as technology has changed. The last 150 years have seen a progression from book catalogs to cards, and eventually, to online catalogs. Each of these changes has provided new capabilities that can be adopted for improved user services. The next step in this evolution is on the horizon, and it will make possible some new and powerful capabilities for information seekers. Like the hypertextuality of the web, technology is being developed today that can help library catalogs become a rich web of data.

So what does this mean for libraries and library catalogs, who to my knowledge are responsible for the vast majority of metadata available in the world today?

To me, the overarching implication is that libraries can now ill-afford to live with their metadata in a vacuum. The way in which most library metadata (and if you want to know what I mean by metadata, click here) is presented and stored is, for most purposes, unusable by any other web-based standard. Of course, there are metadata standards which are web-friendly (DCMI, XHTML to name a few) but do libraries use them? Nope. We still for the most part use a standard which by today’s standards is a dinosaur, MARC. This format does not play well with other metadata standards, and so is practically unusable. In order to embrace the concepts and practices of the semantic web, libraries must implement metadata standards which conform to the broader standards of the information world. Yes, RDA and FRBR will assist in this, but if the metadata created through RDA is still in a MARC format, we really haven’t gotten anywhere, have we? As a whole, libraries need to move to a more web-friendly format for this idea of linked data and the semantic web in the catalog to really work.

Also, OCLC is going to have to open up the information it holds to the wider world. As you probably know, OCLC is the largest repository of bibliographic data in the world. Through the WorldCat.org interface, you can search 1.5 billion items stored on OCLC’s servers. If we are truly going to embrace this movement called the semantic web, OCLC must be willing to freely share that data.

However, I will talk more about shared, free data tomorrow. For now, I want to say that these are not the only things that libraries must consider in thinking about the semantic web, but only a couple of ideas that seem immediately apparent to me, but no one is talking about. What do you think about the semantic web? Have you seen it impacting your life and how you use information online? Let me know!

Library for a Writer (Library Design, 4)

As I remember, it was several months ago when my wife pointed out Andrew Berman’s Writing Studio and Library online. As with most of the “candidates” for the library design series, this one stuck with me until I was ready to write about it. Here’s a video about it:






http://www.vimeo.com/1696112









Of course the key difference in this, and the other libraries thus far in the series is that this library and studio was designed for one person, a historian, to do her research and writing. Even though there is a major difference there, the same principles apply to the overall design of the space.

As always, there is plenty of natural light, as you can tell from the massive window overlooking the woods (what a view)! i love the skylight up top as well, providing natural light from overhead, as we saw in Renzo Piano’s Morgan Library reading room. There is a large desk for working, as well as ample shelf space for books. I also really appreciate that the small space has a kitchen and a toilet, both essential to be (in a way) self sufficient.

I must confess, though, that the separate library space has always intrigued me since I first saw Philip Johnson’s separate library and studio, as well as Alberto Manguel’s separate library. I love the concept of a separate place for your books (especially if you work with them as part of your career) and a place for your “living.” For me, though, our books in some way are a reflection of who we are, and so have a rightful place in the home.

As I hinted at above, this space, even though it is for one person, shares the key traits of a “good” library space - natural light, and services close at hand. Naturally, being a private library, there is not a librarian on hand, as the writer serves as her own librarian.

What do you think about this space?

M. Diderot and Me

While at the Amon Carter Museum Library yesterday, I was asked to begin the process of cataloging one of the most amazing works in our collection: Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Here is an image of the title page, from Wikipedia:


This is the first of seventeen text volumes, which were published concurrently with eleven volumes of plates. The key distinction of the Encyclopédie is that it shows you how to do things, as well as dissecting complex items. Here is one of those wonderful illustrations:


Just how big is it? Well according to Wikipedia,
▪ 17 volumes of articles, issued from 1751 to 1765
▪ 11 volumes of illustrations, issued from 1762 to 1772
▪ 18,000 pages of text
▪ 75,000 entries
▪ 44,000 main articles
▪ 28,000 secondary articles
▪ 2,500 illustration indices
▪ 20,000,000 words in total
Print run: 4,250 copies (note: even single-volume works in the 18th Century seldom had a print run of more than 1,500 copies)

Ok, so it’s big and it’s old, but why is it so significant? Once again, from Wikipedia:

The Encyclopédie played an important role in the intellectual ferment leading to the French Revolution. "No encyclopaedia perhaps has been of such political importance, or has occupied so conspicuous a place in the civil and literary history of its century. It sought not only to give information, but to guide opinion," wrote the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. In The Encyclopédie and the Age of Revolution, a work published in conjunction with a 1989 exhibition of the Encyclopédie at the University of California, Los Angeles, Clorinda Donato writes the following:
“The encyclopedians successfully argued and marketed their belief in the potential of reason and unified knowledge to empower human will and thus helped to shape the social issues that the French Revolution would address. Although it is doubtful whether the many artisans, technicians, or laborers whose work and presence and interspersed throughout the Encyclopédie actually read it, the recognition of their work as equal to that of intellectuals, clerics, and rulers prepared the terrain for demands for increased representation. Thus the Encyclopédie served to recognize and galvanize a new power base, ultimately contributing to the destruction of old values and the creation of new ones.”
While many contributors to the Encyclopédie had no interest in radically reforming French society, the Encyclopédie as a whole pointed that way. The Encyclopédie denied that the teachings of the Catholic Church could be treated as authoritative in matters of science. The editors also refused to treat the decisions of political powers as definitive in intellectual or artistic questions. Given that Paris was the intellectual capital of Europe at the time and that many European leaders used French as their administrative language, these ideas had the capacity to spread.

First, please feel free to come by and check it out - it’s wonderful to see. Second, this is a great example of why I became a librarian - so that I could help people and get to see and use cool stuff, like the Encyclopédie!

Look for Jen’s Post Tomorrow!

Friends,

Jen has a great post in store tomorrow, so make sure you check it out! Here’s a kind of a preview, enjoy!











http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9iiaC7UOWk

Alice for the IPad: The Future?

Remember a few posts back, I mention that in the iPad, we might be seeing into the future of magazine publishing? This video will show you just a bit of what is possible with this new device and reading:


















This video really showcases what the iPad has over all other electronic-type readers: interactiveness. Until now, readers have just been another method for presenting that which we see in physical books - graphics and text. Other than convenience, there has been really nothing to differentiate books from their electronic counterparts.

Until now. (As I said above)

Of course, this is not the best example of what one can do with the iPad, merely a taste. This Alice in Wonderland book is an app, which is already a problem. Books of any kind should be managed through the books app, not through individual apps. However, I am getting ahead of myself. This being the first example of a book in a truly interactive format, we will see the genre and medium change and streamline over time. What a great way to interact with what we are reading, though! What do you think?

I still think I’d rather read a physical book, but this new format could push me to reading books in an electronic format. Just imagine a murder mystery like this!

Paper Records

Interesting fact...

...and interesting comments.  Check it out! 



What do you think about electronic medical records?