LIS 701 – Fall 2007 Discussion Blog

“Information R/evolution” provides an interesting spin on the idea of categorization of information, basically blowing up what some would consider antiquated ideas. The “box formula,” the idea that everything can be situated into containers with labels, pervades our society. While at times it may simply appeal to the obsessive compulsive nature in all of us to organize our lives in order to resist chaos, at other times it provides a truly useful way to seek and find – in the easiest way possible.

Google does not subscribe to the “box formula,” at least on the surface. One search box for nearly endless pages of results; that is their facade. Google gets its users (or, possibly, it defined them). They want the quickest route to the answer in the simplest manner possible. But do any slightly complex search using the one search box theory and that theory is proven to be a farce. Although Google does provide a fairly advanced search process, this would take work – something that the typical user isn’t accustomed to (or literate with) when it comes to searching. Sorry, but the user is broken – or at least an ill-trained information seeker.

I agree with Michael Wesch in that the user is finding ways to manipulate information to fit his or her needs, and these are simply new containers. Creating these new containers is also a proceeding step to finding the information, which most likely was done using a Google search. This is the typical user. The well trained user will search at Digg, at Flickr, at Fox News (gasp) in a wiser fashion to find information, and, if they’re adventurous enough, they’ll try an advanced search. The point is they have to find the information first before they can put it into containers (tags/keywords/Dewey if they want) – but they are all containers.

All of this container talk affects the Library in one way – the OPAC. There’s not a whole lot we can do with books because they’re tangible objects that can’t possibly be placed on two, three, six shelves at once; however, they can be tagged as such. Dewey/LOC is deficient in the fact that it doesn’t layer levels of categories like the user would expect/desire with an explicit tagging system. Unbeknownst to the user, subject headings (read tags) could be used as such a system, yet they lack the ability to be user created. If we open up the OPAC to integration with LibraryThing tags or something similar we give the user a sense of developing the containers and providing them with a sense of organizational equilibrium that they seek in their daily Internet lives. It’s useless to talk about disbanding the Dewey culture when in reality the user still wants their containers – they just want them their way.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend class last week so I missed what was said about the readings. However, I managed to watch the video link provided with the online discussion topic. After watching the video, I began to reminisce about how libraries were in the past, and it seemed unreal how much technology has changed the way libraries operate. Typewriters were replaced with computers; card catalogs were replaced with computer catalogs. It is amazing how much technology has influenced the libraries around me.

The digital age made its way but I didn’t begin to make use of the resources until I was almost done with my undergraduate degree. Why did it take me so long to adapt? Then I realized that the problem was that some librarians were not educating the user on the new technologies available to them through libraries via the net. Sometimes people don’t realize that they have an abundance of tools available to them and they don’t know how to search for them. Instead they would rather settle for a Google search. There is nothing wrong with Googling, but if there are other ways of retrieving the information more accurately I would prefer to learn how to do it that way.

We will continue to see libraries evolve into better facilities. We need to understand the tools that come along with the overflow of information so that we can use them to our advantages in our libraries. We are always searching for the most effective tool. Librarians should focus on the information seeking behaviors of their patrons and examine they way the libraries are being used. How do their patrons seek information and what are the tools that they are using. They need to pay closer attention to the people who are using the libraries and those who are not. Another thing to keep in mind is how can technology help promote the library and its services? Librarians must embrace all aspects of change and the way they collect and disseminate the information. Librarians need to focus on technology and how it will define the future of libraries.

What I noticed the second time around was the vote ‘08 pages — the stillness amidst the chaos. I took this video as literal call for an “Information Revolution” –politically. The freedom of the internet from censorship and taxation is a huge forthcoming political issue. In the Bush-Gore debates, Bush said, “We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries and filters in public schools so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in.” (http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000c.html) By whose standard of violence? What will the next administration deem unfit information for the public?

As far as Dewey is concerned, I think it’s all wet. I haven’t used it since grade school. When I went to a local public library I was irritated that all the biographies were in a seperate location and organized alphabetically. I thought it was so inefficient considering some people had nicknames and sobriquets and were filed accordingly. I actually didn’t know until class last week that Dewey was still being used. I thought everyone used Library of Congress except in the children’s section.

I was struck by this line from Wesch’s video, “Together we create more information than the experts.” I think Wesch is asking us to think about the new ways people are creating information on the Internet. Wikipedia represents this collaborative spirit. While Wikipedia has its detractors, it can’t be ignored as an information source. In one of the last lines of the video, Wesch challenges us to take responsibility to critique information that is produced in this revolution. In other words, librarians need to educate patrons about the advantages and disadvantages of using Wikipedia and other collaborative efforts on the Web. The video also made me think about blogging, which may be a more current and immediate form of communication in certain fields of study. Should librarians be “harnessing” this information and connecting patrons to it? (Harnessing is Wesch’s word.) I think that’s what he is asking us to do. I think we need to know how information is organized on the Internet and how to help patrons understand and use this information tool. This will require expanding the core values of librarianship to make information and technology a more pressing focus for all librarians. The core values as described in Rubin (pages 298-315) don’t place much emphasis on technology. The values listed include: service; reading and the book are important; respect for truth and the search for truth; tolerance; the public good; justice; aesthetics. Gorman has a list of core values and the Association of College and Research Libraries has a list of core values in Rubin’s book. I liked this line from the ACRL list: commitment to the use of appropriate technology. The ALA tried to adopt a list of core values but apparently couldn’t agree on one. Technology should be discussed under service and also the public good.

Being that information is to difficult to solidly define it should come as no surprise that it has taken and is taking on so many forms. I think it important to note that libraries haven’t always been simply books (scrolls, art) and that the evolution as been occurring long before “library” was used as a formal title. When discussing the profession with friends outside the MLS world I constantly find myself defending the need for librarians. I tell them, “well, there is information out there right?–And even more so with the onset of the Internet. SOMEONE has to organize it.” I feel that this video very much speaks to this defense, but goes beyond it with the recognition of the Internet’s constant and user-centered evolutionary process.

My biggest question now is if we can keep up? Can we document it all? Do we even need to? It is certainly obvious that we must utilize it and do our best to provide patrons access in the present and future.

The Dewey Decimal Classification certainly has its weak points since it was created in 1876. Dewey never could have imagined the amount or the various types of information we have access to today. However, I think that the DDC gives us a starting point for organizing information. It gives us the general categories to start with, but then it is up to the person to put it where they feel is right. In response to Kate about the biographies being in different locations, I feel that the librarian should have put them in one common section. We have our biographies under 921. It makes it easier for the patron as well as the staff. Many people come in wanting a biography on someone but don’t know who they want to read. It is easy to give the person one section and tell them it by the person’s last name. This is why DDC needs to be a guide point, not the be all and end all.

We live in a society today that wants everything as fast as possible. Fast food sometimes is not fast enough and the same goes for information. We don’t want to wait days before we receive the materials we need to write our papers. Instead, we go online and Google it or search databases and have the information at our fingertips. I think that in order to keep up with society, we need to disburse the information in the quickest and easiest way possible. This means that it needs to be a collaborative effort in order to gain various viewpoints say that in turn we can best serve the patrons.

Are we proposing a major change in infrastructure? It seems as though there are some that gravitate toward LCC, some dig Dewey, and some may prefer the “Bookstore” approach. I don’t think there is a way to unify everyone with one classification system. If we were to endeavor to devise a singular system, we will simply splinter devotees of established systems, and that new system will fade into obscurity. Does anyone remember Esperanto—the universal language that was designed to dissolve the language barrier?

In a world of “keyword” searches, where any number of words within a document can act as a classifier, the systems of Dewey and LoC seem woefully cumbersome. Are we even considering the application of Dewey and LCC to the internet? Would it be more efficient to keep the two separate? Would it be elitist to say that only those things press-publication worthy will be classified. As we are “creating more information than the experts”, we may also be creating content noise that would need to be filtered for quality. Would this be the new job of the librarian—to verify the content?

Changing gears, in honor of Halloween, I looked up a book I recently read: “The Serpent and the Rainbow”. At one point, the book was marketed as a zombie “how to”, and I found it in the Occult section of a bookstore. But would the subject of Haitian Voodoo make it an appropriate Religion selection? The author was an Ethnobotanist, so Anthropology? Botany? His expedition was in the interest of pharmacology, so Science/ Medicine? Everyone’s going to have their own opinion of how things should be arranged. Should we instead focus on how our containers are managed—a brick and mortar library being one, the internet being another?

Michael Wesch’s video “information Revolution” brings up some interesting issues about how we organize information. He makes a good point that the old rules don’t really apply anymore. I agree that the ways we access and organize information on the internet are completely different and we have to be able to think outside the box. The challenge is teaching the public how to do that. Librarians have always tried to provide patrons with all the tools they need to acquire information whether it’s via books, microfiche or databases. This will be just another challenge for them. It appears that some libraries are already moving that way with library websites set up with federated search engines, blogs and tag clouds. As technology changes (and it changes all the time), libraries and librarians have to be ready to change with it.
As far as the core values are concerned, I don’t think the evolution of information really changes anything. Perhaps we could enhance them by adding a section on information and the use of technology but it would have to be pretty general because technology keeps changing.
In response to the Dewey issue, I have to vote in favor of keeping it around. I think it does a pretty good job of categorizing information. Is it perfect? No, but until we can come up with a new and better way of organizing information we’re stuck with it.

Each library has a duty to provide access to information in the most appropriate and useable formats possible in deference to its users. A public library in a small rural community has different users than the college academic library located in the same area. The users of both of these libraries have very different needs and wants. The college library is obviously geared toward adult students searching for information in the academic arena and most likely have the technological skills to take advantage of a more complex interface to retrieve information.

The budgets of these libraries also have to be taken into account when addressing installing or making interface changes. The college library may have funds to keep their library up to date. Most public libraries probably do not have the cash to change their entire catalog system to do away with the DDS and install an entire new format. If a future cataloging system emerges and proves itself to be reliable and becomes affordable, I am sure that system will be installed/instituted in public libraries.

All of these new innovations and ideas being presented in our readings and suggested by classmates in our discussions/blogs/commenteries in some way will no doubt become future realities in the arena of cataloging, searching, grouping/linking information as it is absolutely true that libraries of all kinds have to evolve in the area of information retrieval in the real world of ever-changing technolgy. It will just be a matter of time, as various innovative systems are tested and proved, and of course, it’s a matter of money. When will these new innovative systems be deemed proven to last for a long enough time to merit the out put of dollars necessary to install in the libraries, to train the librarians in its use and also to train the users?

I think in a lot of ways, we are doing no more than our predecessors in the library field. Even though it seems like we are throwing out the old in favor of the new, to make it easier for the public to find the information, isn’t that the same thing people thought of the then radical changes proposed by Cutter and Dewey? In so many ways we are the new innovators trying to figure out better ways to organize the information of today, but in so many ways we are also following the paths blazed by our predecessors in the field. The question of the internet being a great resource, is valid, I myself use the internet extensively for research and prefer to find the information myself. Kids of today don’t care what format they find information and as a future librarian, I don’t care what format they receive the information as long as the information they receive is credible. That is the problem with the internet and, to some extent sites like Wikipedia where the public is allowed to make changes to the site unchecked. We need to still do our due diligence to decide if we can trust the information we see on the internet and we need to figure out if the information we see there is actually credible. As librarians, our responsibility is not to reject new technology, (all things we now take for granted were new technology once, as were things we have since allowed to fall by the wayside as obsolete,) our responsibility is to act as a guide to help the public utilize the available information to the best of their ability. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind from the video is the parting question of if we are ready for the future of technology. I think that is a mute point. It does not matter if we are ready for the future of technology, we are constantly adapting and integrating technology as it comes out. The biggest question we need to answer is how are we going to ensure that the information available in digital form now will be there for future generations? I am confident that the technology to preserve information for the future is just around the corner. I do not think that libraries should wait until technology is deemed incorruptible and unchangeable before utilizing the most up to date technology they can afford.

Laura-

Care to share said blog?

In all of the excitement about the CHANGING way our information is organized, I fail to see the improvements in the new and restrictions in the old. To think of a traditional library as a room of shelves and paper is selling Dewey or LC short. These are well established and understandable and navigable systems of organizing our information. Its not like we were just throwing a bunch of stuff on the shelf and making the user dig for it. And certainly, the organization of digital information can take more forms and it takes less space, but I see our real challenge making this information understandable to those that need it – not just plentiful and hip. If in a transition to the digital library of the future we have benefited ourselves by creating another system for us to administer, and left the public lost then we haven’t succeeded.