2.0 and the Library

I think that all too often librarians believe that the more web 2.0 applications evolve and are used the more marginalized library organizational structure will become. I think that web 2.0 developers are unaware of the insights and knowledge that the field of library science has accumulated over the years regarding the organization, dissemination, use, and categorization of information. Librarians need to take the responsibility upon themselves to be proactive teachers and communicators regarding the skills and insights they have in this area. At the same time they can not be adverse to modifying organizational philosophy and standards based on the implementation and effective use of web 2.0 technologies. I believe that some of the great challenges surrounding moving to a more seamless information sharing type of environment can be worked out by the librarians who are great thinkers in the philosophy and study of information organization. Lets take some time to accept that these technologies are here to stay and take the opportunity we have to add valuable input and ideas for how this web 2.0 can work to better serve society.

Technology: not so bad after all

As we come to the end of the semester I would like to in an un-organized quasi-list fashion go through what I have learned about emerging computer web technologies and I do think that this class was a real help to me. I now feel MUCH more comfortable in this ever changing environment and more than that, I am interested to continue to improve my knowledge in these areas and stay up with new advancements. Its kind of like now that I am aware all this is going on, I have to keep up. So lets see what I can list that have learned about or used this semester that I either had not attempted before or did not realize the value and possible library related applications of:

Of course Wikis, Blogging, Technocrati, Del.icio.us, widgets, flash, rss aggregators, Process maps, page organization, bubbleshare, tutorials, pod casting, photo share, music share, webcasts, page design, usability testing, PMBOK, API (still a little confused here), and how could I leave out bligits.

When I signed up for this class I did not know what to expect, but I was frustrated that there was all this buzz about web 2.0 applications and the term was just as elusive as it was frustrating. Now I still feel it is a bit elusive, but that does not frustrate me any more and I readily accept the fact that new technology will always be emerging and there will always be something new and exciting to learn. I think this will make me a better librarian and I can tell it already has.
Thanks to my classmates for all the neat things you shared in class and thanks to Dr. Ball for taking the plunge with all this technology and helping us all along.

Web Reserach: a collaborative solution

As team members located in separate offices, we had a challenge of conducting a large amount of research on the web and did not have the luxury of time to be duplicating each other's work. At first we tried to set up work stations in the central office and designate time in the afternoons to come over and work on the project; but this proved infeasible because of the workloads of team members. Secondly, we tried having the project manager send out a document with designated areas for team members to work on, and team members would send the updates to the project manager at the end of the day. Although this solution seemed fine at the outset, it proved to be terribly inefficient. Why? Even with predesignated areas of the document to work on, team members were duplicating each other's work left and right. The problem was that the web pages being researched had bits and pieces of information that pertained to several different sections of the document. As a result, the same link was being saved multiple times in the master document and this was creating an organizational problem. After experiencing these issues for several days, one of the team members suggested looking into trying out collaborative link sharing on the web to update the links. The project manager was open to trying this out and the team got together and mapped out the tagging conventions and organizational structure of how the links would be listed and the site was subscribed to. As team members began adding tagged links in and got used to working with the software, the benefits of using this program for our particular tasks was immediately evident. As long as team members were on the same page with tagging conventions and categorization, it worked great. If a team member came across a link that was relevant to the project, they would proceed by initiating the tagging process. If the page had already been tagged, the team member could see this immediately. The team member would then review the tags and place a tag for the particular information piece that was important to their section on the master document and update the page. This helped move the project on more quickly and efficiently and the project manager liked the fact that she could update from anywhere, including while travelling or sitting at home on the couch!

Web research: a collaborative dilemma

The past few weeks we have been working on a particular project which has required myself and a few other team members from separate offices working on separate servers to conduct research on the web. For the purpose of the job we have also been asked to save the the links to relevant pages that we find and place those links in a categorized document. Well, we began to talk about how we were going to update this document with each team member working from different offices and off of different servers. Some of the questions being asked by team members were: How would we divide up the work? How would we keep from duplicating looking for information that had already been linked in. How could we keep up with the progress of the different team members with out asking for regular e-mail updates. We threw around the idea of having IT set up a few extra work stations at the central office so team members could come over in the afternoons to work on the project. We actually tried this for a few days, but it just proved to be to difficult. The schedules and workloads of team members did not make it easy to just pick up in the afternoons and leave your work environment for a different office where you could not monitor e-mail or be available for the countless last minute tasks that arise in the profession. We then looked at having the project manager e-mail out the research document and each person would work on their designated part of the document from their office and e-mail their updates to the project manager at the end of the day. At the onset of this strategy, it looked like e-mailing updated documents to the project manager would work okay, but as it turned out the nature of the research made this method terribly inefficient and although we were assigned different sections of the document to work on we were still duplicating each others work left and right.... To find out why we were duplicating each others work what we decided to do, tune in to the next post.

Usability Testing

One of the assignments we are in the process of completing for our Library Systems class is a combined usability test for our Wiki page. Although originally there was some confusion as to how each member of the team was to contribute to the design of the test, it looks like they are beginning to come together quite well. Before working on this usability test, I had not had the opportunity to create a test for a technology system and it was a good learning experience. I think that four things in particular were of benefit in learning about usability testing:
Class lecture: Obviously Dr. Ball has been around several thousand usability tests of technology systems and her experience tells us that librarians have a rich history in the world of usability testing and we can use what we have learned over the years to be leaders in this area.
The textbook: The textbook had recent examples of usability tests designed for Library Web pages and it was helpful to read further about the theory applied and get to see some examples of different tests for different types of library sites. Of course it was helpful to work through the book and gain a better understanding of the thought process that goes into usability testing.
Doing your own test: Making up your own test, although it is not as realistic in terms of a finished product in the business environment, I thought it was a great starting point because it allowed the individual to work through some of the challenges before coming together with ideas for the group.
Group effort: This is the most rewarding part of putting the test together because, each member has good insight and ideas to add, and collectively a library systems team can create a pretty good usability test for a library site.

Shareware

One of the major themes in my library systems class this semester is using technology to enhance collaboration. In class we have talked about this as it relates to some of the Web 2.0 capabilities such as Wiki, Blogs and RSS. For me it seems that between work and school, I am getting to experience the whole realm of collaborating via technology.

Now that our company has split in two, we have gone to an e-version of our quality control process in order to allow people working on the same project in the two offices to complete their work without having to drive the paper work back and forth. In order to do this, file sharing software has been set up and a central file is created for each job where each member of the team logs in to access their particular file for work. In order to maintain the integrity of the original work file, each member has been instructed to use a converted version imaging file and make changes to that. At the end of the process the project owner incorporates the changes to the original document.

We have been using this system for about a month now and it is going okay, but as with any new technology implementation, not without glitches. For example, there is an e-routing form attached to each project where the individual who completes a given task then sends the form to the next person on the list notifying them that they can begin their particular function. Several times, this routing system has failed and the progress of the job essentially gets lost in cyberspace. This proved to be stressful the other week when we realized two large jobs that were due ASAP had been lost in the routing process for over a week and had not been touched.

I think what I am learning through my class and work this fall is collaborative technology can be a good service, but the people involved need to maintain a good control over the systems being used or strange things can happen.

Wiki Org

The past week our class wiki project team has been more involved in building the structure for our project wiki. This is my first experience with putting a wiki page together and it has been a good learning experience to go through this process. I must say that I am pleased that some aspects of our page are beginning to come together as it seemed for a while that we were at a standstill in terms of actually getting something "down on paper" ...... so to speak.

One of the challenges we have encountered as a team is that we are setting up a page for separate schools within a large university. These schools' needs are so vastly different and the information required to fill these needs comes in different quantities and forms. It has become a nice challenge to meet the information request from the schools and at the same time produce a wiki page that is straightforward and uniform to a point. I think these are good challenges to deal with in a class environment because the work force is becoming the same way and librarians are confronting these issues in almost every type of library environment.

Going back to the wiki we are working on -- it seems that more often than not when working with technology, the small un-anticipated glitches throw me for a loop. I was putting the categories in my page the other day and had them set uniformly for each school I was working with. Although I had the same category names for each school, I needed a separate page within each school for each category. The wiki code looked at the category names and linked each school to the same page if the category was named the same. Anyway, stuff you don't anticipate.

Systems overload

For me, this week has been full of excitement in the world of technology systems. Between work and school, one would think that databases, software, and information systems are my best friends. I think if I calculated the amount of time I spend using technology systems one would have to agree that it far outweighs the time I spend on anything else. So, if this is the case, why do I still feel like I have such little grasp on the world of technology and the systems involved. I was thinking about this last night while I looked around my room, where I do NOT have a computer. As looked at the books in my room, I realized I am not much of a tech person at heart. This does not mean that I am uncomfortable with technology or have a dislike for it, I just don't get too excited about jumping into it and studying the finer points of the art. I wonder if there is a place for people like me who see its value and work with it regularly; but just don't have a strong desire to transform themselves into a tech junkie. I think one of the things I have learned and get a bit more excited about is the wonderful advantages some of the new technologies out there can add for collaboration in any field of study. Also for librarians, we need to be focused on best serving our communities and getting the information to them in the most user friendly and efficient manner possible. I guess this semester I have been bombarded at work and school with new technologies and systems; maybe I was just fighting the inevitable by not being as open to technology as I should have been earlier. I'll probably be better off once the dust clears a bit, I just feel like I'm in the middle of it right now.

KMS on steroids

Technology and data; data and technology. Collect data, manage data, evaluate data, represent data, personalize data, manipulate data, display data, organize data, store data, track data, graph data, compile data........
This week I have been involved in looking at a knowledge management system service provider that is being considered for taking the place of our database and intranet including the e-library page on the intranet. This system -- as it claims to be -- resembles a juiced up version of our existing databases and intranet combined. The company that is selling this service says this system can do it all. It is able to allow multi-level access to multiple outside parties. It would allow individual participants to create and manage personalized information portfolios. It would be able to serve as a collaborative space for project creation, design, implementation and management. It would house a resource library where links and relevant digitized information pieces are stored. It would be able to analyze all important data for our projects in a customizable fashion. The list goes on and on! How do I feel about this. My first impression is the database developers are overstating the capabilities of the system. They have been able to give a capabilities presentation and the features they present look good, but I still believe presentations can be misleading. During the presentation, the developer maintains complete control of the program and any information used is maintained and generated by them. Thankfully, people in our Web and IT departments feel the same way and are requesting a more detailed and tailored trial phase before we sign on the dotted line. Regardless, it was very interesting to view the capabilities and interactive features built into this KMS system and it may be a wondrful tool for our particular data and information needs. If we do being to use this, the librarian would be resposible for keeping the resource library current with project specific articles, informational links and resources. We will see what happens.

Citing the digital age

Recently, I have been paying close attention to the many formats, styles, and methods used to cite references in journal articles and textbooks. In fact, habitually, when reading an article or chapter I will read the abstract or introduction and go directly to the bibliography. There is something to be appreciated about a well referenced work; and truly, if you can find one great one that is well referenced, you may have in your hands hours of already completed research on your topic. Not to mention, if you are not familiar with your topic, you may be able to identify some of the seminal works associated. Going back to my title, I just picked up a copy of the 2007 AMA Manual of Style . This manual of style was updated this year after almost ten years! Needless to say, the types of information being cited have changed dramatically over the past 10 years. In fact, in terms of how to cite a work; decisions have become more complicated. First of all, if you were hoping to have a good, clean looking bibliography with authority given to a proper name and a five to ten word title -- you can forget about it. The URL has effectively destroyed aesthetic value of the bibliography. I find myself constantly struggling with the dilemma of adding or leaving out the URL. Of course, with a Web ref you don't really have a choice, but journal articles can be referenced just fine without having to include the URL. But then again, if it is not included, I am obviously not including a direct access channel to that piece of information. Half-heartedly, I make my decision to include URL's on open access articles and try to get used to citations ranging from 2 - 10 lines of text! Like a good style manual, the AMA manual devotes several pages to dealing with all kinds of new formats of information. It addresses identifying ownership for web pages, listing on-line conference proceedings, full on-line databases, on-line newspapers, and yes listserves. Anyway, for the citation expert, there are all kind of new challenges out there. Citations remain as important and helpful as ever, and serve the research process in several ways. Oh yes, the nice people at OCLC via WorldCat will even do the formatting for you!

APA
Iverson, C. (2007). AMA manual of style: a guide for authors and editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chicago (Author-Date)
Iverson, Cheryl. 2007. AMA manual of style: a guide for authors and editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harvard
IVERSON, C. (2007). AMA manual of style: a guide for authors and editors. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

MLA
Iverson, Cheryl. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Turabian
Iverson, Cheryl. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Transition

The Bridges article dealing with managing transition brought up what I thought was an interesting point regarding how western culture is so in a state of flux that often it transitions from one thing to another without taking the time to look at or contemplate what it is transitioning from. If libraries and librarians see this as a time of major transition, it would be worth our while to take a good look at where we have been and how we have traditionally defined ourselves. By taking the time and effort to do this, I believe we can identify some important traits and attributes we have been cultivating for years that will further enable us to transition into our new roles in this age of prolific electronic information. If librarians can look at the skills of organization, storage, description, and service honed over the years and learn to mold them to work in this new season, there will be plenty of opportunities for librarians to play a vital role in this culture. Every once in a while I get the feeling that we view the traditional library values and skills as fading away with the hard copy book. While I believe that we need to re-define values and develop new skill sets, I think we have a good foundation to build from – not to throw completely out the door. Going back to the article on being successful in transition, it is important that time is taken to concretely reflect on where we have been and make a good effort to mold where we are going from our foundation. By doing this, we will have a clear vision of who we are and where we want to go.

Highlighting Professor Marcia Zeng

A few months ago I read an article from the Journal of Internet Cataloging that detailed an interview with Kent State Professor Marcia Zeng. I thought it would be neat to share a bit of Marcia Zeng's experience based on information gathered from this interview.
Professor Zeng first became interested in library science post Chinese cultural revolution in 1977. In China during this period admission rates to the universities were about 4%; she was fortunate to be accepted into one of two library science schools in the country. She became interested in the study of information retrieval languages and worked on projects such as the Index for Chinese Library Classification and the Chinese Classified Thesaurus. In 1988 she came to the United States after being accepted into the University of Pittsburgh's SLIS PhD program. She continued to focus her study on information retrieval and knowledge organization. After receiving her doctorate, she accepted a position at Kent State's School of Library and Information Science. She has been at Kent State for the past 12 years and has published many papers in her field. At the end of the interview, Professor Zeng is asked about her vision of future trends in digital librarianship. She has a firm belief that the Semantic Web is the next generation of communication. She also states that the leaders and practitioners of the Semantic Web have used (or borrowed) fundamentals of library and information science; especially KOS theories and practices. What does this mean to the library schools? Professor Zeng sees this as a great challenge and wonderful opportunity. Her advice to library schools would be to make sure the courses and curriculum are up-to-date, challenging, and (most importantly) cover theory and current practical applications. To her, librarians working with information and systems are not dealing with the "same wine in a new bottle". She states, "New types of information sources introduce many new issues. The information itself is different in its granularity and the technology it requires." Based on this, our great challenge rests in how librarians are going to better serve users in this new electronic learning environment.

Perkins, J. Marcia Zeng, PhD: from indexing to knowledge organization systems, one woman's journey across the globe and into the future of library and information science. Journal of Internet Cataloging. 2004;7(2):9-18.

This article detailed a very interesting and accomplished individual in Professor Marcia Zeng. I was inspired by her story coming out of the Chinese cultural revolution to a career in library science. Hers is an expertise that is remarkably challenging and on the front lines in this age of information. Library Science needs leaders such as her to help define the librarian's role in the coming years.

Pyramids of stone

The last few weeks I have been hit squarely by the world of technology. I can’t say I had no idea it was coming, but I still have been left a bit shell shocked from the force of the blow. As we stand today, I know I have a lot of work ahead of me in order to get to a place where I feel I am up to speed with the technologies needed to be effective at work and school. I am putting some serious weight on the classes I have this semester to help me become more aware of the technologies available for library use and also would like to be able to use what I have learned in class at work. If I had to make a correlation as to how I feel regarding the world of technology this moment, I believe the best one I can make is how I felt a few years ago when I first began working in a medical library setting. At that time, I had a degree in psychology and limited experience in medicine outside of some basic neuroscience. The prospect of trying to get a general grasp of good information seeking skills in the broad realm of medicine seemed a daunting task. So, at this point I feel a bit like getting a good grasp on the world of technology is going to be a daunting task, but I think my experience in medicine gives me more confidence that with consistency and hard work, I can become proficient enough to use the proper technologies available in order to benefit the users in my library. When thinking about the challenge ahead, a favorite poem by H. W. Longfellow called the Ladder of St. Augustine inspires me.

These two stanzas definitely speak to how I feel:

“The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise”