Monthly Archives: May 2007

Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change; a review

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Crawford, Walt. Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change. A Cites & Insight Book, 2007.

I read this book last Wednesday – Friday. In many ways it was like curling up with an old friend. I had read versions of some of the chapters and smaller sections in Cites & Insights, perhaps some of the ideas on Walt at Random, and had read many of the posts from which the citations come in their original form. That said, there was still plenty new here along with the previous disparate ideas being tied together into a coherent whole.

Audience

The audience for this book is anyone interested in the strength—present and future—of libraries; public, academic, school and special. The book definitely belongs in every library that supports an LIS school. Quite possibly, it belongs in every library.

Public libraries with the means to do so might consider providing copies to their board members. Libraries (of any sort) with enough staff to do so could consider having a reading/discussion group around it. Staff in libraries too small to do so can certainly find value in it. That is, there is value for anyone interested in libraries in these times of rapid change. [Although rapid change has probably always been the case in libraries—for the last 150 years anyway.]

But it’s self-published blog, er, stuff!

Let me try and counter one possible objection right now. Some folks may be prejudiced due to the fact that this is a self-published, print-on-demand book. That is simply silly; especially in this case. Crawford is well aware that this was an experiment from the start (16). I, for one, think it is a successful book, but only Walt Crawford can determine if it is a successful experiment.

Walt Crawford is one of the highest cited authors in the LIS literature for the period 1994-2004 based on a study recently cited in College & Research Libraries. I have no doubt this would be the same if one were to shift a few years either way. Assuming that there is some valid reason why he is one of the highest cited authors in our field, it should not matter whether this book is self-published or not. Clearly, many have found value in his writings.

A second possible objection is that the majority of sources cited are from blogs. Oh my gosh! From what? While I, myself, am sometimes critical of the biblioblogosphere, this book would serve as a valuable introduction to library and library-related blogs for the vast majority of librarians who are unaware of them or, at least, uninvolved with them. While we sometimes seem to be speaking only to ourselves, there is much of value being said out here. Sometimes we even manage to have a conversation. No matter where these conversations happen, library staff need to be involved in them. This book is one possible entry into them.

Reviewer qualifications, or lack thereof

In a couple of ways, I am not really suited to review this book. This does not mean that I am unentitled to an opinion or that I cannot find value in it. My situation only means that others may be better situated to comment on its primary value. So be it.

There are many ways to interact with this book, and diverse messages to take from it, as well as different uses in which to put it. As I said, much of this material is not new to me. But the overall structure and coherence is. I found that valuable. I have no idea how the book will strike those not currently involved in the biblioblogosphere. I can only hope that they will follow the author’s advice and follow some of these conversations in full.

The other reason, besides my closeness to much of the material, for my being poorly qualified to review this book is that I am currently in no real position to recommend or implement much of anything that might lead to balance in “my library.”

This is not to imply that I am voiceless or powerless in my job. That would be to greatly misspeak on my part. My student status does not lead to a total neutering. [And both the author and I claimed the audience is anyone who cares about libraries.] I only mean to imply that I have had a limited amount of time to understand the workings of “my library.” In fact, the question immediately arises, “What exactly is my library?” On one hand, it is pretty much the entirety of the whole UIUC Libraries. On the other, that is simply silly. I cannot know much about the whole thing and, in fact, know little about much of it. At best probably, I can look within Content Access Management (cataloging and more). Even that, though, is far larger than my gaze at the moment.

In other words, it is easy for me to read this book because I do not have any real needs to address at the moment. I can merrily read along at a good clip and think, “Great question! Could raise some interesting answers, in practice.” And so on. But I don’t have to answer any of them right now. And that is the hard job. In other words, if you need this book then it ought to take you a lot longer to “read” it than I took.

“Negatives”

Let me point out a couple faults before I get into the book proper. The index is not the best, although I have seen worse. The author has asked that I take him to task for it, but I’m not sure I can. So far I have had little need to use the index and although I have been trained to evaluate indexes (or indices, if you prefer) I don’t see the need to get all empirical here. I have a feeling that there may be some folks who did not get all of their citations indexed. I could be wrong but it seems like Steve Oberg/Family Man Librarian had more than one mention. There are others that seem as if they should have more index entries possibly.

As I said on my own blog as I was reading the book:

My only small gripe (so far) is that while the UI Current LIS Clips does show up in the index, neither Sue Searing or Karla Stover Lucht do, although they do in the text (54). Of course, if I didn’t know these folks personally I probably would not be looking them up. A very small gripe, though.

This was the comment which caused the author to suggest that a reviewer ought to take him to task for the index.

The only other issue with the book that I found is that chapter 11 is poorly edited in spots; although these are all minor issues and do not detract from one’s understanding at all. They are generally small formatting issues: lack of a subsection heading being bolded, a footnote not being superscripted, etc. Again, very minor detractions. Has anyone read any book from MIT Press lately? Now there is some poor editing!

Content

This book is, thankfully, not a self-help book. [Of course, that whole category is an oxymoron. How can a book help itself?]

There are no easy answers here. There are some easy questions; but only a few. Most of the questions are more middling to hard if you actually need to answer them. And if you need a consensus answer then just shift a little more to the hard end.

In fact, there may not even be any answers in the book. The answers can only come through an honest look at your library and its communities’ situations. This is not meant to diminish the book’s contents at all. If you actually expected to find the answer(s) in a book then you may well be in the wrong business.

What this book does offer are many of the questions and some thoughts and discussions around those questions that can help you discover the answers for you and your library’s situation. That is the best any book can do. And Balanced Libraries does that quite well.

  • The book is in 6 or so implicit parts. The first part (ch. 1) gives an overview of balance and how the book came about. It also provides an outline for the rest of the book.
  • Part 2 (ch. 2-4) addresses patron-orientation (and not just to the select), library as place, and existing collections and services.
  • Part 3 (ch. 5-8) is on barriers to change: time and energy, generational generalizations, push back from patrons and staff and why it may not just be blind resistance, and naming and shaming.
  • Part 4 (ch. 9-13) covers more positive aspects of change: extension and improvement of existing services and systems, new services, storytelling and conversation (marketing), competition and cooperation, and assessment and relating those successes and failures to the larger library community.
  • Part 5 (ch. 14) is about how the library worker themselves can achieve a healthy balance in their lives. It is hard to have a balanced library without balanced library workers.
  • Part 6 (ch. 15) “Change and Continuity” is the conclusion.

I found this to be a well-balanced book on a theme which cuts across many factors that are impacting libraries and library workers (and their communities) of all sorts today.

Despite my few caveats above as to my qualifications to review this books true usefulness, I think that there are few libraries or library workers who would not benefit from reading this book and thinking about its application to their situations. Perhaps we ought to have a “One City, One Book” type reading and discussion group in the library community centered on this book.

A (small) secondary benefit of this book is that is may introduce many a library worker to some fine writing and conversations that happen here in the biblioblogosphere [and, yes, that is an ugly word!]

I guess I ought to add the disclaimer that I have been quoted in this book. When the author first posted the list of who all were cited I was semi-concerned [C&I 7(4) pdf]. “Oh boy! Did Walt catch me saying something silly?” Well, I’m happy to say that I am quite pleased with what he did use. And even though I may have said something about a few of the topics covered in the book, I am pleased to serve a small purpose in the chapter on terminology, shaming and confrontation. Those topics fit in especially well with my thoughts and concerns with “professionalism.”

Nonetheless, I bought my own copy (as it should be) and just as I expect Walt to tell me when I’m wrong, off-base, silly or whatever I know he expects the same.

Read this book!

Book reviews are not really my thing and I wish I could have written a better one. But at least I think it is balanced, and that seems appropriate.

8 supposedly random things about me

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Not tagged as far as I know but will play along anyway.

1. Having recently been “syndicated” in 2 places (that I’m aware of) [1][2], I don’t really know how I feel about this.**
[My last name is misspelled at one of them, but that is anything but random.]

2. I need an interview suit.

3. I really dislike shaving. And I don’t care much for beards.

4. The top 3 artists in my collection by number of CDs are: Ella Fitzgerald, Ani DiFranco, and Lambchop.

5. I dislike the orthography of “dependant.” I know the dictionary says it’s fine, but I still think it looks ugly.

6. I had an hour-long massage today. Been way too long.
btw, my massage therapist has been doing this a long time and she considers my back to be the toughest she has ever met. Not exactly a compliment. :(

7. Went to a meeting. Did my duty and wrote it up. Got invited to be on a “hot topic” panel at ALA. Pretty random.

8. If I wasn’t going to be out of town this Friday I could have had lunch with somebody I said I wanted to punch.
[That was just a metaphorical punch, btw. Oh well, hopefully soon. Eat your heart out, Tracy. ;) ]

** In my quest for brevity I wasn’t as clear as I’d have liked to be. I am honored to be included with many of the folks on both of these lists. It’s just that I don’t think of my blog as a “cataloging blog” or a “coder blog” or even a “library blog.” It’s just (part) of me and, as some of you know, I am trying to stitch my life together. You will find shades of all sides of me here: the goofball, the word lover, the philosopher, the cataloger, the desirer, the depressive, the patriot, the protester, the father, the student, the reader, the music lover, the friend, the “32 flavors and then some.” Seeing as I’m still not sure how I feel about blogging, it’s pretty simple that I don’t know how I feel about being in other places. But I do appreciate it.

Another WP upgrade

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Now that I have my PowerBook back and somewhat restored I have upgraded my WordPress install.

I have also added a few new things on the sidebar for your (or perhaps my) convenience, including recent comments and a category drop down box. I also added a text box to put various quotes (“Words of Wisdom”) in as I feel like it, but I don’t like the “styling.” In fact, there is no styling since it is completely ignoring line breaks/paragraphs. Anyone had any luck styling the text box?

As usual, please let me know if you find anything wonky.

Some things read this week, 20 – 26 May 2007

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Sunday, 20 May

Harris, Roy. The Language Machine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Read chap. 4-5, but over 2 separate occasions.

Jacob, Elin K. “Communication and Category Structure: The Communicative Process as a Constraint on the Semantic Representation of Information.” Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 4. Proceedings of the 4th SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 56th ASIS Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH, October 24, 1993. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 1995: 81-99.

I was excited to read this based on some of my recent readings via David Bade, as it makes use of Grice, Wittgenstein and others as it takes on the “classical theory” of categories and standard theories of communication. In the end, it was rather disappointing. It was of some value, though, as it provided me a bit more familiarity with some of these ideas.

Relies heavily on psychology and although it mentions a recent research program (1993) it barely mentions it. There is also really nothing to directly tie the ideas into LIS and especially to classification. Poorly proof-read and the content is somewhat repetitive and a tad rambling.

categories, communication, classical theory of categories, essential features, intension, extension, family resemblances, Wittgenstein, Grice, Putnam, reference, causal theory of reference, psychological essentialism, Saussure, Shannon and Weaver, Sperber and Wilson, conduit metaphor, Cooperative Principle, cognitive constraints, Chomsky, Freyd, graded typicality effects

Paglia, Camille. Break, blow, burn. 2005. Read:

Emily Dickinson, “The Soul Selects Her Own Society.”

William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming.”

Lakoff, George. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, ch. 16

Monday, 21 May

Soergel, Dagobert. “The Many Uses of Classification: Enriched Thesauri, Ontologies, and Taxonomies.” In Efthimis N. Efthimiadis, ed. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 12: Proceedings of the 12th ASIST SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 64th Annual ASIST Meeting, November 2-8, 2001, Washington, DC. Medford, NJ: Information Today, c2004: 1-28.

This is a great intro article to (some of) the ideas of Terminology Services. It gives a clear exposition of the uses of thesauri and the potential benefits to users in the computing environment in which we find ourselves. I wrote on the paper when I finished it that it is an “Excellent “starter” article.”

It lists 7 areas where thesauri can be of immense value, but only covers the first 6 due to space limitations.

  1. Convey meaning, orientation, and structure. Definitions.
  2. Provide rich relationships. Give facts.
  3. Support exploration and browsing, creativity, problem solving, planning, and design, both individual and collaborative.
  4. Support knowledge-based assistance for indexing and searching, behind the scenes or collaboratively with the user.
  5. Link to thesaurus entries from text. Link from one thesaurus into others. Construct an integrated access system to many thesauri.
  6. Assist users in maintaining their own thesauri. Collaborative development and maintenance of thesauri.
  7. Support semantic structure and processing, for example by agents, to unburden users from many task (as in the Semantic Web) (Figure 2., p. 2)

Discusses display issues throughout, providing examples where possible. In fact, the article is much shorter than the page length suggests due to so many illustrations.

Some of the comments that really stuck with me:

Knowledge organization systems (thesauri, classifications, ontologies, etc.) can do much more than support indexing and searching. They can help people to explore a domain, make creative connection between concepts, and solve problems (20). [Hell yeah! These are the sorts of things I want to facilitate by working in this area.]

Many users keep their own information systems. Actually just keeping track of email, bookmarks, files, and such becomes a problem. So users need their own personalized thesauri just to mange their own information. … Users would be well served by a system that, … puts together the results in a draft thesaurus, and then assists the user in editing and further customizing this draft thesaurus (28).

The classification researcher must be a renaissance person. Doing research about and building classification requires knowledge of many fields, many of which both contribute to knowledge about classification and use classifications (28).

Soergel goes on to list these as “the most important areas related to building and analyzing knowledge organization systems” (28):

  • Principles of classification and knowledge representation
  • Philosophy, esp. ontology and epistemology
  • Cognitive psychology, the workings of the human mind
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Linguistics
  • Instructional design, document design, interface design. Information architecture
  • Markup languages and data structures and their standards (XML, RDF, Topic Maps, thesaurus standards, lexicographic standards) and how they interact with display
  • Software considerations for thesaurus-building systems
  • Last, but not least, domain knowledge, often in multiple disciplines (Fig. 22, p. 28)

Exciting stuff, boys and girls! Are you prepared? Are our schools preparing new professionals to do this work?

This article should be required reading in thesaurus construction classes and in any other courses with a section on thesauri.

classification, thesauri, display, functions, meaning, multidimensionality, concept maps, disciplinary domains, context domains, definitions, relationships, indexing, searching, query term expansion, linkages, personal thesauri, Yahoo!, AAT, AOD Thesaurus, MeSH, UMLS, MedIndex

Harris, Roy. The Language Machine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Read chap. 6.

Tuesday, May 22

Jacob, Elin K. “Classification and Categorization: Drawing the Line.” In Kwasnik and Fidel, eds. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 2: Proceedings of the 2nd ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 54th ASIS Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, October 27-31, 1991. Medford, NJ: Learned Information, c1992: 67-83.

Cited by Uta Priss, “Multilevel Approaches to Concepts and Formal Ontologies,” p. 95. Read 16 May 2007.

Takes on the conceptual confusion surrounding classification and categorization, which are often conflated as being synonymous. Covers the classical theory of categories and the research (and resulting theories) that has undermined it. Suggests that the conflation of these two concepts is partly responsible for “the apparent failure of the classical theory to account for the instability observed in category membership” (67). Uses Keil’s notion of a communicative constraint to help understand the relationship between these two concepts.

The possibility that categories function in accordance with classical theory at one level while exemplifying aspects of instability, graded structure, and fuzzy boundaries at another should encourage researchers to set aside, for the moment, the emphasis on category structure and to focus their attention, instead, on the generation of cognitive categories and on the role(s) performed by these idiosyncratic categories in the processes of cognition and communication (81).

This is the 2nd article that I have read in as many days that claims that the classical theory of categories “rests on the assumption that intention and extension are synonymous: Being a member (extension) of a particular category entails possession of an essential and defining character (intension)” (69). Well, OK to the 2nd clause; that is simply definitional. But these claims are bugging me, nonetheless.

I think it must be because the writers are speaking “in the vulgar” as we took to calling it in Ontologies. Clearly, a member of a set is not synonymous with the characteristics which put it in the set in the first place. It possesses those characteristics; it is not those characteristics. Perhaps it would be better to say that the entities in a category are coextensive with the set of entities which bear the defining characteristics. Even that is rather loose, but seems somewhat better to me. Maybe Aristotle would claim the entity is synonymous with its essence, but probably only in a narrow sense and not in all senses. Maybe some later categoricians would, too. But I doubt anyone subscribing to the classical theory since the rise of set theory and logic would be so sloppy, if pressed. Perhaps this is a minor point, but considering the pains the author went to to pull apart the concepts of categorization and classification I find it hard to believe that they made this conflation.

classification, categorization, definition, arrangement, classical theory of categories, essential features, intension, extension, graded typicality effects, family resemblances, Wittgenstein, category construction, communicative constraint, Keil

Beghtol, Clare. “Mapping Sentences and Classification Schedules As Methods of Displaying Facets.” In Raymond Schwartz, ed. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 6: Proceedings of the 6th ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 58th ASIS Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, October 8, 1995. Medford, NJ: Information Today, c1998: 1-11.

Compares the analytico-synthetic methods developed by S.R. Ranganathan and L. Guttman in bibliographic classification systems and in the behavioural sciences, respectively, with a focus on display issues.

facets, mapping sentences, classification, classification schedules, Ranganathan, Guttman, analytico-synthetic methods, displaying facet structure, library science, behavioral sciences, CC, BC2

Harris, Roy. The Language Machine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Read ch. 7 and re-read the epilogue.

Thank you, David!

I must say that the lengthy paragraph on page 172-173 caused me to shudder to the core of my soul both times I read it; even more so the 2nd time having the full impact of the book behind it. I will most certainly be reading much more Harris.

Highly recommended! And do begin with the Epilogue.

Wednesday, 23 May

Crawford, Walt. Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change. A Cites & Insight Book, 2007.

Read chapters 1-5. Am liking it quite a bit so far, but that was expected. Unfortunately, I cannot comment on how it would seem to one who doesn’t read library-related blogs. Only a few friends have shown up so far, but it’s comforting nonetheless.

My only small gripe (so far) is that while the UI Current LIS Clips does show up in the index, neither Sue Searing or Karla Stover Lucht do, although they do in the text (54). Of course, if I didn’t know these folks personally I probably would not be looking them up. A very small gripe, though.

Thursday, 24 May

Crawford, Walt. Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change. A Cites & Insight Book, 2007.

Read chapters 6-8 in AM. Chap 9 in afternoon. Chap 10 in evening.

Albrechtsen, Hanne and Elin K. Jacob. “Classification Systems as Boundary Objects in Diverse Information Ecologies.” In Efthimis N. Efthimiadis, ed. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 8: Proceedings of the 8th ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 60th ASIS Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 1-6, 1997. Medford, NJ: Information Today, c1998: 1-16.

Uses Star’s notion of a boundary object to provide a dynamic role for classifications “in supporting coherence and articulation across heterogeneous contexts” (1). Also makes use of Nardi & O’Day’s idea of diverse information ecologies. Divides the epistemological approaches to classification in to two broad categories: Rational/Empirical and Historicism/Social Constructivism.

Argues that classificatory work is changing from a monolithic, top-down imposed structure to a more emergent, flexible and heterogenously accommodative form. When I look at Figure 1. Epistemologies for development of classification systems I can only agree that the Historicism/Social Constructivism side has far better answers to questions of basic view of knowledge, concepts, language and dialogue, info systems and their designers. While the chart is of necessity an oversimplification, it is the case that knowledge is historically, culturally and socially determined and is not infallible and objective. Concepts are culturally determined, domain-dependent and dependent on experience and use and are not objective modules of knowledge. And so on (14).

But I’m really beginning to have an issue with many of these articles, especially conference papers. Maybe I’m wanting more from them than what they are really designed to do. Maybe they are really just teasers and are not supposed to actually give any real information regarding what presenters are claiming. But as much as I love the theoretical ideas, I want to know what is actually being done with the theory. Is there anything being done? Perhaps this article is unfair to pick on for this specific fault because it is primarily theoretical, although it does report on two projects that supposedly involve their ideas. More in that in a moment.

Maybe a better example is Jacob’s “Communication and Category Structure: The Communicative Process as a Constraint on the Semantic Representation of Information,” found above. It goes on for several pages about some interesting ideas and then at the very end in a matter of sentences mentions that there is this research project. I could find many more examples of the same, and it isn’t all conference papers either. Where can one find the details?

A second issue I have with many of these articles (again, not necessarily only conference papers) is a lapse into flowery theoretical language. It sounds pretty and important and perhaps even meaningful until one re-reads, and re-reads, it. Then you just have to ask yourself, “Say what?” There is a better example from this week’s readings but I can’t find it quickly, so I’ll use one from the current paper.

In an information ecology, a classification system would function as a boundary object, supporting coherence and a common identity across the different actors involved. In its role as boundary object, a classification should be weakly structured in common use, while remaining open to adaptation in individual communities. Across diverse information ecologies, classification schemes would function as discursive arenas or public domains for communication and production of knowledge by all communities involved (6).

Well, after the just previous refresher by the authors on Star’s boundary objects and Nardi & O’Day’s information ecologiesI find myself shaking my head in agreement. But then I realize that this is simply definitional and is simply a recasting of the ideas inherent in these concepts into a different formulation. So. What does it mean? And, more importantly, what does it mean in practice? How is a classification scheme “weakly structured in common use?” How can it support “coherence and a common identity across the different actors?”

These are not the idle questions of a pedant on my part. I truly want to understand these ideas. I agree with a view of knowledge as socially constructed and historical. I like the concept of boundary objects and often consider myself one, to the point of seeing my professional identity and role as such. I also remember liking the concept of information ecologies from 501′s Nardi & O’Day readings, and have had their book (which I bought) on my desk to be read for a long while now.

This paper does discuss two projects in Denmark that supposedly fit their ideas (Database 2001, Book House). But while I can see how they do one one hand, I also can just as easily see that they don’t on the other. Much like my (still perhaps to come) critique of Hope Olson. It seems one wants to have their cake and eat it too. It seems that they fit their ideas because these systems were jointly designed by librarians and users using collaborative prototyping. These are important steps and ended in (one case) a classification scheme that would not fit within a disciplinary view (horses are separated from animals). The designs are visual, metaphorical, and allow for different search strategies to be employed. Again, important.

But a bit later we read, “…the Book House is a general system for fiction retrieval, which, in it s present form, cannot be customized by individual libraries to support the idiosyncratic needs of specific user communities, …” (10). Cake. And. Eating.

Nonetheless, despite my critiques of this literature in general and this article in specific, it was interesting.

classification, boundary object, information ecologies, Turing test, rationalism, empiricism, historicism, social constructivism, Star, Nardi & O’Day, Hjørland, Book House, Database 2001

Friday, 25 May

Crawford, Walt. Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change. A Cites & Insight Book, 2007.

Read chapters 11-2 in AM. Read chap 13-15 in afternoon. The End.

I hope to write a separate review of this soon, so I’ll leave off any more commenting for now.

Paglia, Camille. Break, blow, burn. 2005. Read:

William Butler Yeats, “Leda and the Swan.”

Saturday, 26 May

Harris, Roy. The Language-Makers. London: Duckworth, 1980.

Read chap. 1 and 2/3ds of chap. 2.

Good sign?

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I was out this evening with assorted friends in assorted places having food and drinks. As some of us were walking from one place to another I realized that I had been divorced at some point this month around 8 years ago.

It actually took me about 2 minutes to figure out that, in fact, it was 8 years ago today. I really was clueless for quite bit until I remembered that it was the day before my sister’s and niece’s birthdays (tomorrow).

So I guess that is a good sign. And it got me 2 free beers, so not so bad either way.

Wow. Eight years.

Now, if only….

Only you can prevent data loss!

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So far, here’s what I know I’ve lost thanks to poorly planned and/or non-recent backups before the hard drive crashed:

Firefox – an oil tanker-sized boatload of bookmarks. Some important, many not. Also filled in forms info, etc. All add-ons.

Address book – not exactly huge, but most up-to-date info on friends and family members to include things like birthdays & anniversaries

Zotero database! – 100s of citations, notes about them, links to the pdfs on the computer, etc. Thanks to playing around with the export feature I have a MODS file of the stuff from my Representing & Organizing folder (my latest bibliography). It imported back in beautifully. I lost any explicit Relations I had made between things and all links to files, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it brought in all my Notes, along with Tags, and the citation info. So despite my pleasure, I still lost a massive amount of data and work for the several 100 other citations.

iChats – any (of substance) since mid-April.

iCal – ALL calendar data.

Lots of pdfs and other files that were downloaded in the last 4-5 weeks. Most of no real import and most can be found easy enough. Just not sure what all was there, though.

Software – lots of software. I have reinstalled much already. Some I have on CD/DVD (commercial) so was easy enough; except where in the heck is my Dreamweaver 8 disk? Lots of software has been purchased from the interweb and I was very, very pleasantly surprised to see how easy some small companies made it for me to get another copy and my license key(s). I still have to try and get oXygen, though. Not sure how easy it’ll be, but I haven’t tried. I wonder if they’ll happily give me the older version I have had or try and make me pony up for the (2nd) newer version.

Customizations – any and all customizations in OSX or individual software programs.

Delicious Library – where’s my data? Gone, no doubt.

Not sure what else. Most is probably of no real consequence, but undoubtedly a small percentage was.

I will research and institute a much better and regular policy of backups; one that includes all the data hidden away in places like iCal, Firefox, Zotero, Address Book, and so on.

“Remember kids, only you can prevent data loss!” [With all due respect to the beloved Smokey Bear.]

Feels like the first time…

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I got my PowerBook back from Apple today. Yippee!

Can’t really complain about the turnaround time as I took it in late Monday afternoon to be shipped off.

It’s practically brand new. I got a whole new top case, keyboard, hard drive and hard drive cable. Thus, it literally does feel brand new.

I am in the process of trying to get it set back up for use. That is, when I turned it on the 1st time it was the whole, “Oh, Hi. Welcome to the world of Apple” spiel.

In some ways it’s exciting, and then in others not so much. I haven’t hit any major snags yet, but we’ll see. I still need to figure out where the heck my Dreamweaver disk is.

And I’m not seeing any application stuff (or very little) on my external hard drive, which I’m guessing means I lost my entire Zotero database and Firefox bookmarks. That smack ain’t so funny!

C’mon, people. You’ve read these stories before on the interweb and said to yourself, “I’ll do a better job with backups. I swear I will.” And then you don’t. Well. You can bet that I sure will be in the future! I’ll know where every speck of data is hiding and ensure it gets backed up. Frequently. Regularly.

Opportunities come … and go; just as fast

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A couple hours ago I wrote and sent off an email that I found very difficult to write.

This weekend I received an email asking me to sit on a panel at ALA to help discuss a topic of current concern to some. But, unfortunately and for various reasons, I decided early in the year not to go to ALA. I chose to go to NASIG instead (June), along with ASIST (Oct.). I have since added ISKO-NA/NASKO in June.

Despite having lodging in the DC area, there is simply no way I can decide to go at this late date. I most certainly cannot afford it, nor can I afford to miss even more days of work.

But how is one to turn down such an offer? This is certainly the highest level invitation of any kind I have received in my so far short library career; probably even of my whole life.

I know some of you turn down these sorts of things frequently. But did you turn down the 1st one? “They” say “timing is everything” and so much about the timing(s) of this is perfect. But bounce that timing off the reality of life and it skews real poorly on one or more axes. OK, one axis. Money.

Several people of importance to me are encouraging me to accept and I am grateful to them for that wisdom. But it simply is not to be. <sigh>

But. Tomorrow I start a(nother) new job and will become a Rapid Monographic Cataloging GA (well, hourly for the summer; GA in the fall). Yay, me!

I am seriously looking forward to actually making some forward progress each day (as in number of titles cataloged). My serials gig is anything but rapid. It’ll be hard to remember that I can only do copy cataloging with the monographs, though. ;)

Life is full of trade-offs it seems. And some of them are even good ones.

P.S. I was reasonably OK with my decision a few hours ago, but now I am finding it hard to fathom that I said “No, thank you.” I can certainly believe the reality of it, though. Oh well. “Buck up, kid! You get to learn something new tomorrow.”

Where’s Walt?

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Walt Crawford, that is. Come 1 October he’ll no longer be at OCLC. Therefore, you can have a hand in the answer to that question.

I’ve seen several posts already today about this but Rochelle Hartman’s at Tinfoil + Raccoon is the best, imho.

I’ve known of Walt since early on in my library career–hard to miss, given that he is one of the most influential and prolific people in librarianship. Aside from his general laudableness (honest, that’s a word), Walt has distinguished himself to many of us through his collegiality and generosity. Distinguished and influential don’t always translate into accessible, but Walt has been a good friend and sparring partner to many of us not-so-luminous front-liners. In addition to his public contributions, he has also been privately supportive to several of us as we have struggled with professional challenges and made transitions. We owe him no less and wish him the best.

Amen to every one of those heartfelt words!

Please see Walt’s post for the kinds of things he might be interested in and places he’d be willing to go.

I do know that it has been suggested that Walt become a LEEP instructor. I wish I could claim credit for the idea, but the best I can do is say I was the one to second it. I doubt that is enough to support Walt, but perhaps depending on what opportunities arise for him he could find some time to enlighten some of the next generation of library workers—no matter what generation we are from.

So GSLIS students, especially LEEP students, if you are at all interested in taking a class from Walt Crawford (and you darn well ought to be, imnsho!) in the future (or are concerned with the education of future students and you should be) then drop Linda Smith a line and maybe one to Walt, too. Let them know they should be pursing this opportunity for our program if it is doable for Walt.

And if any of my administration is reading this, well, I guess you’ve already seen my vote.

I have learned as much about professionalism from Walt as I have from any individual librarian or group of librarians. I have tried to learn many other things from him via his writings and personal correspondence. I have no doubt that I could learn so much more. And I, for one, would be happy to pay for that opportunity!

Fellow students, if you are asking yourselves “Who is Walt Crawford?” Then you need to get busy. Those links go to (small) discussions of the K. Blessinger and M. Frasier article in the March 2007 (v. 68. no. 2) College & Research Libraries that shows Walt to be one of the 31 top most cited personal authors in LIS literature from 1994-2004. See his blog post linked above for a list and links to a few of his many publications and quit whining about their being nothing good to read in our field.

Some things read this week, 13 – 19 May 2007

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Saturday, 12 May [due to early posting last week]

Paglia, Camille. Break, blow, burn. 2005. Read:

  • Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” [a snippet]
  • Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  • Emily Dickinson, “Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers”

Tuesday, 15 May

Ward, Jewel. “Unqualified Dublin Core Usage in OAI-PMH Providers.” OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives 20 (1), 2004: 40-47.

Hutt, Arwen and Jenn Riley. “Semantics and Syntax of Dublin Core Usage in Open Archives Initiative Data Providers of Cultural Heritage Materials.” JCDL ’05 June 7-11, 200, Denver, Colorado: 262-270.

Both of these were read for Metadata Round Table tomorrow.

Wednesday, 16 May

Shreeves, Sarah L., Ellen M. Knutson, Besiki Stvilia, Carole L. Palmer, Michael B. Twidale, amd Timothy W. Cole. “Is “Quality” Metadata “Shareable” Metadata? The Implications of Local Metadata Practices for Federated Collections.” ACRL 12th National Conference April 7-10, 2005, Minneapolis, Minn.: 223-237.

Also read for Metadata Round Table today. I even attended this presentation at ACRL.

Priss, Uta. “Multilevel Approaches to Concepts and Formal Ontologies.” In Efthimis N. Efthimiadis, ed. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 12: Proceedings of the 12th ASIST SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 64th Annual ASIST Meeting, November 2-8, 2001, Washington, DC. Medford, NJ: Information Today, c2004: 93-111.

Argues for viewing the “classical” or symbolic approaches to representation and that of fuzzy or category-based approaches as complementary forms of representation that can and should be combined.

ontologies, symbolic representation, formal logic, category-based representation, categories, fuzzy logic, neural networks, formal concepts, associative concepts, knowledge systems, emergent structure, cognition, feedback, ASIST SIG/CR

Tennis, Joseph T. “Layers of Meaning: Disentangling Subject Access Interoperability.” In Efthimis N. Efthimiadis, ed. Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 12: Proceedings of the 12th ASIST SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, held at the 64th Annual ASIST Meeting, November 2-8, 2001, Washington, DC. Medford, NJ: Information Today, c2004: 113-129.

Proposes a multilayer conceptual framework for a system for subject access interoperability, where levels of meaning, relationships, extension and intension are individually controlled. Claims this will solve the problems Lancaster identified as inherent in switching between vocabularies: 1) overlap of subject matter, 2) specificity, 3) degree of pre-coordination, and 4) hierarchical, synonymous and other relationship structure.

subject access, interoperability, subject access interoperability, vocabularies, mapping, switching, compatibility, ICC, BSO, intension, extension, meaning, relationships, supra-thesaurus, reconciliation, conceptual warrant, literary warrant, Universal Source Thesaurus, conceptual framework, concepts, subjects, classes

Thursday, 17 May

Greenberg, Jane and Eva Méndez. “Introduction: Toward a More Library-Like Web via Semantic Knitting.” Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 43 (3/4), 2007: 1-8 and: Knitting the Semantic Web (ed. Jane Greenberg and Eva Méndez) Haworth Information Press, 2007: 1-8. doi:10.1300/J104v43n03_01

This is the introduction to the issue of CCQ that was mentioned several times at the LC Working Group meeting. Basically sets up the issue and then gives a brief overview of the articles. The issue is divided into 2 parts: Semantic Web foundations, standards and tools; and Semantic Web projects and perspectives.

Semantic Web, web, libraries, introduction

Harper, Corey A. and Barbara B. Tillett. “Library of Congress Controlled Vocabularies and Their Application to the Semantic Web.” Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 43 (3/4), 2007: 47-68 and: Knitting the Semantic Web (ed. Jane Greenberg and Eva Méndez) Haworth Information Press, 2007: 47-68. doi:10.1300/J104v43n03_04

This article was also mentioned several times during the LC Working Group meeting. Discusses how historically-library controlled vocabularies and classification schemes “can serve as some of the building blocks of the Semantic Web” (47). Talks about how they might fit within the structure of the Semantic Web, possible uses, how they can be encoded, and some early collaborations. Also discusses authority control and how this can fit within the Semantic Web.

Is at a fairly big picture view and falls short of any discussion of the economics and rights management. Based on all the discussion at the LC Working Group meeting I thought this was supposedly some “radical” call to “Free the Authorities!” Alas, it is no such thing. Jennifer Bowen was far more radical than this. That isn’t saying much, btw.

Semantic Web, web, LC, controlled vocabularies, compatibility, authority control, standards, XML, OWL, SKOS, MODS, MADS, DCMI, DC Abstract Model, MARC relator terms, DC, MARCXML, RDF, DDC, LCC, LCSH, TGM I, TGM II, GSAFD, TGN, AAT, classification schemes, UDC, MeSH, NLM, Terminology Services (OCLC), identification, disambiguation, collocation, VIAF, AUTHOR, metadata, FOAF, markup, encoding

Weibel, Stuart L. “Social Bibliography: A Personal Perspective on Libraries and the Semantic Web.” Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 43 (3/4), 2007: 227-236 and: Knitting the Semantic Web (ed. Jane Greenberg and Eva Méndez) Haworth Information Press, 2007: 47-68. doi:10.1300/J104v43n03_13

Billed as “present[ing] a personal perspective on libraries and the Semantic Web” (227). Major sections are: Computing power, Processable text, Social software and Web 2.0, and the final section, Social bibliography and the declining hegemony of catalog records.

Weibel begins by asking if perhaps we are not seeing the same sorts of claims for the Semantic Web as we did for artificial intelligence two decades ago. He then sets out to show what is different in this situation, and seems to have a fairly balanced perspective. Part of the problem as he says is that the “Semantic Web isn’t primarily about semantics at all” (228). As the W3C states:

The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for interchange of data, where on the original Web we only had interchange of documents. Also it is about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects (228)

A few sentences that resonated with me:

Libraries need to support not the Semantic Web, but the semantic lives of our users, … (231).

MARC cataloging remains one of the most successful structured data exchange standards in use (and one of the most long-lived, as well) 232.

The specification of an ontology implies a thorough understanding of the scope and structure of a knowledge domain. Semantic coherence of this kind is rare outside a tightly constrained domain, and leads one to wonder whether ontologies are likely to play a practical role on the open Web (233).

[This is extremely interesting considering Ontologies make up one of the main layers of the Semantic Web Stack, and that this layer has been implicated in the slow progress of the Semantic Web by Berners-Lee, for one (See Harper & Tillett (above p. 49).]

The last section talks about “social bibliography” and I must admit I am not really familiar with this concept. Hmmm … there’s a book by this title by Ranganathan, although I don’t think this is the same use as some of the web pages I saw using this term. I’m not convinced it is even one concept, but perhaps many. I wish Weibel had said more about what he meant by this concept. The discussion was mostly about online reviews at places like Amazon.com and how reviews should be first class objects and, thus, need to have persistent identities, be harvestable on the open Web, and be “managed intellectual content in their own right” (234). In other words, be curated, be citable (linkable), and claimable by their authors (234).

I’m not really sure what work “social” is doing in this concept, although it is doing some. I’m just ready for the day when “social” is no longer applied as a modifier to almost every concept. But then perhaps we need to grow past “friends” first.

Semantic Web, web, libraries, social bibliography, Web 2.0, computing power, processable text, social software

Tennis, Joseph T. “Diachronic and Synchronic Indexing: Modeling Conceptual Change in Indexing Languages.” [pdf] In online proceedings: Clément Arsenault and Kimiz Dalkir, eds. “Information Sharing in a Fragmented World: Crossing Boundaries” Canadian Association for Information Science. Held at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, May 10 – 12, 2007.

The 1st important point is that there are several years worth of proceedings of the Canadian Association for Information Science available online. The link for this article was sent to me by my advisor for my controlled vocabulary-related work, along with a few others from these proceedings.

Outlines a model of conceptual change in indexing languages; in other words, provides for diachronic indexing. Demonstrates conceptual change in an indexing language by looking at eugenics in DDC. Describes3 ways in which meaning and relationships are established and change in n indexing language: structural, terminological, and textual.

I hope to get a few minutes to talk with Joe Tennis at NASKO. I’m not sure how his work has been progressing the last few years, but most of his papers that I’ve been reading (see above for another) are at this fairly abstract level. They sound like great ideas, but can we code them (currently) and make them work? And, if so, do they actually make a positive difference towards any of our needs? Maybe he can fill me in on such work, or point me to the work itself.

indexing, conceptual model, diachronic indexing, synchronic indexing, annotation, revision, concept record, classification format, transfer encoding, structurl change, terminological change, textual change, intertextuality

Thursday – Friday, 17 – 18 May

Lakoff, George. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, ch. 15 “Putnam’s Theorem.”

Discusses Putnam’s logical critique of objectivist semantics as internally inconsistent.

Friday, 18 May

Harris, Roy. “Epilogue: Saying Nothing.” In The Language Machine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

This is quite good as David Bade said a few days ago. I read the Epilogue and have now begun at the beginning. I also picked up 3 other Harris books.

Saturday, 19 May

Harris, Roy. The Language Machine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Read Introduction and chapters 1 – 3.