VALISblog

Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The integrated library system that isn't  
 
Worthwhile article from Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: The integrated library system that isn't.

It is clear that the ILS manages a progressively smaller part of the library activity. There has been a real shift in emphasis towards e-resource management (see the metasearch/resolver/ERM/knowledgebase suite of tools), and in some cases towards digital asset management. Libraries now manage a patchwork of systems which do not always play well together.

On a similar theme, Andrew Pace discusses the limitations of OPACs in American Libraries.


|


Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Very belatedly: GormanGate  
 
I know I'm coming at this well after everyone else, but I wanted to think about it a bit. To sum up for anyone who hasn't heard the story yet:

Michael Gorman is the President-elect of the American Library Association.
He wrote an article in the LA Times in which he expressed skepticism about Google's initiative to digitise books from various academic libraries.
He (apparently) was heavily criticised for this in a number of blog posts.
Gorman wrote an article for Library Journal in which he railed against bloggers (or 'blog people' as he calls them).
All hell broke loose in the library blogging community, as well as on Metafilter and Slashdot.

I'm feeling bizarrely out of step on this issue. A number of people, many of whom I have a lot of respect for, are furious at Gorman. And yet I can't help thinking that he has a point.

The original article was pretty much accurate, in my opinion. Google is a great tool for some purposes. It is perhaps not such a great tool if you are using it to locate book-length scholarly material. The reason Gorman gives is that it might land you on page 141 of a 400-page book, but without the context that comes from reading the preceding pages. I'd add that, because Google searches on the full-text of documents, you run a fairly high risk of locating irrelevant information that, by chance, contains your chosen search terms (as my prostitutes in Bangalore' experience demonstrates).

Now, on to the criticism Gorman received. He was called a Luddite, people claimed he only criticised Google because he didn't know how to use it, etc. So he wrote a fairly stupid, poorly written response, that implied that a whole class of people were ignorant and incapable of reading whole texts. Yep, it was an overgeneralisation (though let's face it, the majority of blogs are not particularly interesting, and many, myself included, do little more than repost the more interesting thoughts of others). But the vehement reaction to his article surprised me. A lot of people seem to be getting awfully defensive (like the LISNews poster who is trying to convince people to post "Michael Gorman is an idiot" everywhere, so that phrase becomes a top hit in Google searches on his name. Which, of course, would illustrate nicely one of the weaknesses of Google, its susceptibility to GoogleBombs).

The normally excellent (and under-read) Phil Bradley says "I can only assume that... he has hidden depths". Well, yes. Like editing AACR2, for example. And writing one of the best books about the role of the library that I've read* (Steven Cohen mentions this too, in an intelligent post that I don't totally agree with). Steven also offers a pointer to why this matters, though it seems to me that most of the posts he's pointing to are from library blogs, not so much the wider blogosphere. Jessamyn is funny, and annoyed - mainly because of Gorman's status in the profession.

There's a roundup of Gorman links on LISNews, as well.

So what does it boil down to? Gorman attacks Google (in certain contexts). Bloggers attack Gorman. Gorman attacks bloggers (in general). Other bloggers get even more upset. Seems to me like there's been a fair bit of over-reaction, all the way through this episode. Deep breaths, people. Deep breaths. Even if Michael Gorman thinks you're an idiot with no attention span, does it really matter?

*Edit: of course, Gorman was a co-author of Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, & Reality with Walt Crawford, as Walt pointed out in the comments to this post. I certainly wasn't intending to denigrate or ignore Walt's contribution to the text, and I'm looking forward to the potential update that Walt mentions.


|


How to write killer blog posts (note to self)  


Users unsure about search engines: Pew  
 
Internet users are extremely positive about search engines and the experiences they have when searching the internet. But these same satisfied internet users are generally unsophisticated about why and how they use search engines. They are also strikingly unaware of how search engines operate and how they present their results.

Internet users behave conservatively as searchers: They tend to settle quickly on a single search engine and then stick with it, rather than switching as search technology evolves or comparing results from different search systems. Some 44% of searchers regularly use just one engine, and another 48% use just two or three....

Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or “sponsored” results and unpaid results. And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not.


From the Pew Internet and American Life Project. A PDF of the full report is also available.


|


Library lending ebooks on iPods  
 
Lee Jacknow, 61, a retired professor of engineering who currently has one iPod shuffle checked out with the new John Grisham novel on it, said that having the iPod has changed the way he listens to audio books.

"It's changed the books on tape from a car-only experience to a bring-it-with-you experience," he said.


Great idea.

Wired via BoingBoing.


|


Thursday, March 03, 2005
Wired on Wikipedia  
 
Interesting article, does a bit of a soft profile of the founder of Wikipedia. Does make the excellent point:

"You can't evaluate Wikipedia by traditional encyclopedia standards. A forked Wikipedia run by academics would be Nupedia 2.0. It would use the One Best Way production model, which inevitably would produce a One Best Way product. That's not a better or worse Wikipedia any more than Instapundit.com is a better or worse Washington Post. They are different animals."

Via BoingBoing (as was the last post, btw).


|


Musicians for file-sharing  
 
Well, not quite, but a group of musicians, including Chuck D and Steve Winwood, are urging the Supreme Court not to outlaw file-sharing networks, pointing out that such networks can be used legally, and can benefit artists. Or even:

"One musician, Jason Mraz, said half of the fans who pay to see him in concert heard about him through illegal downloading, according to the court filing."

True. I went to see the Shins play last week basically because I'd had the chance to hear their music in advance, via file-sharing. My girlfriend went with me, so that's two sales they wouldn't have had otherwise. And I'm telling everyone how great they were (The Shins are great), and I'll be buying their album come payday...

And on the subject of artists who have defended file-sharing, the New York Public Library is hosting what looks like an unmissable event featuring Professor Lawrence Lessig and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco talking about copyright issues.


|