« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
August 31, 2005
Information Wants to be Free - Bullcookies
Warning: Long Post:
I want to capture this piece from 2004 that I thought I had lost. Enjoy it (again) if you like.
Our work and value have been attacked on many levels, but nothing has been more damaging than the misquote of Stewart Brand that "Information wants to be free!" This phrase has served as a clarion call to devalue information, information work, and librarianship which are anything but free.
Here's the real quote: At the first Hackers' Conference in 1984, Brand put his finger on a central paradox about digital information that is causing us so much trouble today. "On the one hand," Brand said, "information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."
Aha!!! I said to myself as I read this in David Bollier's book (not free) on a plane (not free) on my way to a conference (not free). There it is. It's just like that old misquote: "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” What Santayana actually wrote in Reason in Common Sense was, "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it". As Voltaire said, "Common sense is not so common." Why is this quote so compelling - even as a misquote - and why did it get such currency in the modern age? Remember that a hacker's conference in 1984 was pretty much on-the-edge.
Free means many things. It is especially vital to the practice of librarianship. This quote is lifted from page 120 of David Bollier's must-read book, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of our Common Wealth (Routledge 2003). Bollier lifted it from the Whole Earth Review May 1985, p. 49. You can also see a history of this quote's attribution at "Information Wants To Be Free" at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IWtbF.html.
"Free" in its narrowest meaning can mean "without cost." And often from the user's perspective, library services are without cost. More important, it means freedom to think, freedom to research, freedom to write, freedom of expression those values central to our professional beliefs. "Free" also can mean a kind of shorthand for democracy and democratic principles. The democratization of information has been a movement since at least the invention of the printing press and publishing. "Free" can be used in the context of free time freedom from obligation, duties, and responsibilities. Libraries' recreational collections certainly fall into this "free" space. Finally, "free" can mean unconstrained running free, thinking free, having the free rights of citizenship. Making information free is very powerful because of all those other meanings. If there's anyone who knows that information wants to be expensive, it has to be librarians. We manage this to ensure cost-effectiveness.
Unfettered
My opinion is that the best meaning of "free" is "unfettered." There are many ways to unfetter information and even more ways to fetter it. Cost is only one of the ways in which we can deal with the fettering of information. By buying information at the enterprise level in our organizations we unfetter it and make it free, de facto, to the end user. It isn't free of cost by any means, but it will appear free to the user. Therefore, the user does not need to leap the hurdle that is the "buy" decision to use critical information that can underpin his or her work.
We can also fetter information by making it costly or adding hurdles of payments to obtain the information transaction we want. Sometimes fettering information with a cost improves the end-user experience free movies can be overcrowded, free information can be rough and poorly edited, free can cause quality lapses because you get what you pay for. Therefore, some users prefer to pay to get the assurance of a better information experience and to remove the risk of additional processing fetters.
So, in what other ways is information unfettered?
Libraries unfetter information -make it flow freely by:
Good information design
Increasing simplicity and assuring use of good interface principles makes the acquisition of information more satisfying. If we don't simplify it, it can be pretty rough. We can all name information systems that were abusive - some of the first generation Boolean online systems were far too complex to teach to typical end-users.
Making it easier to find
Users hate to search like us; they just want to find. By using simple tools like federated search and adopting appropriate standards like Z39.50 and SRW we make life for users much easier. Federated search removes the barrier to not knowing where to search in the first place. And, especially by adopting tools like link resolvers that employ the OpenURL standard, we make exploring the information ocean seamless when content is identified and full text links become simple and seamless.
Pruning information
Our collection development and content identification skills are non-pareil. Our adherence to selecting high-quality information to meet our users' real needs and to avoid duplication, false paths, and false drops generates real value. Just searching the groups of content that match the domain I am searching is very powerful.
Aligning information with user profiles
Again, through great selection we ensure that the information is appropriate for our users -we don't provide jargon-laden information to kids and neophytes when plain language is needed. We design our Web sites, portals, and learning objects to align with our users' literacy, subject, and learning needs and styles.
Targeting information to specific user communities
We can push information. We know (mostly) how not to drown our folks. We have a fine editor’s and selector's eye. We push information intelligently and can use the latest styles of alerts, RSS, and blogs -and still write a powerful paper note or e-mail to alert our users to special items.
Customizing information to individual needs and projects
Our best feature is that we can improve the quality of a question before we seek an answer. This is the personal research touch that is based in deep knowledge of the reference interview. Search engines seek answers in haste. As the saying goes, haste makes waste and it is, by definition, shallow. How shallow can it be to decide quality by just popularity? How high school! What an opportunity for virtual reference services!
Removing barriers to information
We know that increasing required actions between the user and content reduces satisfaction and productivity. Therefore, we have become experts in reducing non-value-added barriers. We know that IP authentication can make a seamless experience to paid content. We know that we can remove barriers by avoiding digital rights management or copyright fees. We can assure legal access through invisible patron-level authentication systems, too.
Many of us are challenged by management, users, and researchers who love the Google™ experience. Google has unfettered access for them on many levels. It's free NOT. Advertisers pay it for and the advertisers are Google's primary clients not the searcher. A good searcher experience that delivers high numbers of visits and searches -of the right type -generates more ads and therefore more Google revenue.
We likely do need to give unto Google what is Google's. Google gives an amazingly good experience in four of the five "W" questions: who, what, where and when. We know this as well as end-users. What libraries and librarians do better is with questions that start with why and the how. When our collections and skills revolve around a central theme, industry, topic, or exploration, we excel at answering and building users' and learners' knowledge in the why and the how. That's why we find libraries represented so strongly in sectors where innovation and creativity are central to success - R& D, universities, advertising, consulting, auditing, for example.
Libraries and librarians unfetter information in many ways. By doing so we improve the user experience, improve learning, improve knowledge acquisition, and inform decision-making. We need to stop worrying about Google competition since it doesn't even begin to compete with us on a core level. We must start differentiating library services from weak experiences like Google.
In the wisdom that is an e-mail signature, I once read (and can't find the first author) this quote:
"Those who know how will always be employed. They will be working for those who know why."
Stephen
p.s. I got the opportunity to have David Bollier keynote the Canadian Library Association Conference this past June. If you ever get the chance to see him speak - go. His wirtings are wonderful too. Check them out here and here and here and here.
Posted by stephen at 5:40 PM | Comments (1)
August 30, 2005
The Gartner Hype Cycle
SirsiDynix is a Gartner Group client and we use their reports, insights and advice to help us understand the constantly myutating landscape of the IT world. Last week they publicly released their 2005 hype cycle here.
The hype cycle is quite a famous Gartner innovation. It tracks new technological innovations and plots them on a curve as to where they are in Gartner's Hype Cycle Model which follows these five stages:
1. Technology Trigger: A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event generates significant press and industry interest.
2. Peak of Inflated Expectations: During this phase of over enthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of well-publicized activity by technology leaders results in some successes, but more failures, as the technology is pushed to its limits. The only companies making money are conference organizers and magazine publishers.
3. Trough of Disillusionment: Because the technology does not live up to its over inflated expectations, it rapidly becomes unfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few cautionary tales.
4. Slope of Enlightenment: Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse range of organizations lead to a true understanding of the technology's applicability, risks and benefits. Commercial, off-the-shelf methodologies and tools ease the development process.
5. Plateau of Productivity: The real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted. Growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable with the reduced levels of risk, and the rapid growth phase of adoption begins.
Further details on how to interpret the Gartner hype cycles can be found in the hype cycle spotlight here. It is a compelling model at a gut level. It just feels right because we've all experienced the hype and disillusion and then adapted the new innovation somehow.
This current release talks about a number of technologies which are relevant to the library world and where they're at evolutionarily. These include podcasting, P2P VOIP, Desktop searching, RSS, Corporate Blogging, Wikis, SOA, Web Services, XBRL, BPP, Location aware (GPS) services, RFID and mesh networks.
Gartner highlights the importance of keeping all technologies on your radar (or at least being assured that your key vendor partners are). I love this quote from the press release:
"Don't invest in a technology just because it is being hyped or ignore a technology just because it is not living up to early over expectations," she said. "If a technology fits with your overall business strategy you should be evaluating it from the outset, if you are unsure, wait until more research is available."
My feelings exactly.
Stephen
Gartner identifies Trends for Technology Adoption
"Gartner...released its 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, assessing the maturity, impact and adoption speed of 44 technologies and trends over the coming decade." [press release]
Key collaboration technologies in the "hype cycle" include: Podcasting, Peer to Peer (P2P) voice over IP (VoIP), Desktop Search, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), Corporate Blogging, and Wikis.
Posted by stephen at 9:24 AM
August 28, 2005
Cynefin and Communities
Everyone who knows me knows that I am an admirer of David Snowden. He formerly ran the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management and now leads the Cynefin Centre.
To be able to quote David is to feel smart in that way you do when you actually 'get' the arcane reference to the lesser works of Shakespeare over dinner with professorial friends. His knowledge is broad and deep.
Anyway, cynefin is one of those words like simpatico in Italian that just doesn't translate well into English, so broadly, quoting Dave, the word "‘Cynefin’ is a Welsh word whose literal translation into English as habitat or place fails to do it justice. It is more properly understood as the place of our multiple belongings; the sense that we all, individually and collectively, have many roots: cultural, religious, geographic, tribal etc. We can never be fully aware of the nature of those belongings, but they profoundly influence what we are. The name seeks to remind us that all human interactions are strongly influenced and frequently determined by the patterns of our multiple experiences, both through the direct influence of personal experience and through collective experience expressed as stories."
His thinking about stories and social networks and the ties that bind us together and with our history can do a lot to inform our thinking on libraries. Libraries are fundamentally and foundationally based in communities - neighourhoods, research communities, learning communities, workplaces and cultural communities. (I love communities as the glue that binds strategy together as you can see here.) By reading Dave's stuff or just listening to him, we learn a lot about the connections that make libraries great. It's more than libraries being just the storehouses of our culture's stories and narratives. It's about the subtle role we play in making connections within our communities but also with our past knowledge. Libraries can be great places to find more cynefin - those places from which all our knowledge comes - our education, or experiences, our learning, our families, our culture, what we read, hear or see, our religion or faith, and on and on.
Dave's speeches to the library community have been great. I've had him keynote both the Ontario (2002) and Canadian Library Association (2005) conferences to huge acclaim and he regularly does Information Today's various KM World, Internet Librarian and Computers in Libraries conferences.
Anyway, I am eagerly awaiting Snowden's book which he hopes to publish ths year. He has a number of articles on his website here. SirsiDynix is working with a number of the Cynefin Centre's team to collect library user and librarian narrative stories using the Cynefin Process. Already we have attained huge insights into the deeper reasons people use libraries and what they are 'really' trying to achieve. It's truly fascinating. I'll be sharing these over the coming year at various conferences. articles and especially the SirsiDynix SuperConference.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:55 PM | Comments (1)
August 26, 2005
Maps and Neighborhood Branches
I am really enjoying the rapid development of online map tools.
Many of us couldn't find our way around our own cities without MapQuest. Not just the map but the directions too!
I wonder how many libraries of all types still just have their mailing address on their websites. Is that helpful enough?
I wonder how many cities and towns on Google Maps have the locations of all their public library branches there when you look for library, libraries, books or bookstores? I recall reading a study once that said only a minority of websites showed how to get to the bricks equivalent. I understand that Google Local is populated by a business listing database like the Yellow Pages or InfoUSA. Many libraries aren't listed there so they won't show up in Google Local search yet.
And here's an idea for our kids sites at least, wouldn't it be fun (and kewl) to have the satellite photos of our libraries?
One site that can arguably be considered a competitor to libraries is Amazon.com. It recently launched (through A9) a new three dimensional photo map of major U.S. city neighourhoods. You can see it here. Also, Google Maps is doing a 3D map of San Francisco to start. I guess you could create a great video game using this map but it also makes it easier to know that you're heading in the right direction is you can see the scenery on the picture through your SmartPhone.
I worry, sometimes, that we can find things on the moon faster than we can find our local library locations on web. Check it our here .
Anyway, these mapping tools are certainly good tricks that we can adopt in our portals to help our patrons using their clicks to find our bricks.
Hmmmm,
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 8:04 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
September and October Travel Schedule
Hey folks, here's some places where I'll be giving public talks over the coming two months. If I happen to be near you, I'd love to chat over coffee.
Sept. 7-10
SirsiDynix European Users Group Meeting Keynote, Dublin, Ireland
More here.
Sept. 13
New Jersey State Library Workshop, Eatontown, New Jersey (here)
Sept. 15-16
Northwest ILL Conference Keynote, Portland, Oregon
More here.
Sept. 17
SLA Oregon Chapter Keynote, Portland Oregon
More here.
Sept. 20
Minnesota Library Association Futures Forum, Minneapolis, Minnesota
More here.
Sept. 21
Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association workshop, Crystal Mountain, Michigan
More here.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4
Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute, Emerald Lake, BC
More about NELI here.
Oct. 5-6
Ohio Library Council Conference Keynote, Columbus Ohio
More here.
Oct. 12
Illinois Library Association Keynote, Peoria, Illinois
More here.
Oct. 13-15
Pacific Northwest Library Aassn/Wyoming Library Assn Conference Keynote, Jackson's Hole, Wyoming
More Here.
Oct. 17-18
Alberta Government Information Management Conference Keynote, Edmonton, Alberta
Oct. 19
MELSA, An Alliance of Metro Libraries executive briefings, St. Paul, Minnesota
More here.
Oct. 21,
Portage Library System STaff Day, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Oct. 21-26
Internet Librarian Keynote, Monterey, California
More here.
See you all soon.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 3:05 PM | Comments (3)
August 23, 2005
Google and Libraries: Getting along
Don't you just love Google's Principles? Consider Principle #2:
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
Google does search. With one of the world's largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we've been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service already considered the best on the web at making finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of users. Our dedication to improving search has also allowed us to apply what we've learned to new products, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Maps. As we continue to build new products while making search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.
The second sentence in this principle used to say "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice, or chat." Hmmmmm - wondered why they edited their principles? (Thanks Aaron)
You can find their 10 things they really really know here.
Why did I go back and look at this? In the past few weeks we've seen Google launch or be rumoured to launch:
Google Talk (here)with a rumoured potential for conference chat and videoconferencing.
Google Finance (here)
The Google Sidebar which has the potential to ultimately be a quasi-operating system (OS)
Google Wallet and e-commerce innovation.
Google broadband and wireless through the wires and investment in here.
Add this to large investments in China and a growing language capability... and ask yourself just what won't they be involved in?
And what's the library story? The big question is who or what drives Google? Who is paying the piper? It's a public company and needs to keep shareholders happy. It needs revenue and that comes from advertisers, of course. Who and what drives libraries? The public, the user, our learners and supporters, of course. Is that focus enough of a strategic differentiator to live alongside Google in the global competition for attention?
Let's talk about it. Register for my session about Google and libraries in the SirsiDynix Institute. You can do this here. It's free (just like Google).
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 2:24 PM | Comments (1)
August 22, 2005
Shout Out to Academic Librarians
I have just loved the Beloit College Mindset lists since they started coming out in 1998. You can find the archive here.
This week they released the Class of 2009 list, stating "In the coming weeks, millions of students will be entering college for the first time. On average, these members of the Class of 2009 will be 18 years old, which means they were born in 1987. Starbucks, souped-up car stereos, telephone voicemail systems, and Bill Gates have always been a part of their lives."
My own daughter will be on next year's list, having been born in 1988.
Anyway, you gotta love mind games this list plays to bring you back to reality about the life experiences of the frosh undergrads coming to a university or college near you next week.
BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2009
Most students entering college this fall were born in 1987.
1. Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2. They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
3. Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4. Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5. Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.
6. With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a tie.
7. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8. They never had the fun of being thrown into the back of a station wagon with six others.
9. Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.
10. They are more familiar with Greg Gumbel than with Bryant Gumbel.
11. Philip Morris has always owned Kraft Foods.
12. Al-Qaida has always existed with Osama bin Laden at its head.
13. They learned to count with Lotus 1-2-3.
14. Car stereos have always rivaled home component systems.
15. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker have never preached on television.
16. Voice mail has always been available.
17. "Whatever" is not part of a question but an expression of sullen rebuke.
18. The federal budget has always been more than a trillion dollars.
19. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
20. They may have fallen asleep playing with their Gameboys in the crib.
21. They have always had the right to burn the flag.
22. For daily caffeine emergencies, Starbucks has always been around the corner.
23. Ferdinand Marcos has never been in charge of the Philippines.
24. Money put in their savings account the year they were born earned almost 7% interest.
25. Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
26. Dirty dancing has always been acceptable.
27. Southern fried chicken, prepared with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, has always been available in China.
28. Michael Jackson has always been bad, and greed has always been good.
29. The Starship Enterprise has always looked dated.
30. Pixar has always existed.
31. There has never been a "fairness doctrine" at the FCC.
32. Judicial appointments routinely have been "Borked."
33. Aretha Franklin has always been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
34. There have always been zebra mussels in the Great Lakes.
35. Police have always been able to search garbage without a search warrant.
36. It has always been possible to walk from England to mainland Europe on dry land.
37. They have grown up in a single superpower world.
38. They missed the oat bran diet craze.
39. American Motors has never existed.
40. Scientists have always been able to see supernovas.
41. Les Miserables has always been on stage.
42. Halogen lights have always been available at home, with a warning.
43. "Baby M" may be a classmate, and contracts with surrogate mothers have always been legal.
44. RU486 has always been on the market.
45. There has always been a pyramid in front of the Louvre in Paris.
46. British Airways has always been privately owned.
47. Irradiated food has always been available but controversial.
48. Snowboarding has always been a popular winter pastime.
49. Libraries have always been the best centers for computer technology and access to good software.
50. Biosphere 2 has always been trying to create a revolution in the life sciences.
51. The Hubble Telescope has always been focused on new frontiers.
52. Researchers have always been looking for stem cells.
53. They do not remember "a kinder and gentler nation."
54. They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.
55. The TV networks have always had cable partners.
56. Airports have always had upscale shops and restaurants.
57. Black Americans have always been known as African-Americans.
58. They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.
59. Matt Groening has always had a Life in Hell.
60. Salman Rushdie has always been watching over his shoulder.
61. Digital cameras have always existed.
62. Tom Landry never coached the Cowboys.
63. Time Life and Warner Communications have always been joined.
64. CNBC has always been on the air.
65. The Field of Dreams has always been drawing people to Iowa.
66. They never saw a Howard Johnson's with 28 ice cream flavors.
67. Reindeer at Christmas have always distinguished between secular and religious decorations.
68. Entertainment Weekly has always been on the newsstand.
69. Lyme Disease has always been a ticking concern in the woods.
70. Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
71. Miss Piggy and Kermit have always dwelt in Disneyland.
72. America's Funniest Home Videos has always been on television.
73. Their nervous new parents heard C. Everett Koop proclaim nicotine as addictive as heroin.
74. Lever has always been looking for 2000 parts to clean.
75. They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.
© 2005 Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin
Anyway, welcome these folks warmly. Teach them the information literacy skills they'll need to research the olden days when Wayne played for the Oilers and remind them that some stuff is still in the library and everything isn't on the web or even free.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 3:09 AM | Comments (1)
August 21, 2005
I'm back
Well, folks - sorry for the gap in posting. I was on a long road trip talking to librarians and folks from all over the world. I was at IFLA in Oslo, Norway. This is a great place to broaden your awareness of the international world of librarianship and the global impact our profession has. I had wonderful conversations with university librarians from Ghana, Nigeria and Tanganyika. Despite their challenges they sure so amazing things at their libraries. It was revitalizing to connect with so many clients from around the world. Now I'm back and can start catching up on everything!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 2:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
Teenagers and the Internet
If we want to know what's coming over the next ten years we just have to start paying more attention to how teens are behaving in the Internet world. I love to read the Pew Internet and American Life Project report and their latest is a doozy.
Teens are huge users of the web. Duh! While it shouldn't need to be stated, it's important to remember that when we are developing our 5 and 10 year plans and visions:
1. All the high school age users of our libraries are teens.
2. Within five years they will be just about all of our undergraduate student users.
3. In 10-15 years they will be the majority of the parents of the kids in our school programs.
If you're going to focus on someone to influence and have a positive view of libraries, just about every one of them is already born already. If you want to design services and resources that align well with their needs and abilities, they're just not that hard to find. I live with two of these aliens myself. They're pretty neat. When I hear colleagues overtly and overly criticize this demographic I worry they've closed their minds to understanding them. And the book "Everythig Bad is Good for You" presents the case that they're smarter than us older folk. Scary emerging generation gap here.
Anyway, the latest Pew report "The Internet at School" is available as a sumary and PDF here.
The Pew noted that the Internet is an important (maybe critical) element in the overall educational experience of many teenagers. The widespread agreement among teens and their parents that the Internet can be a useful tool for school is driving school libraries and teachers to start building the blended learning environment (classroom and online) that supports their needs. Think about this:
1. 87% of all youth between the ages of 12 and 17 use the Internet.
That translates into about 21 million people in the U.S.
2. Of those 21 million online teens, 78% (or about 16 million students) say they use the Internet at school.
3. This means that 68% of all teenagers have used the Internet at school.
4 This represents growth of roughly 45% over the past four years from about 11 million teens who used the Internet in schools in late 2000 (from the 2000 Pew survey).
5. 18% of teens who use the Internet from multiple locations list school as the location where they go online most often.
6. 37% of teens say they believe that “too many” of their peers are using the Internet to cheat.
7. Large numbers of teens and adults have used the web to search for information about colleges and universities. So another of the things that changed when the Internet changed everything is the dynamic of educational choices.
8. Of the other locations that teens use to go online were: friend's houses (75%), public libraries (61%) and community centers (11%). Good news since they can often get to library resources from outside the library - if we make them aware.
9. And the data on instant messaging in ths study is illuminating.
Another short paper worth a read.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 6:23 PM | Comments (1)
August 9, 2005
Local Services and Google
It's always interesting to watch Google and their 'local' initiatives. MSN and Yahoo! are making similar introductions too.
I love what is happening with Google Maps, and Google Local seems to be really moving forward. This is interesting in the context of public libraries and their relationship with their communities. Since the searches are optimized for local businesses with such things as yellow pages ads or InfoUSA type listings, then putting in search words for books or libraries turns up interesting results - and not always in the lcoal ibrary's best interests. Add the 3-D mapping of San Francisco by Google and you get some really interesting foundations for local work (and some cool locally relevant gaming too!).
Also, take these recent examples into consideration to see inklings of Google's ultimate local vision...:
Google seemed to dominate a certain Kansas City Royals MLB game this Spring. They gave out local.google.com giant blue hands and launched a local advertising and marketing initiative. How do local sites relate to this potential competitor?
InternetNews.com's is reporting that Google will announce the acquisition of Meetroduction later this week. Meetroduction is a . This is Google's second acquistion in the social networking/location-based services space in recent months. It's also amazing that this service just launched on August 4th, 2005! Meetro also combines hooking people with similar local interests up with most major IM clients. In May, Google acquired dodgeball.com, a service that allows users to find "friends" and new friends using SMS text messaging. Find out more here.
Paidcontent.org had this to say:
"Google has historically been information-centric. The content and character of social relations don't fit well into that view of the world, but matter, a lot, to users. ... Dodgeball mingles informational and social aspects of a user's life into something more valuable than either of those things in isolation." So Dodgeball gets the concept, Google gets Dodgeball and we get to watch -- and participate."
Anyway, it worth keeping an eye on this stuff in the next generation plans for our search engines - it's the canary in the mine for services that depend on local markets - public libraries and their branches, for instance.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:08 AM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2005
Worth Remembering for the Google Addicted
Chris Sherman, points to a new study that shows that the various generic web search engines (the big 4), have even less overlap in their results than in previous studies and that's not much overlap. You can find his posting here.
Just how unique are the results on each engine? On average:
73.9% of Ask Jeeves first page results were unique to Ask Jeeves
71.2% of Yahoo first page results were unique to Yahoo
70.8% of MSN search first page results were unique to MSN search
66.4% of Google first page results were unique to Google
Hmmmm.
The study looked at results listings for more than 485,000 first page search results. First page results have two key qualities that are important. If I remember my old studies something like 98% of 'ordinary' searchers do not go past the third page of results and 95% don't get past the first. Also, the first page is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for search engine optimization (SEO) consultants - those folks who attempt to ensure that their clients' pages (not just their ads or sponsored links) show up on the first page of hits by using a wide range of techniques and strategies.
The study also found that:
84.9% of total results are unique to one engine
11.4% of total results were shared by any two engines
2.6% of total results were shared by any three engines
1.1% of total results were shared by any four engines
It's worth a quick read and the questions I would ask about our library strategies would be:
1. We offer many databases for searching inside the library's walls and many for virtual access through our websites. I think that we can safely assume that the 'quality' information in our licensed resources has even less overlap with the public web content acessible through searches.
2. I think we can also assume that few hits in our licensed resources are being manipulated extensively by marketers and SEO experts.
3. Many of our library websites choose to offer our users a link to one or more of the popular search engines. With such little overlap in the search results (which could be driven by the sorting or search algorithm or by the web harvesting differences or even by the timing of the scrapes for the search index)should we be preferring a metasearch engine like Dogpile or building our own using federated searching technologies and OpenURL resolvers?
4. Can we get better service delivered to our users by combining OPAC results seamlessly into web searches? Our experience at SirsiDynix is that OPAC use goes up exponentially when users 'trip' over the results in a federated search instead of having to 'remember' to use the rich OPAC, usually a library's most vauable asset when meaasured by investment over time.
There are a lot of questions here and the answers may be quite different for different types of libraries and commnunities. It's also interesting though. You can review stuff about Sirsi SingleSearch or Sirsi Resolver on our website.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:56 PM | Comments (3)
August 4, 2005
Information Wants to be Free?
My article on this says "Bullcookies".
Posted by stephen at 7:19 PM | Comments (0)
ePaper
You have to admit that the concept of e-paper is enthralling. This article is interesting since it shows exactly where e-paper is right now - watch faces, a student newspaper trial, conference center signs and Wal-Mart sale signs. Not quite burning up the old Fahrenheit 451, eh? Then again you can still see the potential- starting small - probably in jewelry and toys, then appearing in our smartphones and then suddenly being everywhere. But when? And when will it be in colour?
Then, for those of us who've seen the Harry Potter films, instead of actually reading the tomes, aren't the spell books cool? Moving images right on the page- sometines in 3D and with sound! I wonder if this is how my grandparents felt when they first saw TV. Anyway, the merger of Adobe, providers of the Acrobat PDF reader, with Macromedia, providers of Flash technology, seems to step one step closer to this world of magic paper. It's not hard to imagine a flash animation of a DNA sequence or a microscope view of a petri dish embedded right there in your PDF document.
I don't think of this e-paper thing just in the context of children's story books or newspapers. I wonder when we'll see the day when most dissertations are not easily stored in electronic printhard copy metaphor formats. We already see a small minority where the dissertation contains working programs and objects that may not be sustainable (i.e. readable or usable) over time. What happens when these icons of scholarship become swiss cheese works when their electronic components can no longer be viewed easily - especially to a wider web based public with 'ordinary' equipment?
Anyway, that e-paper stuff is sure interesting to think about. Will it sneak into our future the way everything else does? How do we deal with it in libraries?
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:34 PM | Comments (0)
Feeling Old
New librarians hate it when I talk about having done punch card programming at library school. The again, it brings our progress clearly into perspective when I read this posting.
How many punch cards would it take to program a 3 minute MP3 file?
.
..
...
.....
.......
The short answer is 40,960 cards (the 21 boxes of cards would be 5 feet nine inches tall). Throughput is apparently 228 cards / second (althuogh I am sure mine was much slower). So you can do the math . . .!
Try to put that in your iPod!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2005
Solving the MP3 Dilemma
Well, here's a cool example of a public library taking the bull by the horns. Oshawa Public Library has begun offering access to over 90,000 tracks of classical music for the serious listener and musician for free to their community. Learn more here. As reported in the Toronto Star, it costs the library a small amount (less than $5K) and they also offer some spoken word recordings as well. Combine this with services from Audible.com and Overdrive and your library is running on steroids!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:21 PM | Comments (0)
August 2, 2005
The Store Window and Your Portal
I worked my way through university by working in retail - mostly hardware, housewares, gifts, and a little furniture design. It was fun and I learned a lot. Even then I marvelled that most libraries that I knew didn't have a 'shop window' where they promoted their most interesting things. I was reminded of this today when I read the new Forbes article, "Google Isn't Everything". The author does a marvelous job of simply stating that libraries have a load of wonderful content in databases that are better than Google. I can hear you all saying, "Duh!'. But this is Forbes not a library periodical!
There are two great insights here:
One - he notes that "None of these databases is perfect, since most were initially designed for trained librarians rather than mere flailing mortals, so the user interfaces can be daunting until you get the hang of them."
Two - he challenges that "My biggest complaint is that some libraries' Web sites don't detail the amazing range of services they offer online until you cough up a card number. Memo to those insular institutions: Put the info in the shop windows out front and I bet you'll see a lot more card-carrying customers walking through the electronic doors."
Hmmmm - just imagine if your portals were the shop windows they needed to be. Does your portal/web site 'sell' your services? Or is it a dry compilation of links? Can you tell what's behind the authenticator/password wall? Is there a motivation to get that library card to find what's behind the opaque wall?
Hmmmm - Do we design our federated search options for using these licensed databases to make it easy? How much does the cardholder have to do to get into these great tools? It should be easy but I worry that it's still too hard.
And, BTW, what does your real shop window look like in the bricks environment? In the retail world we had to change our displays weekly, keep them fresh, make them look attractive and engaging, promote a limited range of things and not everything and, oh yeah, we weren't allowed to tape a hundred letter-sized posters to the windows either. Apparently the mall thought they looked awful. Maybe a few libraries could use some sprucing up with a few retail techniques.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2005
Firefox
Well, I see on Slashdot that Mozilla's Firefox reached its 75 millionth download on Friday. Pretty amazing growth for an upstart.
I've been using this browser on and off (more on than off) for a long time now (at least in Internet time). I am pretty impressed. The usability is good and they are (or at least the Firefox community is) pretty fast at addressing problems.
I see many Sirsi clients starting to prefer the Firefox browser such as Pennsylvania State University and Indiana U. There are a lot of benefits to this policy.
It's a good idea. My old science knowledge about healthy ecologies click in and I know that the necessity for biological diversity in a healthy ecosystem is one lesson that those of us in the technology world can learn from the natural world. It's just not healthy for one browser to dominate over 90% of the market - or our ecology. It makes it too easy to invade with viruses, spam, pop-up, pop-unders, and all the other nasties of today's Internet.
I hope more institutions adopt a more diversified strategy for their browsers. I am happy that Sirsi uses both MSIE and Firefox on our PC's and ensures that we test our products on as many browsers as possible.
And, it's very exciting when out clients create Firefox tools too. One especially cool tool is the one developed to enable OpenURL in Google Scholar by Sirsi's client, the University of ALberta. See it here.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 9:55 PM | Comments (2)
A Fellow Sirsi Blogger
My fellow Sirsi blogger, "Dr. Data" (Robert (Bob) Molyneux), has just posted some exciting analyses he has done on the data collected by the Normative Data Project. He has crunched some numbers to answer the question of how, when library incomes nationally are so stretched, have libraries found ways to increase operating expenditures in spite of the situation with income. It appears libraries have been eating their seed corn! Anyway, his analysis is pretty interesting and there's more where this came from for the folks who love numbers.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)