"Taylor & Francis empowers Wikipedia editors with access to all journals"

In a move aimed at enhancing the quality and reliability of Wikipedia articles, Taylor & Francis, a leading academic publisher, has announced an agreement with The Wikipedia Library. This collaboration grants volunteer editors free access to the entirety of Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals, providing them with a wealth of peer-reviewed research across diverse disciplines.

Read more at https://www.knowledgespeak.com/news/taylor-francis-empowers-wikipedia-editors-with-access-to-all-journals/.

No Big Splash after dropping the Big Deal

Just read "Leaving the 'Big Deal'... Five Years Later" by Jonathan Nabea & David C. Fowler.

• Via OpenSIUC: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/morris_articles/63/
• Via Taylor and Francis Online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0361526X.2015.1048037#

This article describes analysis on cancellation of three Big Deals five years later from two institutions.  Here are some of the conclusions with my commentary:

1. Demand for the content is not high enough to return to the Big Deal, since ILL requests for content which would have be covered by the Big Deal is about 10% of the downloads previously recorded.  I think the first part of the conclusion may very well be correct, but I don't think that ILL figures after cancellation of an ejournal collection doesn't map directly to real demand.  In fact, in extreme, the difference between the two could be interpreted in the opposite direction: access has dropped to 10% of what demand was previously.  Neither extremes are correct and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle since neither number is a good measure of actual demand in my opinion.
2. Savings were significant, particularly considering the size of the overall budgets, annual increases and inflation, and comparing it to the monographs budget.  This is not really an analysis but a statement, but I'm not sure that comparing the money saved with the purchasing power for books is useful.  Journals and books are two separate parts of a library's collection and it's not immediately valuable to say that with all the money we saved buy journals in a specific way, we were able to buy books in a different way.  The article uses this comparison as an illustration only but I'm not sure it's a very useful one.
3. Dropping the Big Deals gives us more flexibility.  Amen.  I think this is one of the best arguments for doing this.  The most dangerous part of the Big Deal is the lack of flexibility and control a library has when participating in it.  I just wish that flexibility and control could be given a dollar value so we could compare.

Not much analysis was done for this but something's better than nothing, I guess.  I would have expected something about any patron feedback that may be lingering, specific collections picked up since cancellation, changes in usage data for other collections or resources, etc.  What do you think?  Have you gone through any Big Deal cancellations?  What impact have you seen or expect to see?

Better electronic resource trials

Just read "Community organizing for database trial buy-in by patrons" by JJ Pionke.

• Via IDEALS (Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship): https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/79049
• Via Taylor and Francis: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1941126X.2015.1059643#

Good article suggesting some tips on running more successful, or rather, more patron-involved trials of electronic resources.  The typical trial process given in the article is basically what I do with a few "flourishes" added, so I learned a few things that I may try for next time and add to my list of steps:

1. Listen to the needs of the potentially affected patrons.  Although this seems obvious, I know we all find it hard to seek out the needs instead of just assuming we know them.  And sometimes the needs mentioned are not actual needs.  But understanding them better should be part of the process.
2. The trial acting as a case study was done in March.  I've tended to have them run whenever the trial requestor suggests or simply as soon as possible.  But there may be some value in running them during either March or November since, at my current institution at least, these are the peak periods of use for electronic resources.  All other things being held equal, this should ensure the most use and therefore the most supported feedback possible.
3. In the case study, the health librarian running the trial made personal contact with the relevant patrons, including the faculty department head.  I've always thought this should happen more but as eResources Librarian, it's not part of my role.  But I could encourage this and try to make it easier for those subject liaisons who would be doing this.
4. The article makes the true point that someone who is "one of us" is more likely to be listened to than otherwise.  Again, this is not my current role, and I'm not sure that it's as simple as that, but some aspects of becoming closer to the relevant patron group might be helpful in this and other situations.
5. The article finally mentions that training, support material, and updating communications followed immediately on the heels of the trial end.  Although this kind of this on my list of things to do, it might be helpful to increase the priority of the timing.

Good article, JJ.  Thanks for the tips!  Anyone else have anything interesting to suggest for running trials?

Library School: What I'd Fix

It's been a while since I graduated from my Master of Librarian and Information Science program (in 2001) but I just read "The future of library education: reflections of a newly educated librarian" from Open Shelf, and it made me think back to my glory days on campus learning to do what I've been doing ever since.  Specifically, I was thinking about what I would have preferred in the program:

A better understanding of what the program and each course was going to focus on: practical skills versus theory.

As it said in the inspirational article above, "library schools could better communicate to students exactly what parts of their education are intended to target" each.  These are professional masters degrees so a certain amount of both is required:  we need to be able to both do the job and know why we're doing it so we can maybe do it better.  It would be ideal if every course, regardless of subject had a clear balance of each.  In my experience, some courses had it and others didn't, and my school seemed to particularly focus on the practical skills when I was yearning for more theory.

More education on the collections management side.

My current position (and previous position, and probably several future positions) is in collections management and other technical services functions.  Sure, I had a reference resources course but having worked with resources, vendors, publishers and all the technology involved, I've found that I've had to learn much of it on the job.  Part of the problem is certainly the fact that electronic resources were still pretty young in 2001, but I don't recall learning anything about the publishing industry, in general or regarding specific players.  Evaluation of resources would have been very useful, even in general principles since they shouldn't have changed that much despite the resources themselves changing.

More information about the details of the library school's focus.

A not-too-recent blog entry stated that "it really does not matter which library school you attend".  I beg to differ.  It might not matter whether you come from a "top rated" school or not (although this article basically says that it's pretty much the only thing that matters in most fields), but there are certainly differences between library schools that, when I was applying and for many years after graduating, I didn't know at all.  But in speaking with colleagues from various institutions, particularly ones that were actually smart enough to look into the matter before handing over the tuition dough, library schools can differ greatly.  Some are best for producing mass quantities of just general librarians, whereas others are more suitable for those looking to continue on with a PhD; some have a great Archivists' program, while others are better for public librarians.  Perhaps this has changed since I was really looking into choosing a school, but, just like with any institution of higher education, marketing yourself as a solution for everyone when you aren't isn't good for you or your students.

Don't worry about making the argument for the program being a good investment or not.

Honestly, this was never really a concern of mine but I see it more and more in higher education.  I'm not sure a Master of Library and Information Science program or the like could be described as a good investment (sometimes yes, sometimes maybe, sometimes no) but I'm not sure it really matters.  Heading down a career path shouldn't be considered in the same way as sizing up stocks and bonds.  Deciding to take a certain academic or professional program that tends to lead to a certain career is all about whether YOU will be able to at least live with it if not enjoy it.  You don't have to like the company that you're investing in, at least not as much as you're going to have to like the job you may be doing for the rest of your life.

Make it less about books and more about information.

Yes, I know that we all like books (see the first paragraph from "So You've Decided to Go to Library School"), but we shouldn't be basing our choice of a profession on such a stereotypical understand of what librarians do.  Libraries are, and always have been about more than just books.  Yes, we can take advantage of the public's seemingly permanent connection between libraries and books, but if we don't make a bit of a connection with other things, then the second society loses their love affair with the dusty old tomes, we're toast.  In fact, in some libraries, books aren't even the thing the collections budget is spent most on.  I would like to see more focus on the Information part of the MLIS than on the Library part.  Don't get me wrong, I like that it's in the degree name (I don't like the MIS or the, shudder, MI) but I would gladly get rid if it if that's what it took to make our profession a little more respectable.

Ok, so I've had my rant.  What do you think?  What would you change (or not) about librarianship education?

What I think Canada is.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!  For those of you who don't know, I'm a Canadian and have lived in Canada all my life but for a handful of years living in NJ and working in NYC.  As is typical, I'm, by default, proud of my country but I've hardly experienced the rest of the world so I can hardly compare really.  And, as all Canadians do, I have experienced a pile o' American culture (through TV, movies, books, music, etc.) so I'm heavily influenced by all that despite being part of that culture.

From the Canadian Heritage site on the "History of Canada Day", you can see that Canada Day was originally called Dominion Day, based on the day of the 'creation' of the "Dominion of Canada" by the British North America Act on July 1, 1867.  In a way, Canada Day is Canada's birthday so happy 147th birthday, Canada!

So what does Canada 'mean'?  Well, according to that vignette that Canadians saw on TV (in, what, the eighties?) the word "Canada" comes from a misunderstanding of the Iroquois word, "kanata" or village.  (You can also look here and here.)  But what does the country named Canada mean?  What is different about it?  Well, not much, at least in comparison with the United States.  I would say that, at least in southern Ontario, Canadian culture is much the same as American culture, particularly the US east coast and the midwest.  We're pretty white, quite materialistic, like our franchised restaurants, based primarily on European culture and Britain in particular, reasonably well-off compared to much of the rest of the world, youngish (only 147 years old), and individualistic.  I get the feeling that we're a little more European, socialist, and calm when compared to the US, and we certainly aren't as militaristic or politically active as Americans.  We have plenty and enjoy plenty of British imports like our chocolate/candy bars and TV like Coronation Street.  It's hard for me to compare Canada and Canadians with the rest of the world other than saying we're similar to the US so I'm not going to even try.

The other regions of Canada have some other unique cultures that, although I haven't experienced directly, I am aware of the basics and the stereotypes.  Quebec is francophone which brings with it cultural behaviours related to France, Catholocism, and a feeling of independence when defending against the encroaching anglophone culture from the States and the rest of Canada.  Eastern Canada borrows more from Irish and Scottish culture (as opposed to the English cultural background in Ontario), and IMHO is a little more safe from American influence.  The Prairie Provinces have a lot of similarity with the American Midwest in that they tend to be more rural and conservative.  I would suspect that much of BC is the same except for the more urban Vancouver area which I've been told is similar to the American West Coast.  Vancouver is like Canada's California...  damn hippies.  lol  And the northern territories are also very rural in terms of culture by necessity but also quite influenced by native culture.

(Of course, much of what I've included here is based on very little direct experience of the people or living in the area so please correct me if I've painted incorrect or overly broad strokes on the different regions of Canada.)

I like living in Ontario, Canada.  Weather is a nice mix between snow and cold in the winter (down to about -30 to degrees Celsius, though it does regularly get down to -40 in northern Ontario and probably lower) and pretty hot in the summer (upwards of maybe 30 degrees Celsius).  And we don't tend to have extreme and dangerous weather like tornadoes (although there was a bit of tornado damage a couple months ago in Toronto), hurricanes, floods, tidal waves (we're well inland expect for four of the five largest lakes in the world), landslides, etc.  Cold tends to be the worst weather extreme that we have and that can certainly take its toll in terms of hypothermia, damage to power lines and roads, difficulty in travelling, etc.  But I'd rather have too much cold than, say, earthquakes.

What is Canada to you?  Or, at least, what is YOUR part of Canada to you?

There should be a rating system for information resources

The Idea

Someone or some organization should develop and promote a system of "rating" information resources, possibly including anything from databases and full text collections down to individual books and articles, that describe the "quality" of the resource within some framework.  The rating could be applied by different players (and be clearly labelled as such) such as the creator, the publisher, academic societies, libraries or library consortia, or consumers or consumer groups.  This rating could include suggested audience, value to specific audiences, to what degree of analysis the rating was subject to (with reference to documentation of the analysis), and how recently such analysis was completed.

The Inspiration

Reading "Realizing the Value of Non-Purchased Content" (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0361526X.2014.879637), which discusses the value of free resources in a library's collection.  Thinking of my own library's process of dealing with this, my concern is that, because they're free, they don't get as much evaluation before "adding it to the collection" as do paid-for resources.  This might be fine but our patrons don't always understand the work that goes into deciding on whether something goes into a library's collection or not and so may falsely believe that a free resource, linked to on the library's web site is just as good as an index for which tens of thousands of dollars was paid.  Some level of information about how much consideration was made should be included.  But perhaps this can't or shouldn't be done for every single resource, and other perspectives can be just as valuable as the library so this assessment could be made by almost anyone, given a similar procedure.  It brings to mind Cochrane Systematic Reviews that thoroughly provide the "final answer" on a clinical issue and keep that answer up to date.

The Reasoning

There seems to be a dearth of assessment information out there, particularly about information products.  They are already difficult to compare since no two journals, no two books, no two articles, no two collections are really comparable in the same way as, say, a toaster or a car or a banking service is.  Some kind of systematic and therefore more trustworthy method of providing at least some perspective of value should be provided to consumers (meaning libraries or end users).  This would be a complex measurement of course, but something's better than nothing.

The Impact

As mentioned above, this would be a complex and multifaceted measurement and would therefore require a lot of work on the part of whoever's evaluating the product.  Some products might not be suitable for such a system.  But, if done properly, this could streamline the use of information products by everyone in the demand chain (almost the same as the supply chain but from the opposite angle), as well as motivating creators and publishers to meet certain criteria and hopefully tend toward improvement.

Law and logic

I just heard of a new case of a publisher (actually several) threatening another librarian with a defamation and libel suit.  See http://www.yousendit.com/download/UW13SU5OUnF0TW5FdzhUQw

The very first paragraph of meaning (after all the preamble of introductions), they claim:

By placing all four of our client's companies on your "list", you have published facts about these companies, by claiming that each and every company is a potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publisher.  These statements are false, in that our client's companies are not, in fact, predatory publishers.

 Is it me, or are they trying to claim that the four companies in question are BY DEFINITION not predatory?  In essence  that's what these words say to me.  They are saying that it is false that each company is a possible predatory publisher, among other things.  By saying this, they are saying that it is not possible that they are, meaning that, in all possible worlds, Redfame Publishing, for example, is never predatory.  They are claiming logical necessity or an analytical truth, or that these companies are, by definition, not predatory.  I would love to watch the legal proceedings in that case.

Now I know that legal terms are not always to be understood by their proper non-legal definitions, and lawyers are certainly not philosophers or logicians.  But at some point, "The Law" needs to follow some basic logical rules.  You can say that things are not possible simply because the current incarnation is so, unless you're talking about one plus one equaling two, or all bachelors being unmarried.  What I think they really should be calling foul on is the SUGGESTION that these claimed possibilities are indeed facts.  If my name gets put on a list of possible ax murderers, I'm not going to say that couldn't possibly be an ax murderer (although I do not own an ax) since I may go completely insane tomorrow and visit Canadian Tire's ax aisle.  What I will complain is that such a list may make people think that there's some good reason for being afraid of my ax-wielding future endeavours because of this list.

If such a case is allowed to be successfully argued, can we even use the term "possible" anymore?  Everything lies in the realm of possibility to some degree until certainty is achieved.  What we usually mean by "possible" is that we have some reason to believe that this might be the case BUT there are not enough facts to even be practically and publicly certain.  The argument against even the common understanding of "possibility" needs to be on the criteria for making such a judgement.  (Of course, the letter barely mentions these criteria, only arguing that the number suggests lack of justification.  And nowhere does it take to task these criteria specifically.)

(Here's the Scholarly Open Access site itself, complete with blog and the offending lists.  Arm yourself with knowledge.)

Reader survey results and responses

Just read Reader survey results by Joseph Esposito (via a Scholarly Kitchen entry).

This is the summary of the results of a reader survey conducted by the author and Joe Wikert.  These are my own professional librarian take-aways:

1. So there are plenty of readers directly purchasing books from the publisher?  Perhaps, as libraries, with our role firmly between the publisher and our readers, we could facilitate those transactions.  I WANT my patrons to get the information/entertainment they want and it doesn't have to always be through something actually IN our collection.  If a student wants to buy the book, I'd like to help her get the right one.  Maybe we could even convince the publisher/provider to give them a discount since the library helped out.
2. It's suggested that while readers tend to like to purchase books online, they still like to browse in print.  Great!  The library is still purchasing plenty of print, so perhaps we should be showcasing it more/better?  More displays and sprinkled liberally around our buildings, not just at the front door.  Public library tend to do it better than academic, but we could all do it more.  Of course it has to be controlled better:  searching readers need to be able to find it, not just browsing readers.  We could also make our stacks a little more browser-friendly with labels, maps, signs, etc.
3. It's mixed as to what format is more popular:  print or electronic.  There are still big numbers on both sides and plenty of overlap.  This suggests that our collection development policy of collecting either or both as appropriate seems right on the money.  I'd like to have more firm data on what "appropriate" really is but lacking that, subject expertise like we tend to have in academic libraries will do.  Not much for libraries to really improve on.
4. Finally, the author seems to bemoan the decreasing value of certain traditional sources of book reviews and opinion information.  I'm not so sure.  This kind of information has always been useful and desired but limited to the "experts".  But reviews are more important as the provider is deemed more similar to the reader.  A doctor may say a certain book is great but a librarian saying the same thing will be more influential to me.  Therefore, the more open collections of reviews are, the more likely I'll find someone that has an opinion about the book I think I may want and who is "like me" enough for me to be moved by their opinion.  Also, the more opinion info there is out there, the more options the library has for obtaining this data and adding it to the collection to help OUR readers.  We're doing this more and more, but we have to keep going.

Anything I missed?

Happy Open Access Week!

From "Open Access Week Preview," Information Today, October 15, 2012

Organizations around the world are gearing up to celebrate Open Access Week, officially held Oct. 22–28, 2012. For most institutions, Open Access Week is a way to increase the visibility of open access among scientists, researchers, librarians, university faculty members, and students. At the same time, it also provides opportunities for open access practitioners to exchange knowledge and share ideas. Open access means free, unrestricted access to and reuse rights for scholarly research, either through publication in open access journals or by posting copies of the peer-reviewed version of articles into open access repositories. This year’s theme for the week is Set the Default to Open Access, intending to make open access the norm in journal publishing rather than the exception. An increasing number of libraries, publishers, research funding agencies, NGOs, and other organizations are hosting workshops, speeches, and other types of events; launching advocacy campaigns; kicking off new initiatives; and participating in ongoing shows of support.

It should go without saying that I am in support of Open Access (OA) efforts.  There is one aspect of how OA is currently being spoken of that bothers me however.  It seems like most of the conversation about OA in my experience, at least in terms of viability and sustainability is how it will be paid for, and although I don't know the actual breakdown, it seems like most full or partial OA journals are funded by author (or author-related institution) paid fees.  IMHO, this is neither effective (leading to some unsavoury publishing efforts or putting up a barrier to new authors) nor necessary.  Just like much of academia, the funds required to get things done are paid indirectly:  people volunteering time, expertise or resources, or institutional support.

Enough of my complaining though...  Happy Open Access Week!  Spread the word and support OA yourself!

Are "Big eBook Deals" worth it?

Just read "The 'big deal' approach to acquiring e-books: a usage-based study' by Terry Bucknell, from Serials 23(2), July 2010.  This article is an evaluation of a "big ebook deal" based on usage, specifically a Springer collection deal by the University of Liverpool.  Here are some of the conclusions in interesting points:

• eBook chapter use was comparable and connected to ejournal use on the same platform.
• A good number of titles were used per subject area (40-60%) except for Math and Stats (not surprisingly).
• There was a reverse correlation between ebook and print book versions of titles, suggesting that there are clear preferences per title.
• Most titles were used at least once within two years.
• Past usage is not always a good predictor of future usage:  high-use titles in one period were not so in another.
• Mostly long-tail usage.  There were no clear "winners" dominating usage.
• Cost per chapter were good compared to available benchmarks and ejournals.
• Overall, this was a good deal, even for STM subjects for which ejournals are often stated as preferred.  (This suggests difficult budget issues.)

This makes me want to do the same kind of analysis for the collections in my library to see if the numbers are similar, especially since this kind of acquisition in only growing and many of the conclusions are contrary to our intuitions.  For example, this suggests that:

1. We should avoid overlap between ebooks and print books.
2. PDA programs are not as useful as they may seem, at least in large collections.
3. We need to push for better budgets to accommodate ebook collection acquisitions.

Teach by NOT teaching

According to a relatively recent article in the "Journal of Learning Sciences" (learned of from Time magazine via Lifehacker), we are doing a disservice to our students and workers when we 'making learning easy'.  Kapur and Bielaczyc found that, in comparing students with and without direct teacher-involved instruction, those without consistently outperformed those with in post-tests.  On the one hand this is counter-intuitive:  when I'm building a barn, it's probably going to take me longer and I'm probably going to do a poorer job if I'm all alone than if my friends and neighbours come and help me.  It's easier to climb stairs than a rocky cliff.    But on the other hand, we tend to place more importance (and therefore internal resources such as attention, confidence, memory, etc.) on things that were difficult to achieve if for no other reason than we don't want to feel like we've wasted our time or, worse, looked foolish wasting our time.  Here is the summary of how to use this nugget of info in practice (from the Time magazine article):

First, choose problems to work on that “challenge but do not frustrate.” Second, provide learners with opportunities to explain and elaborate on what they’re doing. Third, give learners the chance to compare and contrast good and bad solutions to the problems.

Sounds like good advice.  As a parent, this suggests that I should back off a bit from helping my kids figure out homework or difficult new concepts.  As a librarian, this suggests that we should do our best to find that middle ground between challenging and frustrating info searchers and that perhaps we be more involved in the learning review steps, perhaps by providing venues and/or tools support such review.

[ Read Lifehacker's "The More You Struggle with New Information the More Likely You Are to Learn It" then Time magazine's "Why Floundering Is Good" then, if you have time and access Journal of Learning Sciences' "Designing for Productive Failure" ]

"Directory of Open Access Books" (DOAB) review

From the press release for the launch of DOAB, the "Directory of Open Access Books" or "DOAB" is:

a discovery service for peer reviewed books published under an Open Access license. DOAB provides a searchable index to the information about these books, with links to the full texts of the publications at the publisher’s website or repository. 

CONTENT

The site claims to contain "854 academic peer-reviewed books" as of April 26, 2012 but my check found only 841 (by counting the number of titles under each letter in the alphabetical browse by title list).  Perhaps I missed a number or two when adding?  Perhaps there are titles not listed in that browse by list?  Not sure.  Regardless, although this is a relatively small number for a useful collection of ebooks, the Open Access (OA) book 'industry' (if you can call it that) is still new and the resource was only launched two weeks ago so the low number is understandable.

Looking through the browse by publisher list, there are some recognizable publishers (e.g. Taylor & Francis) plus several university presses (e.g. University of Michigan Press).  And there's already a pretty wide subject coverage (pure and applied sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, etc.).

NAVIGATION

As is common with new resources now, DOAB has a very simple navigation and interface.  The pages are very clean, being mostly white with really no clutter.  There's a Google-like single keyword-search box on the front page (which seems to search all fields except "pages").  This search does not auto-wildcard meaning that it will not find the text string entered as a part of the meta-data.  For example, it did not find a book with "Donation" in the title when searching "donati".  It also includes an advanced search which allow the combination of search boxes with a Boolean connector searching specific fields, plus date range specification.

Some search related odds and ends:

• Not all entries have subject headings which is odd.  The database does include cover images for the books, which is nice (and probably almost mandatory for today's users).
• Search results display include faceted search functionality on the right.
• Subjects (at least in the browse by subject list) are quite limited and rather high level.  This ok with only 800-900 titles but it will be increasingly painful as the directory grows.
• No author browse function.
• Not a target in the SFX Link Resolver yet.  (This is understandable.)

CONCLUSION

This is a good showing for such a new resource.  And it's certainly good for the OA book movement which needs more promotion and supporting resources.  This is made by the makers of the "Directory of Open Access Journals" (or DOAJ) which has done well so far.  Many libraries appreciate the DOAJ data and add the "collection" to their list of accessible ejournals.  Books are a different kettle of fish than journals but it's probably safe to assume a possible similar trajectory for DOAB.  IMHO, I would add this to a small-medium sized library's "collection" of eresources.

What goes around comes around.

/ Listening to today's episode of Spark about proto-versions of today's online and often "2.0" technology:

1. Pirate radio (e.g. "Pump up the Volume") as proto-blogging/file-sharing;
2. Removal of toll booths (e.g. "Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State") as proto-net-neutrality;
3. Prince's song titles (e.g. "U Got The Look") as proto-texting slang;
4. Ham and CB radio (e.g. "Ham Radio's Technical Culture (Inside Technology)" or "Smokey and the Bandit - Special Edition") as proto-social networking tools; and
5. Eighteenth century coffee house communication (e.g. "Flesh and Stone: The Sociology of Richard Sennett") as proto-status-updates and the explosion in Renaissance Europe of letter writing (e.g. "") as proto-information-overload.

This is an interesting concept and one that speaks to me personally.  When faced with many criticisms of modern tools (facebook, Wikipedia, ereaders, etc.) my response often includes something about how what we have now is not completely unique and has connections to things we've done in the past (why and how).

The criticism of facebook and Twitter in the style of "I don't want to know about what you had for lunch and when you go to the bathroom," earns the response "So why do you talk about similar things over coffee with your friends?"  Social communication in person is often (and has often been) trivial and inane.

The criticism of Wikipedia that "Anyone and their uncle can fiddle with an entry at will," is met with "Yes, that's the strength of the tool."  That's why there's a rather extensive entry about my home town when there will probably never be one in a more traditional encyclopedia.  We have often valued socially generated and grounded information over more objective sources.  In studies about information seeking behaviour, we tend to start with our friends and family before going to the library or other potentially authoritative sources.

And I just read a thought-provoking article about how reading digitally may result in lower retention than print reading (I'm not convinced that it's an important point given such early days).  My immediate response is, as the author agrees, the benefits outweigh these possible negatives.  The reasons why print might allow greater retention than digital apply even more to say pre-printing-press material compared to the "sanitized" and "stream-lined" movable type versions.  And, to make a huge generalization, you have to pay for progress with some loss.

[ Listen to the complete broadcast and the full interviews at CBC Spark. ]

We can but we don't want to

Just read an old article about the publishing industry's problem with posting copyrighted text online from 2006 in which quotes Allan Adler, vice president for legal and governmental affairs for the Association of American Publishers as saying that "[Publishers] can't compete with free."  Oh really?

This is the exact opposite of the very argument publishers are currently using to argue that Open Access (OA) can never truly replace the traditional scholarly publishing process since it fails to sustainably provide all the competitive benefits that publishers have been providing for centuries, not to mention all the digital services available now.  If the publishing model that we are using now, i.e. anything in the industry except for OA, provides so much unique value (such as their contributions in editing, managing peer review, filtering, etc.) then how can you argue, at the same time, that a few professors posting longer-than-typical excepts online for free on functionless web pages are substantial competition?

I'm not arguing that we should all have the right to post whatever we want, however much we want.  It's just that the publishers' argument in this case is a little silly.  They don't need to make an argument for why it shouldn't be allowed.  The law already doesn't allow it.  And we all know why the law is there.  (Of course the issue involves the quantity allowed through US fair use which is a little vague but still, the point is that there IS a line that should not be crossed though it may be difficult to find the line.)

An idea concerning moving library collections from 'ownership' to pure 'access'

Just read through the slides from a 2011 presentation by Colin Koproske entitled "Redefining the academic library: managing the migration to digital information services, part I: planning for transformation and the future of ebooks" and I have to say something:  I am convinced.  I don't know whether it was the slide or just the ideas rolling around in my head finally falling into place, but I think I am sold on patron driven access (PDA) (which was basically what the slides were about).

I had a lot of the usual concerns about PDA:  controlling cost, ensuring a good collection, preventing gaming of the system.  But the one slide about moving from an ownership model to an access model is probably what brought me over to the dark side.  Having read a Rick Anderson article on Scholarly Kitchen a while ago, which was effectively about PDA, the idea of moving from "just in case" to "just in time" has been brewing in my head.  Although I don't agree that librarians are particularly bad at judging future quality (in fact I think we are uniquely qualified, more so than any other professional), the fact of the matter is that there is too much change and uncertainty nowadays to be able to do effectively and sustainably.

You may notice that I actually wrote patron driven "access" instead of acquisition.  Well, I'm not sure I'm sold on the acquisition part.  I mean, if the point of PDA is to provide a resource when demand is there and to not be building a "legacy" collection, why purchase the item?  Perhaps a pattern of patron use does predict future value better than a devoted selector (arguable) but there will be an end to that value.  Even great present patron use can't predict future use far into the future and with the information universe exploding as it is and will be, this will be increasingly true.  If use is required now, then provide access now.

What I'm suggesting is the 'pay per use' model basically.  I have not read much about the effectiveness of this model (more additions to my reading list) but I do see one big straight off:  control of budget.  If you give access to resources to your patrons and are billed per use by them without vetting that use in some way, who knows how much you will be spending per year?  This could be controlled by having an account with the vendor from which fees are withdrawn.  Access is provided (and displayed) when there is sufficient funds in the account and removed when insufficient.  Perhaps, once a certain level of usage of the contents of a package were reached, access would be guaranteed for the rest of the year?  Who knows.

Financials could easily get out of control in this model or at least stay quite unpredictable and difficult to react to (e.g. what to do if your patrons surprise you and use up all the money in the account early in the year?) so some experimenting would have to be done.  The vendors' resources could also be called upon since, because their revenue would be based on usage, they would be motivated to increase usage by your patrons as much as possible.  I am never happy with the idea of injecting advertising into the scholarly environment (ethical considerations here) but the fact is that advertising is already strewn through the information universe and trying to keep companies out of campus seems increasingly futile.  Why not harness their motivation and resources and allow them to sponsor programs, services, staff, etc. on campus and allow them to drum up usage?  Librarians are always bemoaning how hard it is to get the faculty and students to listen to us when we say how useful these expensive resources are...  perhaps we could use some help.

This is just a blast of an idea that I had while eating lunch today, so perhaps I've missed something obviously flawed with my thinking.  Feel free to blast back.

It's simply misconceivable!

I had a bit of a chuckle reading through the List of common misconceptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions) on Wikipedia the other day.

I recently read something about someone trying to correct something in a Wikipedia entry based on his current research who then had his correction removed and a good finger-wagging explanation of the Wikipedia rules given to him.  Their point is that Wikipedia is not the place for cutting edge fact and that only commonly held and therefore well documented information.  The direct quote was something like "Wikipedia is not about what's true.  Wikipedia is about what's verifiable."  Now I can understand their point (although I'm not sure this is the best strategy especially if they do not let users know this in even a subtle way) but it seems to conflict a little with their having a page listing common misconceptions, doesn't it?  If these are truly common, then they represent the popular opinion and until they become the UNpopular opinion, wouldn't the truth be considered a bit too cutting edge?  I'm afraid that Wikipedia rules cannot reasonably contain both the cake and the eating of this particular cake.

The other odd thing is that many of these "common misconceptions", to my mind, aren't really misconceptions but rather misunderstandings of the words being used.  Take for example, the page's second point under Astronomy:

Black holes, contrary to their common image, do not necessarily suck up all the matter in the vicinity.

It's explained that black holes do have a specific mass and therefore can have less that other stars making them less "sucky" in terms of gravitational pull.  Perhaps they think that most people have this image of black holes just continually sucking in all matter from everywhere regardless of how far away it is.  Perhaps that IS what most people think but the crucial "truthiness" in this hinges around the word "vicinity".  I think the point about black holes (and I am no physicist) is that there IS a vicinity (i.e. the space inside the event horizon) in which black holes suck up all matter.

There's also the fact that "The United States Supreme Court did not actually rule that tomatoes are a vegetable, instead of fruit, in the botanical sense" despite some thinking that it did.  Or that "The word theory in the theory of evolution does not imply mainstream scientific doubt regarding its validity" while certainly many people like to pull that one in anti-evolution arguments.  These are, at base, problems with the public misunderstanding the meanings of words, not the concepts.

This would all be fine if this was it.  I could mentally translate "list of common misconceptions" to "list of common faulty word usage" but for a line that stands out in this list:

"Irregardless" is a word.

And for proof, someone has basically given the fact that it's in the dictionary.  It's used commonly enough to qualify as a word.  I'm not sure I like that idea, that there's a number of times said or people saying it beyond which any given configuration of sounds becomes a word.  In that case "um" has been a word for a long time.  Ok, even granting that, I guess what most people SHOULD say instead of "it's not a word" is that "it shouldn't be a word".  That's what I'm thinking when I hear it used.  "Why are you saying that?  If you stopped for just a second and listened to what you're saying, you'd realize that there's no point in saying 'irregardless'!  So just stop!"  Ok, fine it's a word.  That doesn't mean that it means what you think it means. Please stop saying things like that before some reasonably intelligent lifeform passes over Earth because words like that disqualified us from being labelled 'advanced'.  That and 'orientate'.  /shudder

Cane 2.0

Cane 2.0 refers to a new technology to assist the visually impaired: "The Tacit, a hand-mounted system that pings surroundings and transmits distance information to the user..." So, 2.0 in this context refers to a technological advancement beyond something very physical and traditional.

[ Cane 2.0: The Tacit Is Hand-Mounted Sonar For The Vision Impaired from TechCrunch ]

Audacity of Hope 2.0

The Audacity of Hope 2.0. This is an article about how a young gay high school student has been standing up against Republicans against homosexuality, or at least same sex marriage, in Minnesota, and Michelle Bachmann in particular.

It's not clear what the 2.0 refers to in this article immediately. Is it youth? Is in the boy's desire to become involved in the political process and have some sort of an effect? But searching under the phrase "audacity of hope" brings up Obama's pre-presidential autobiography, "The Audacity of Hope". The phrase conjures the image and the commendability of someone who, in the face of incredible odds, still fights to be heard, to make a difference. This suggests that the 2.0 in the article in question is being used merely as a second part, another instance, a real life sequel to the first "Audacity of Hope" story.

[ The Audacity of Hope 2.0 from The Vital Voice ]

Here we 2.0 again

Good, brief article about how the hesitation seen surrounding Web 2.0 movements mirrors that of the hesitation presented at Web 1.0 stuff.

I have to admit, although I am not the most regular blogger, Tweeter, or user of facebook, I find myself having to defend of them on a regular basis. "I don't need to know what people are having for lunch or when they go to the bathroom." Really? That's what you think people post? Yes, there's a lot of mindless chit-chat online wherever you go, but you find the same or worse in person, when you have to feign interest. At least when it's online you can turn it off, turn the page, scroll away, ignore it, or block it out forever.

Despite what so many people say, this mindless chatter about trivial things is what so many people LOVE. It's called socialization. We love learning about what other people are doing even if we disagree. Hell, for some people they like the "disagreeable" stuff the most. And we certainly like sharing our own anecdotes with others. So it's a little foolish to claim that you don't want to hear about it. I know you like it. I've listened in on your silly conversations on weather, trips to the bank, and the price of lettuce.

But perhaps that what this is all part of... Complaining about Web 2.0 is just like complaining about the weather. It IS the small talk itself. In fact, it's more like complaining about gossip. Even those who take part in it complain about it and complaining about it is just as much "fun" as taking part.

[ Web 2.0 déjà vu reveals human traits from Troy Media Corporation ]

2.0 hits the Shore

"Soaps 2.0"? It caused me psychological pain to read through the entire article "Soaps 2.0: MTV's New WatchWith App Enables Your "Jersey Shore" Addiction On A Second Screen". It was mostly industry talk so it wasn't as bad as the title suggests.

In fact, there was an interesting "2.0" aspect to it. I'm not used to reading of Jersey Shore et al described as "soaps" but there were two things that seemed to have contributed to the use of the phrase. It talks about the "'second screen experience,' an industry term used to describe the smartphones and tablets people turn to alongside TV". So it's a reference to the use of technology, and mobile technology in particular, in the context of these shows. Then it adds the engagement aspect of it when it talks of "[MTV's] WatchWith and VH1's Co-star app, fun, interactive platforms that enable viewers to engage with each other during live broadcasts."

Oh, and sorry for the title. Just try to imagine giving the Shore a couple left hooks of your own.