From the Codification of Text to the Manipulation of Reality: A New Paradigm for Information Professionals

Johannes Britz’s presentation gave a concise and engaging overview of how human mean’s of organization and interpretation reality has changed with technology and what that means for the information profession.

In the past, writing, drawing, painting, or sculpting reality resulted in a subjective representation of reality. Then, with the invention of cameras, suddenly there was the ability to capture an objective image of reality. However, along with this invention and additional technologies, we now also have the ability to manipulate and create our reality.

Despite our knowledge that such manipulation is possible, we still tend to think that all photographs are “real” representations.

Today’s world is an unpackaged, dematerialized reality instead of an economics of things.

Unpackaged: Think about the difference between getting a paper airline ticket from a travel agent compared to going online, comparing flights, and then picking your seat based on the kind of plane you will be on.

The Scary Parts of the New Era:

• There are huge implications with the mass distribution of incorrect information, and how hard it can be to correct. The system is good at distributing information whether good or bad.
• This new paradigm is unlimited if you have an American address (both physical and IP) and credit card.
• Internet access for acquiring goods does not work without the infrastructure. If there are no roads for the FedEx truck, your Amazon.com order cannot be delivered.

What does this mean for information professionals?

• The information industry is the best able to adjust to the new reality, and can thrive because of online access.
• We are ready, prepared with background/skills, but not “fully dressed” in that we are not fully embracing the possibilities.
• Access to information is no longer through a thesaurus. Instead, it is about the unbundled presenting information.

Logic and InfoLit

Notes written on the fly during the session on the Logic and Information Literacy Project at Marquette:

"Using web directories to demonstrate hierarchical relationships among concepts."

Students have a difficult time "generalizing" -- abstracting from one context to another. Goal of the project is to enhance the teaching of logic -- not about information literacy -- helping students learn how to construct and evaluate arguments. Arguments are patterns of statements: premises that lead to conclusions.

So you need to know about concepts and their hierarchies. A concept is like a file folder: it classifies a set of things.

Examples of genus and species hierarchy:

Genus: Reference books
Species: Encyclopedias
Referent: Encyclopedia of Psychology

Genus: Animals
Genus or species: Vertebrates
Species: Dogs
Referent: Sophie the dog

Genus: Furniture
Genus or species: Furniture used for sitting
Species: Chairs
Referent: This chair

Why teach this? Helps students distinguish one concept from another and the referent from the concept. Strategy for making definitions and making distinctions among them.

But the genus/species approach has mixed results...

So, they developed something that looks like this:

Step One: Perform a keyword search in Google and Yahoo to find info about the Spanish-American War.

Step Two: Try ro find websites pertaining to the Spanish-American War using three Web directories: e.g., Zeal, Google Directory, KidInfo...

Where do you start in a browsable directory?
Using the Google directory:
Society --> History --> By time period --> Nineteenth century --> Wars and conflicts --> Spanish-American War --> individual websites (referents)

Identify the Genus --> Species relationships.

Directory results tend to be grouped more logically but you have to know whose logic.

Zeal directory:
Library --> Humanities --> History --> U.S. History --> Wars and conflicts --> Spanish-American War --> websites

KidInfo directory:
Homework Help --> American History --> U.S. Historical Wars --> Spanish-American War --> websites

KidInfo has less hierarchy, flatter approach, more lists -- easier for that audience?

Discussion question for students after doing these searches:
Give examples of genus, species and referent in each directory.
Which directory organizes info more effectively?
How does choice and arrangement of categories reflect the purposes of the creators of the hierarchy?
Which are better: keyword searches or directory searches?
Will there be a time when directories are unnecessary?

Parallels to the psychology of supermarkets: how are things arranged and why are they arranged that way -- classified to maximize purchases. The directory categories are created by Google for Google's own purposes.

Parallels with how disciplines fit into divisions: where does Philosophy fit in to a Humanities/Social Science/Science schema? This is hard for new students or those not familiar with traditional academic subdivisions and is a crucial concept when setting up things like MetaLib/E-Resource Gateway: what are the categories that will make the most sense to our users?

Understanding and Managing Change

Randy Kratz, from SYMMETRY, gave a very useful presentation on "Understanding and Managing Change." Randy's spoken at WAAL conferences before and has some good things to say about dealing with change in a healthy way.

Randy started by asking us to write our names as many times as we could in one minute. We could do 15-20. Then he asked us to do the same thing with the opposite hand. We could do 3-9. The lesson: change causes an inevitable drop in productivity and one of our jobs is to manage that.

He also showed (briefly) a list of terms having to do with sleep and asked us to reconstruct the list. The word "sleep" wasn't on the list but many of us thought it was -- or we "remembered" terms that were related but not on the list. The lesson: rapid change, too much info leads to "making stuff up" -- rumors and gossip.

Some points:

Change won't stop; it only goes faster

People deal with change in many different ways: at different rates and with varying degrees of success

Communication is key

Take care of yourself

Wednesday evening at WAAL

We had a bumper crop of poster sessions this year -- lots of really interesting projects, tools, and resources. See http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/waal/conferences/2006/program.htm#wednesday for a list of them all. Two big excitements were 1) the drawing for fabulous prizes and 2) the fire alarm that drove us all out into the parking lot. Fortunately, the weather's fine and some people didn't want to go back in.

The fun continued with "Trivial Pursuit – Book Lover's Edition" from 8:30 - 10pm. Some really easy questions and some really hard ones. But a good time was had by all six teams and Nerissa and Yan did a good job of keeping things moving.

MetaLib

During the last session of the afternoon, I attended "The Implementation of MetaLib at the University of Wisconsin-Madison" presented by Todd Bruns, Collection Development, UW-Madison; Sue Dentinger, General Library System Library Technical Group, UW-Madison; and Amy Kindschi, College of Engineering, UW-Madison.

MetaLib is both a Content Management System for electronic resources and a metasearching tool. Madison organized their resources into 18 categories with (I think) 171 sub-categories within what they call the E-Resource Gateway (http://metalib.wisconsin.edu/V/?func=change-portal-1&portal-name=MADISON). With Guest access, you can only look at the framework and the categories, but it's worth seeing how they've laid it out.

The QuickSearch feature for resource discovery got a "soft rollout" because they weren't sure how it would be received, but people seemed to really like it, so they did a full implementation (see above link) and it's proved to be even more popular.

Because metasearching is done in real time, it can bog down and grind to a halt if a lot of people are searching at once (in a classroom situation, for instance). But the whole issue of teaching metasearching to unsuspecting patrons is somewhat controversial.

Reasons not to teach metasearching:
- you lose controlled vocabulary (aieee!) and special features of the "native database"
- there are reasons to be suspicious of precision and recall of metasearch results
- not all databases can be metasearched
- it's difficult to do author searching
- it's even harder to distinguish between scholarly and popular stuff

Reasons to teach metasearching:
- it's great for resource discovery
- you can quickly see which resources have the highest results
- students and faculty seem to like it -- a lot
- it's good for quick citation verification
- many metasearch skills transfer to native databases: boolean, truncation, field limiters, etc.

One librarian quoted remarked that if metasearching encourages even shallow engagement with our purchased databases (rather than Google), it's worth it.

Early indications are that students seem to understand that they need to go to the native databases; that the metasearch is really a starting point. Which is a good sign...

More later.

RSS & Alerts

Kudos to Ben Conklin and Eric Larson on their RSS & Alerts presentation. Ben (the self proclaimed "average librarian" in terms of technical skill) ably discussed the ways in which alerting services and RSS feeds can be used by students and faculty in any library. Most databases currently offer an e-mail alert system that is relatively easy to set up. Students and faculty can be notified on a weekly or monthly basis when new articles in their area of interest are published. Some databases (PubMed for one) have started providing RSS feeds that can run the same kinds of searches and can be captured in RSS feed readers.

Eric spent a lot of time discussing the "geekier" aspects of RSS and the many places you can find RSS feeds. He demonstrated Bloglines, one of many RSS feed aggregators, that can be used as a collection point for RSS feeds. Eric also spent some time discussing the ways that RSS can be incorporated into library sites with very cool results.

WWW-Wonderful World of Wikis

While Pete was off learning about the Historical Society's public document collection, others of us attended David Null and Terri Muraski's program "The World of Wikis." Terri presented an overview of wikis, what they are (a social software), what they can do and who's using them. She had lots of examples from Library's that are using wikis for various things, including subject pages.

David used the UW Madison Stem Cell Research Wiki as a specific example of a wiki in action. The stem cell research library group has put together a wiki to keep document the actual stem cell research and to collect reactions to stem cell research in Wisconsin. They are using PMwiki for this project. They have password protected the information so that only those involved in the group can access, add and change information in it.

David's list of pros and cons to using a wiki for this are:
Pros:
1) It's easy to use
2) It is a great way to keep track of web sites
3) It can link to almost everything on the web (word docs., pdf, databases, etc.)
4) It can be customized

Cons:
1) There are other ways that the information could be kept (e.g., MyWebSpace)
2) People don't always remember to update in both places if more than one is being used to keep track of the information
3) Can password protect the information (but questions whether this really needs to be done.)
4) Not good for graphics or images

Overall a very informative program with lots of great ideas for integration into library websites!

Conference Keynote: Michael Gorman

Michael Gorman, ALA President and Dean of Library Services at Cal State, Fresno, delivered an intriguing keynote entitled, "New Directions in Library Education." It's a little weird to be blogging about Gorman because of the fuss last year about the "blog people": http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA502009.html -- but what the heck.

Some random, out of context, stuff from Gorman's talk:

"The only group older than librarians is Elvis fans."

As librarians, we're an aging group and we need enthusiastic and educated librarians to take our places -- but many retirees are not being replaced.

There are 117,000 libraries of all kinds in the US, most of which are school "libraries" (defined variously).

We have to believe that all these libraries need oversight (at least) by trained librarians. It's part of the library faith.

There are 50-ish accredited LIS programs in US and 7 in Canada; many more accrediting agencies for school librarians.

If you think of Canada as a "cold horizontal California," you'd think that California should have 7 or 8 LIS programs instead of 2 (the same number as Denton, TX).

California schools are in very expensive areas -- not where they could do the best for our profession.

Practitioners often have unrealistic expectations of LIS programs -- the difference between education and training. We expect too much of recent LIS graduates: LIS education should bring you to the place where training can get you going on the job...

Librarianship: "professional aspects of work in libraries."

Somebody who gives you a bandaid is not a doctor -- we have to draw a line.

Melvil Dewey taught "library hand" in library school, but we've come a ways since then...

Employers seem unhappy with new graduates -- we can no longer count on LIS graduates having experience with cataloging -- the degree no longer presumes a core of standard courses.

Gorman examined LIS course catalogs and found a trend toward adjuncts teaching the "library" courses -- which might be good: practitioners often have excellent and useful experience, but they're not full-time LIS faculty doing research and advising PhD students.

ALA has standards for LIS school education (http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditation/accreditation.htm) but the actual practice in terms of accreditation seems to be something else. We tend to use a "descriptive approach" that takes what's currently being done as the standard. This is opposed to the American Medical Association which uses a "prescriptive approach" with set agreed-upon standards that have to be met for accreditation.

Gorman's contention is that there should be a set of core courses/competencies that ALA-accredited LIS programs should teach. Things like:

- collection development
- cataloging
- reference and library instruction
- systems and technology
- library administration: the "facts of library life"
- other kinds of libraries -- when other libraries suffer, we all suffer

He described a Norwegian LIS initiative that identified 4 areas that needed to be covered (see: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/061e-Audunson.pdf).

During the Q&A, Michele Besant made the point that the important thing is to keep the lines of communication open. LIS educators may be trying to do one set of things while practitioners/employers need/want something else. We should be talking about whether a core curriculum of library courses, taught by full-time faculty, is desirable or even possible. And then we can talk about what that curriculum looks like.

It's a tough question and one that we should keep thinking about.

Wednesday morning at WAAL

Well, it's a beautiful day in sunny Stevens Point and the conference is off to a terrific start. I had the privilege this morning of introducing Nancy Mulhern's program, "New Bottle for an Old Wine: The Digital Collection of Wisconsin Public Documents 1852-1914." Nancy gave us a good overview of this amazing collection (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.WIPublicDocs) of documents -- 62 years, 118 volumes, 30 linear feet -- of state agency reports from the beginning of Wisconsin state history.

Searching can sometimes be tricky because this is such a large pile of uncorrected OCR text -- and is not indexed -- but we have good boolean and proximity search options. Indexing would be a terrific addition (Michael Edmonds, are you listening?) but it's a great resource that deserves wide use. Add it to your library's electronic resources page today!

And, of course, this collection is just part of the UWDC's State of Wisconsin Collection (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI) which should be added to your resources lists too.

More Preconference

As Julie mentioned, Tuesday's Professional Development Committee preconference was "Who are our students? The Millennial Generation." This is a topic that's gotten a lot of coverage in the academic press and I'm glad WAAL decided to take a look at it too.

The keynote speaker was Nancy Truesdell, Dean of Students at Lawrence University. Nancy did a fabulous presentation about who our newest students are. Millennials are defined as kids born between 1982 and 2002 -- those traditional students who are on our campuses now.

More stuff from her talk:

Using statistics from the CIRP, NSSE and ACE surveys, and background info from the books, Millennials Rising, and Serving the Millennial Generation, Nancy gave us a descriptive (but not judgmental) assessment of the Millennial Generation. Some random stuff I wrote down:

55% of undergrads under age 25 are female

34% of undergrad under age 25 are students of color

About 87% of those students performed volunteer work in high school -- and 70% did weekly volunteer work

About 2/3 of those students reported that it's essential or very important to help others

There's an increase in polarization of political views -- more on either end of the spectrum and (relatively) fewer in the middle

More students are interested in spirituality, even if they don't describe themselves as traditionally religious

Millennials tend to "reach out and touch someone" constantly -- they're always in touch with friends and family through cell, IM, email, Facebook...

There's increased parental involvement: "helicopter parents" who hover over their students, helping (or sometimes interfering) with the student's academic career

Some Millennial characteristics:
They're "special" -- this is the "baby on board" generation that's been told since birth that they're special.

They're sheltered and protected -- it's been a dangerous world in the last 20 years and parents are being more careful. They've also been highly scheduled and "driven" (in more ways than one) for years.

They're academically confident and achievement oriented. They've done well in high school and assume that will continue.

They tend to be more conventional and emphasize cooperativeness. They want to get along and do what the authority figure asks.

They're team oriented, moving and working in groups.

They're pressured -- by schedule demands, their own and other (perceived) expectations.

These characteristics can lead to some conflicts: a disconnect between aspirations and efforts -- they want to achieve but are used to doing it easily. When it doesn't come easily, they get stressed and can seize up. They value volunteerism but are used to "getting credit" for it -- it's often been required for high school classes or graduation. They tend to have a respect for authority and want to "do the right thing" but their need to achieve can lead to "academic integrity issues" -- they may find it easier to "download their workload" than to do it.

Health issues also play in. Millennials tend to be highly diagnosed -- with obesity, asthma, allergies, and ADD/ADHD -- more than previous generations. A student with ADD who has had a highly structured and protected highschool career can have a hard time dealing with the relative freedom of college.

Some of the implications for teaching and learning:
The most successful students seek out the special attention and look for faculty and professional staff outside of the classroom.

Millennials want structure and work well within a highly structured environment.

They respond well to active learning techniques and feel great pressure to succeed.

Time management is a big issue for these students -- they've had their days scheduled for them throughout middle and high school and may feel at a loss when they get to college.

Millenial Preconference

We had an excellent preconference! Nancy Truesdell, Dean of Students at Lawrence University started us off with a presentation on the characteristics of the millenial generation (students born between 1981-2000 give or take a few years) and how they differ from previous generations. She also talked about ways that campuses can and have adjusted to meet the needs of these students.

Nancy's presentation was followed by a panel of three librarians and two millenial students. Renee Buker, Outreach & Bibliographic Instruction librarian at UW Oshkosh discussed the various ways they've changed library instruction and other library programming to better reach the millenial population. Emily Rogers, Head of Access Service at UW-Green Bay, talked some more about the traits of the millenials and about the ups and downs of managing these students. And Terri Muraski, Access Services & Reference at UW Stevens Point, discussed the various technologies we can use to reach the millenial students using our libraries and ways in which they can be incorporated into instruction sessions.

The librarians were followed by presentations from two millenial students, Kyle Neugebauer, Lakeland College and PaNa Lor, UW Stevens Point. I found Kyle's comments particulary interesting in light of the Time Magazine article last week about the multi-tasking generation. He sees a big difference between himself and students even a few years younger than he. The younger students are more likely to be doing homework, listening to an i-pod, and chatting with friends and watching some sort of video at the same time.

PaNa was also very informative about her generation. She, as a first generation college student, also is a-typical of her generation, but has many friends and family members who have the distinct characteristics of the millenial generation.

All the presentations will be on the WAAL Conference website. And PG will have more.....

Blogging WAAL 2006

Interested in finding out what others have to say about programs, posters sessions and other WAAL goings-on? We're blogging the WAAL conference this year.