The ALA Web site

November 28, 2006 American Library Association No Comments

Earlier this fall ALA conducted an online survey asking members for feedback on the ALA Web site. It supplemented the survey with focus groups.

Next month ALA is bringing together a group of members and staff to review the information gathered from the survey and the focus groups. Rob Carlson, ALA Web Development Manager and the organizer of this event has stated that “The basic purposes of the retreat are to answer the question, 'What would we do if we were starting with a clean slate?' and to develop a vision statement and a planning document for the ideal website to serve ALA's diverse needs.”

I am one of the members who will participate in this meeting. I welcome member suggestions, comments, input, and ideas that help answer the question “What would we do if we were starting with a clean slate?” I have heard the global “The ALA Web site sucks” comment a number of times from a number of ALA members. That may point to starting with a clean slate. Since that has already been established as the starting point, I hope you have suggestions about what should be draw and written on that slate, what it should do, and how it should do it. Please send me those suggestions. So, I invite you to add a comment here or write to me at jrettig@richmond.edu. I look forward to hearing from you!

Hasan Elahi's "media ankle bracelet"

November 23, 2006 intellectual freedom No Comments

Hasan Elahi, a professor in the Department of Visual Art at Rutgers University, recently visited the University of Richmond and gave a fascinating, thought-provoking presentation. As his academic affiliation suggests, he is a visual artist. But he is also a performance artist. And, one can say, he has transformed his life into an unfolding serial work of art.

Sometime post-9/11 the FBI turned its attention to Elahi, apparently because he had rented a storage space in Florida and because, he surmises, his name may have seemed “Middle Eastern” to the FBI. He underwent a series of interrogations with FBI agents until they concluded that he posed no threat to national security. This experience inspired his ongoing life art project. It doesn't threaten, but it certainly challenges assumptions we make about our personal security and how it relates to privacy.

As the FBI investigated him and sought more and more information about him, he in effect co-opted their work (but not until after they informed him he was cleared). He has not installed a Web cam in his bedroom; but he has made his life even more visible to any and all on his Web site through his “tracking transience” project.

Its most obvious feature is an aerial view festooned with a blinking red arrow pointing at his current location. It was a bit eerie to see this red arrow blinking above and pointing at the building in which we were sitting and listening to him. Little wonder some of his friends insist on seeing him at his place rather than in their homes. (This afternoon, by the way, he is southeast of Williamsport, PA.) Elahi also offers photos of the airline meals he has been served. (He does a lot of long-distance international travel, perhaps another thing that the FBI considered suspicious. They still serve meals on those flights!) His itemized credit card statements are on his Web site. And more–all absolutely voluntarily!

When you use a debit or credit card, when you use your cell phone, when you use a hotel rewards program card or a frequent flyer program card, when you use your grocery store discount card, you leave a digital trail of evidence about yourself. Elahi has consolidated much of this information about himself, just as the FBI undoubtedly did. But he has made it public. He refers to it as his “media ankle bracelet.”

Elahi says that if all of us made all of this individual information freely available, there would be no need for government surveillance. That is a paradox I haven't quite comprehended yet.

I asked him what would happen if he suddenly quit posting this detailed record about himself. He said it would probably be a sign that he had been spirited off to Guantanamo. By maintaining his media ankle bracelet, he affirms his freedom and assures friends and family that he is wherever the bracelet says he is.

Like any complex work of art, I don't know what to make of Elahi's media ankle bracelet. I know I am not ready to join him in shackling myself in that way. Nor am I sure about what it all means other than that it is a needed and brave protest against groundless suspicion and intrusiveness by government.

Wikipedia in China

November 17, 2006 intellectual freedom No Comments

This morning the Chronicle of Higher Education's educational technology blog, The Wired Campus, reports that China has stopped blocking access to the Chinese-language Wikipedia. This could be an interesting test of its open editing model. Will government employees go in and edit articles to reflect the government's interpretation of events, movements, individuals, and ideas? If so, will others edit those? If this scenario plays out, will all of the editors do their work anonymously? This could be an interesting test of the theory that the knowledge and wisdom of the many will present human knowledge accurately and completely.

ETS ICT test tells others what we have long known

November 16, 2006 information fluency No Comments

Data generated by ETS from its ICT Literacy Assessment (Information Communication Technology) “gathered from over 6,300 students found at 63 universities, colleges, community colleges, and high schools has yielded unsurprising results.” Yesterday's Inside Higher Education reports on an ETS study that “shows that that only 52% of test takers could correctly judge the objectivity of a Web site, and only 65% could correctly judge the sites authoritativeness. In a Web search task, only 40% entered multiple search terms to narrow the results. And when selecting a research statement for a class assignment, only 44% identified a statement that captured the demands of the assignment.” Inside Higher Education quotes ETS's Irvin Katz who said, “These abilities need to be learned…Students just don't pick them up on their own.”

How true! It has long amazed me that college and university faculty seem to expect students to enter knowing why and how to cite others' work, which information sources serve various needs, how to select a database appropriate to a given need, and how to evaluate information sources critically. Yet they don't assume that students enter knowing how to use various types of lab equipment or SPSS. They teach these things to their students. But many dont take any effort to introduce students to relevant information sources nor to explain how to use them effectively. Why is there this dichotomy?

Is it that faculty forget how they learned these things, many perhaps not until graduate school? Is it that they assume students have routinely been using these resources throughout their schooling?

Whatever the reason, students get shortchanged when faculty don't take measures to teach their students these things. Perhaps the ETS ICT test results provide the sort of evidence faculty need to appreciate a problem that librarians have long known about and tried to solve. And perhaps they will also see the advantages to work with librarians, their natural allies, to solve it.

Digitized Civil War newspaper now available on the Web

November 13, 2006 reference sources No Comments

Through support from an IMLS grant and in collaboration with Project Perseus at Tufts University, the University of Richmond has digitized the Richmond Daily Dispatch newspaper for the Civil War years. The project is still a work in progress. However the newspaper is now available for use and exploration. Its text is fully searchable with special search features that allow users to limit to personal name, place name, organization name, military unit, and more. Page images complement the searchable text.

Please bring this versatile new resource to the attention of faculty who study or teach about the Civil War era at your school or college. We welcome comments and feedback on this project; just click on the survey link on the newspapers homepage at http://dlxs.richmond.edu/d/ddr/index.html. We hope this will be useful to a broad audience encompassing scholars, students, genealogists, Civil War buffs, re-enactors, and more. Please bring it to the attention of other librarians and interested parties. Feel free to add links to it in Civil War and history Web sites.

This project was the subject of a presentation at the Virginia Library Association conference on Friday, November 10, 2006.

Meredith Farkas on ALA

November 12, 2006 American Library Association 3 Comments

At “Information Wants to Be Free” Meredith Farkas has a lengthy thoughtful post on ALA through my eyes: One year later. I have commented briefly there. However some of what she writes merits a more precise response:

…Not only should they [the ALA divisions] show members how they can get involved, they should offer different levels of involvement. My library does not subsidize my ALA membership and they really don't encourage involvement in ALA. So I cant exactly afford to go to both Annual and Midwinter, which leaves me out of most opportunities for involvement. I think the divisions need to look at better ways for working together online…and not requiring committee members to be physically THERE all the time. …I'm certainly someone who is willing to work hard to serve the profession, though I do it in my own way. And maybe less structured contributions should be encouraged from people who are willing to make the effort. I'm sure I'm not the only person who would like to get involved, but feels like there isn't a place for them. And maybe there is a place for me, but it certainly isn't apparent when I look on the Websites for the divisions I'm a member of …
I vacillate between wanting to serve on a committee to wondering if my time isn't better spent developing free online courses and developing collaborative tools to benefit the whole profession. Wouldn't it be great if I could do that sort of stuff within the ALA instead of outside it?

Yes, indeed, Meredith, better collaboration across ALA “silos” is highly desirable. Collaboration across the organization is a perennial topic. Perhaps some ALA-supported bold experimentation with newer technologies and techniques by members who have not been on the “inside” would yield better results.
It would definitely be great if you could do these sorts of things within ALA instead of outside it! We need to broaden the notion of participation equalling committee service. The ALA Participation Task Force is looking at how ALA can offer members varied and meaningful ways to participate. These wouldn't replace divisions, roundtables, and committees, but would supplement and complement them. Most importantly, they would capitalize on the ideas, energy, and imagination of ALL members of the association whether or not they serve on any committees or in any elected offices.

And thank you for being a member of ALA, Meredith. We need everyone's ideas to keep ALA a vital, effective organization working on behalf of its members and our interests.

ALA Participation Task Force

November 12, 2006 American Library Association No Comments

ALA president Leslie Burger appointed the ALA Participation Task Force last summer “to develop recommendations for expanding member opportunities, especially for the for the next generation of leaders, to participate in their association in meaningful ways.” Leslie and I began to discuss this issue a year ago and I volunteered to serve as chair of a task force charged to explore this issue and return recommendations at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Members of the Task Force are:

John W. Berry
Clara Nalli Bohrer
Sally Gibson
Romina Gutierrez
Kathy Schalk-Greene
Karen G. Schneider
Cal Shepard
Michael Stephens

This eclectic group includes a former ALA president, a trainer, a student, a library school faculty member, public librarians, academic librarians, and leading thinkers on information technology's role in information services. Jenny Levine was appointed to the task force; when she joined the ALA staff she transitioned into the very helpful and essential role of staff liaison to the task force. An academic librarian who accepted appointment concluded in October that she could not continue as a member.

The group has had a slow start due to the usual competitors for members' time and attention: summer vacations, start of the school year, travel to conferences, preparing conference presentations, managing a building renovation that has run longer than planned, etc. The group has finally gained some traction as members have responded to the following questions:

I am a Millennial librarian, in the profession a short time. Persuade me about the reason I should join ALA and get involved. (Or to recast that in a more favorable form rhetorically, what can I gain from joining ALA?)

What should/will ALA 2.0 look like?

We began working in ALA's online communities software but have recently concluded that, for a variety of reasons, we should move to an open venue. Jenny is working on making that happen. Meanwhile, Michael Stephens' and my responses are public in our blogs.

Information technology, Ed Ayers, and a new president for the University of Richmond

November 11, 2006 information technology No Comments

In my November 7 Twilight Librarian post, I commented on the continued dominance of the research paper as the vehicle through which students explore knowledge and demonstrate mastery of research. I surmised that Perhaps it is the hold print/online journals have on scholarly communication and the tenure process that blinds most faculty to the possibilities of multimedia “papers,” both in student work and their own work. This same week, the Chronicle of Higher Education carries an article titled “With Digital Maps, Historians Chart a New Way Into the Past.” The Chronicle's information technology blog summarized it thus:

Historians are great at telling stories, but they're lousy at pictures, asserts Edward L. Ayers, a history professor and dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia.

While other disciplines have found ways to represent complex phenomena using illustrations that overlay many types of information, Mr. Ayers says, history has for the most part focused on written narratives, linear stories that set forth an overriding argument. But since life is messy, and the lives of so many individuals are sure to be influenced by a variety of forces in ways that are hard to describe, pictures might prove to be historys next frontier.

Imagine, he says, a social weather map plotting the movements of people as multiple historical forces come into play. And like the weather maps on television-news broadcasts, perhaps the data could be set in motion, so that effects of various social warm and cold fronts could be observed.

I think of the past as at least as complex as anything in nature, and yet we restrict ourselves to analog means of describing it, says Mr. Ayers. So I thought, if this works for physical natural processes, why couldn't we be able to see social processes as well?

Ed Ayers, currently a professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, is widely known as a pioneer in applying digitization to historical documents. His renowned Valley of the Shadow project has drawn more than 4,000,000 visitors.

The Chronicle article describes yet another new initiative Ayers has launched, this in collaboration with his former UVa colleague Will Thomas, a professor of humanities at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. The Aurora Project: A Dynamic Atlas of American History applies GIS and other tools to create dynamic maps that show relationships between selected phenomena in history (e.g., the expansion of railroad networks and the growth of population in Nebraska). The visualization techniques that allow scientists to study complex phenomena such as weather systems can, says Ayers, help us study the past and make discoveries not possible through linear and purely textual approaches.

Imagine, then, my delight yesterday when I learned that the Board of Trustees of the University of Richmond has appointed Prof. Ayers the university's next president! I was at the Virginia Library Association conference when I learned this. Over the course of the day I heard UVa colleagues express their regret that, come July, Mr. Jefferson's University will lose one of its most creative professors. (Even with the responsibilities he has as a dean Ayers still teaches and works with graduate students.)

Welcome to the University of Richmond, Dr. Ayers!

ALA 2.0

November 8, 2006 American Library Association 1 Comment

ALA 2.0–what might it look like?

Library 2.0 is more than a buzzword; it is a grassroots phenomenon that has been gaining momentum, especially in the public library sphere. See also:

Library 2.0 Theory
What Will You Do Today?
Walt Crawford’s Cites & Insights, v. 6, no. 2, Midwinter 2006
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models

These do not offer the definitive picture of library 2.0. Nevertheless consensus has developed that Library 2.0 is user-centered, empowers users to participate actively and collaboratively in their library use, embraces change, removes barriers between users and information, experiments, and values user input. In short, it means giving up control and forming collaborative user-driven partnerships with those each library serves.

Control has long been central to library theory and practice. Our jargon exemplifies this. We exercise bibliographic control and build authority files, working without consultation of users. Today tagging and folksonomies challenge, or perhaps supplement and complement, these time-honored practices. Wikipedia places trust in the collective wisdom of the masses; Britannica continues to celebrate authority conferred by an authors academic peers.

How might Library 2.0 apply to the American Library Association? Like most libraries, ALA has a hierarchical structure. Authorities–e.g., the ALA vice-president, division vice-presidents, and round table chairs-elect–possess the authority to appoint individuals to committees, to create task forces and ad hoc committees, and to plan programs tailored to favored topics. Committees have a fixed number of members. Only the roster is filled; others can observe, but they can’t participate as full-fledged members. Committees come into existence through governance procedures. In other words, ALA 1.0.

ALA 2.0 would not do away with committees, boards, etc. These remain important to the necessary governance structure. It would, however, offer complementary organic structures, structures that would arise out of members shared interests and ambitions. It would allow online communities to form free of any approval requirements by any ALA authority. These communities would meld and morph, be born and die at the will of their self-selected members. They would transcend but not obliterate lines drawn by membership in divisions and round tables. A collateral benefit would be increased collaboration between and among ALA units. ALA 2.0 would allow a way for some of programs at the Annual Conference to arise from a planning and funding track much shorter than is now typical. This would assure that the hot topics that programs address are indeed still hot. This is but the most preliminary sketch of ALA 2.0. Neither I nor any other individual can complete that sketch. The library community, working collaboratively and creatively, must describe and create ALA 2.0.

An effective, proven hybrid model of ALA 1.0 and ALA 2.0 exists–the Washington Office and its complementary grassroots advocacy network of members and other concerned citizens. The WO, its advisory committees, and ALAs Committee on Legislation carry on the best of ALA 1.0 and complement that work through their mobilization of members through its email alerts. ALA 2.0 does not replace ALA 1.0; it offers broader opportunities for members to participate in meaningful ways.

This model may be applicable to other important ALA activities.

A college student’s vision for the academic library

November 7, 2006 academic libraries No Comments

My daughter, a junior in college, sent me this IM exchange she and a friend had recently:

chiquitachik: how are you?
funnyblonde: good
funnyblonde: you
chiquitachik: good
funnyblonde: goodo!
funnyblonde: how was your day?
funnyblonde: eventful?
chiquitachik: not really
funnyblonde: yeah me neither
funnyblonde: the library was boring
chiquitachik: libraries usually are
funnyblonde: yeah such a shame
funnyblonde: they should put a circus in it
chiquitachik: HAHAHAHA
funnyblonde: that [would] make me want to go a lot more

My daughter’s comment: “I just thought you might want to know what your college constituency is looking for in the libraries of the future.”Shopping malls have installed merry-go-rounds to draw in customers. But I don’t foresee circuses in academic libraries. Is there, however, something we can learn from the circus suggestion? A circus appeals to multiple senses. Libraries may have aesthetically pleasing architecture and interior spaces and even the aroma of fresh coffee. But academic libraries primarily appeal to and cater to the intellect. In a world in which college students multitask and are accustomed to environments rich in visual and auditory stimuli, what can we learn from the circus suggestion? Information is packaged in a variety of media–ink on paper, online databases, Web sites, audio files, video, etc. Yet faculty assign students to produce papers (a term pregnant with connotations as well as denotations). We can’t offer students circuses, but many academic libraries offer students and faculty multimedia creation and editing capabilities. Students are able take information in various media and use it to produce recombinant multi-media “papers” that can convey their message with greater immediacy than the purely cerebral traditional undergraduate research paper. Yet these are a glaring exception.

Perhaps it is the hold print/online journals have on scholarly communication and the tenure process that blinds most faculty to the possibilities of multimedia “papers,” both in student work and their own work. The rise of institutional repositories offers a place where we can provide access to such student works. Over time will technology-savvy younger faculty change tenure criteria to recognize the validity and value of students’ multimedia creations? The cynical (perhaps realistic) answer to that question is, not until after they earn tenure. Yet some determined and pioneering graduate students have produced multimedia dissertations despite institutional skittishness about fair use issues and faculty reluctance to accord these the same respect as purely textual dissertations. How can librarians help faculty see the opportunities for learning that alternative assignments offer, from undergraduates through doctoral students? What is happening at your institutions?

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