INLS 180 Day 10 Notes
Nov. 9, 2005
Projects?
ASIST debriefing
Points
Personality is important for public service professions
Reference services are complimented by digital tech, not threatened by it
‘measuring’ reference answers as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is too simplistic
Libraries deal with domain specialization and complexity
Social/political inertia will sustain academic libraries
Questions
Can people be good at working with data AND people?
How do reference librarians differ from travel agents?
If libraries did not exist today (and never had), would they be invented today?
Informetrics and Bibliometrics, webometrics
queueing theory, circulation models, operations research
citation analysis, from individuals to groups to organizations; from doc to doc to doc to field to field to field
see http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/info_maps.html for maps of comm patterns
Logical Assumptions (Griffith, Drott & Small)
1. X cited by Y is more likely to be related to Y than arbitrary A not cited
1. X cited by Y and A not cited by Y=>more likely that X was used in preparation of Y
2. Y and Z cite X=>more likely Y and Z are related than A and B citing no docs in common
Y cites X and Z=>X and Z more likely related to each other than to A not cited by Y (not co-cited with X and Y)
Problems of citation analysis
Multiple authors
Self-citations
Homographs (same name/different authors)
Synonyms (name variants)
Types of sources (books vs journals, some journals limit citations)
Implicit citations (discussed or implied but not cited)
Time fluctuations (year to year)
Field variations (e.g., humanities vs sciences)
Errors
Applications
Various literature studies
User studies
Historical studies
Communication patterns (e.g., how ideas spread)
IR (e.g., google, Clever today)
Collection development [note the collection weeding argument]
Recommendation systems
See Oct. 14, 2005 Chronicle of Higher Ed (The number that’s devouring science) re: impact factors
Note h-factor
Note our Mpact indicators work
See web of science from UNC Library page
See www.citeseer.com
See webometrics
3. Discussion: pros and cons of group work
4. Demo ISEE
5. Discuss readings:
Smith: Group 5
Lawrence: Group 6
Moorehead et al: Group 7
6. Examine/read for next meeting:
The Cochrane Collaboration. http://www.cochrane.org/index0.htm
The Open Directory. http://dmoz.org/
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/
Optional: Dibbell, J. (1996). A rape in cyberspace: How an evil clown, a Haitian trikster spirit, two wizards, and a cast of dozens turned a database into a society. In Mark Stefik (Ed.) Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths, and metaphors. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Finholt, T. Collaboratories (online)
7. One-minute paper concept
What was the big point you learned in class today?
What is the main, unanswered question you leave class with today?