INLS 180 Day 10 Notes
1. One minute papers
Main Points
Intermediaries will always be
needed for some services
Intermediaries add ‘human’
qualities as value added services; avoid disintermediation
Equity issues for value added
services (only those who can afford to pay)
Info packages have physical,
conceptual attributes plus behavior
Questions
What will become of
‘traditional’ librarians? [doctors/lawyers/engineers
etc.]
Any evidence for how much
time is spent doing stuff intermediaries used to do? Can we be good at
everything? [e.g., booking travel, etc.; offloading tasks]
How does viewing library
service as customer service change the profession?
Why such negative reaction to
name tags?
Is digital reference
better/quicker/cheaper than personal reference?
MOO??
2. Information architecture
and midterm assignment
PP slides
Some general observations
a) The bottom up approach to learning (reverse
engineering).
b) Distinguish classification (creating bins)and
cataloging (using bins)
c) Semantic versus syntactic markup (most did syntactic
for books, semantic for TV)
d) The role of hierarchy in structure
e) The role of expectations in how we do these tasks
(perhaps indicated by the variance in approaches for the different assignments)
Books
Consider generic tags that
work for many books in a genre versus tags specific to a particular book.
If you were given the
tagged structure of a book without any content, could you guess its genre?
What if we showed the size
(e.g., number of words) of every tagged chunk, would this help in guessing
genre? Would it help in other ways?
Could you imagine a set of
structure indexes? (e.g., an index for typographic forms,
others for space, time, people, events, themes, etc.)
How might these help in
understanding (beyond search)
Video
What does the length of a
shot mean? Is it a surrogate for relevance?
Consider not only the
length of a shot, but how these lengths vary across the entire segment (e.g.,
patterns in the shot lengths to affect gist,response).
Are there staccato and euphonious ‘phases’?
Also, what goes on in a
shot adds to the frenetic or calming effects.
How to handle forward
references (e.g., news to come when we return, previews for next week's sitcom
or drama, etc.). How might these be
tagged? How do hyperlinks work in video?
How to markup the video AND
audio channels?
Websites
What draws your eye? (motion,
size, color, shape)
The ‘sectors’ could be ‘wireframes’
for the underlying information architecture on a page
Should visual links (either text or icon) be repeated
on page?
If there are lots of links, how are they ordered or
clustered?
Are genre-specific styles emerging (e.g., university
sites all give audience options)?
Did you try reloads, alt resolution settings,
different browsers, did controlled queries, greped
for HTTP to count links, etc. to get more in-depth views of the pages?
Portal versus search, directory
versus analytical search, ads, special services/personalizations. Advertising and business model
What is the purpose of a website? Generate interest? Provide information? Sell products? Entertain?
Do you want to be entertained by your bank?
What is good design?
What is good architecture?
Comparisons across media
Design from user vs content/system view
Message
design?
User styles/preferences (text
vs graphic; browse/drill vs
search; simple vs complex;)
User platform
settings/constraints
3. Informetrics and Bibliometrics
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
See web of science from UNC Library page
See www.citeseer.com
Applications
Various literature studies
User studies
Historical studies
Communication patterns (e.g., how ideas spread)
IR (e.g., google, Clever today)
Collection development
Recommendation systems
4. Reading discussions
Smith: Christine Cerny
& Jenny Emanuel
Ackerman & Malone: Kim Brederson
5. Read for next meeting:
Optional: Sonnenwald,
D. (1996). Communication roles that support collaboration
during the design process.
Optional: Constant, D., Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L.
(1994). What's mine is ours, or is it? A study of attitudes
about information sharing.
5. One-minute paper
What was the big point you learned in class today?
What is the main, unanswered question you leave class
with today?