The Search Principle blog

As many of you know, Twitter is a fascinating new source of information in the digital age where networks of friends share ideas and opinions about issues of the day – or banal things like “I’m off to a meeting” or even “I just ate a donut – ugh”.

Summize – conversational search is the name of a new search channel for those interested in looking for specific discussion, topics or people using Twitter. It ‘indexes’ Twitter in realtime, threads together associated tweets, and provides a way to search the stuff.

By the way, this process is called summization. Double ugh. The first ugh? the name!

Between a redesign of LIBR534 and brainstorming the new LIS course on social software, my evenings are busy. (I am also writing three items about various web 2.0 issues.) I would still like to find someone to collaborate with to write a piece about Gaming in health libraries. In the meantime, here is the arc of ideas and thoughts for the social software course. Any thoughts? ~Dean

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Creating an LIS Course on Social Software

“The term social software refers to a range of web-based software, tools and applications that people are using to be social, and to build networks of friends and specialized information channels for their work and pleasure. Social software – also known as social media and social technologies – are central in web 2.0, a trend (or, set of trends) which positions the web as a vital space for communicating, interacting and collaborating with colleagues and users.

Near the end of the course, some time is allocated to discussing the ideas of the instructor regarding evidence-based web 2.0, the issues of over-technicization and relying on the use of (or even creating) sound evidence to support the use of social software. From an institutional point of view, developing web 2.0 strategies and policies for librarians and archivists within their organizations will also be introduced as an emerging planning and management issue for information professionals in the future“.

ps. Check out the bit at time: 8:08 – a female medical librarian makes an appearance, and is asked to find information about the Sternocleidomastoid and Zygomatic Head of Quadratis Labii… Ah, the good ol’ days of medical reference!

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I’ve heard from librarians and educators across the planet about the trials and tribulations of introducing social software into knowledge-based organizations. Sometimes, the battle takes a toll, resulting in fatigue, depression and even ‘giving up’.

I’m here to tell you: don’t. Even monoliths eventually get it… or even surrender.

In 1883, Charles Ammi Cutter, then librarian at the Boston Athenaeum, wrote a futuristic essay entitled “The Buffalo Public Library in 1983” (which is quoted by Alex Wright in his book, Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages – which I now have in hand). Very excited.

Cutter imagined what a library might look like in 100 years, circa 1983. Read the essay. The New York Times, dated August 17, 1883, said that it was ‘a very clever composition, and elicited much applause.’

In 2008, it serves to remind us that speculation is a precursor to observation. Cutter speculates that readers in 1983 will sit at desks equipped with “little keyboards” through which they will connect with central electronic catalogs, ordering books from the stacks by punching in call numbers. He foresaw networks of libraries connected by a “fonographic foil” to enable communication telegraphically and to access other collections readily so that “all libraries in the country…are practically one library”.

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Sounds like the web to me. – and Cutter was only about ~10 or so years off.

Can you predict the future for libraries, 100 years from now – 2108? I’ll share more juicy tidbits from Wright’s book as I encounter them.

My colleague Mary-Doug Wright (who might just be one of the best searchers around) sent a tweet over Twitter today about “White Coat, Black Art“, a series of 2008 podcasts on CBC Radio (which, started in January 2008, but I had only heard about it recently) – hosted by Dr. Brian Goldman.

Today’s program covered a number of interesting issues, including a recurring segment called ‘Dr. Google’ where two patients (Ben & Tammy) and two doctors (Drs. Peter Lynn and the host, Dr. Brian Goldman) discuss symptoms and the kind of diagnosis patients found by using the search engine, Google.

Cyberchrondia, “doctors are pattern recognizers”, and other issues are discussed; information overload; using e-mail for patient practice (Dr. Allan Brookstone) and breaking bad news (the always excellent Dr. Robert Buckman).

On my Google scholar bibliography, I have added a recent paper published by Hartman and Mullen from Rutgers entitled Google Scholar and Academic Libraries: An Update. New Library World 2008;109(5/6):211-222.

The authors have updated their 2005 study of the integration of GS into ARL web sites. They ask whether ARL libraries are adding GS and examine library homepages of 113 ARL libraries. Are links to GS on library homepages, within OPACs or on database lists and subject guides?Data shows broad acceptance of GS and integration into web sites of ARL libraries. The number of paths to GS doubled from 2005 to 2007. The study helps to make decisions about integration of GS into collections and services, particularly web sites, and illustrates future directions for integrating new categories of resources into academic library web sites.

Keywords – Google Scholar, Library web site, federated search, scholarly search engine, Windows Live Academic Search Paper type – Research paper

Guess, Andy. Research methods beyond Google. Inside Higher Ed. June 17th, 2008

An excerpt:

“When Google has become a synonym for ‘research’ how should faculty respond? And if the answer doesn’t lie in musty books and stacks of journals, are libraries still part of the answer?”

Of course, libraries are still part of the answer. But isn’t this besides the point? The actual work that Google does is point to research – is that such a bad thing?

I ::heart:: LIS students, I really do. Action-oriented, smart and entrepreneurial.

MLIS Students – Tawny Sverdlin and Chris Zammarelli – at San Jose State University and the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies respectively have started LibGig, a new social-networking site for librarians and those who manage information.

The new site includes job listings, ask a recruiter a question, lists of library schools accredited by the American Library Association, blogs, and a list of blogs they like (….Krafty is there!)

References
1. 2collab – http://www.2collab.com/
2. 2collab librarian factsheet from Elsevier
3. Other videos on 2collab

Write your review of 2collab in the comments, Dean