America's Next Top Information Professional

As you may know, I am not a fan of PowerPoint. I think it is rarely used well, and more commonly used as a crutch for poor presentations or teaching. Edward Tufte doesn’t like .ppt either, and is much more articulate about the reasons why. Tufte is a statistician and astute observer of information design, and I’ve been enjoying his book, Beautiful Evidence,  particularly the essay, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within.”

Tufte makes a strong case that PowerPoint funnels all kinds of presentations into a simplified business pitch. His specific charges include the low-resolution of information, the one-way sequencing of slides, the lack of listener participation, and fragmentation of content. As one example, he gives a case study of a presentation given to NASA officials prior to the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. In investigations after the explosion, it became clear that the threat had been recognized by some staff and consultants. However, decision was on information that filtered up a path of communication moved between siloed departments and multiple levels of authority. These barriers were only exacerbated by the form in which the crucial information was presented. He provides a disturbing two-page spread of one slide from this presentation, carefully annotated. The lack of concrete data is disturbing, as is the seemingly hierarchical display: presumably, the important stuff is big and at the top, right? It is a convincing argument that the content of technical reports does not fit into the flexible form of PowerPoint. As he writes, “formats, sequencing, and cognitive approach should be decided by the character of the content and what is to be explained, not by the limitations of the presentation technology.”

It struck me that Tufte suggests the simple solution of bringing a short report or notes to a meeting. Not a printout of the information-impoverished slides, but a handout with relevant charts, graphs, or other information. That way, listeners can flip back and forth as they go, take notes, and really participate. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how interactive paper can be.

In another section, Tufte looks at the failure of .ppt when it comes to complex displays of information such as charts and tables. He gives the example of John Graunt’s early tables of life expectancy and mortality. These diagrams present thousands of items of information in a form that permits the reader to make comparisons between various causes of death and various years. As I was reading, I realized that you could call these tables a sort of aggregation, to put it into the lingo of our current module in LIBR 559M. I’ve been struggling with an adequate definition of aggregation as it applies to information, and Tufte certainly add some nuances. Effective aggregation does not mean simply dumping items together. Instead, it enables comparisons, brings items together without diminishing or distorting the content. Just as Google Wave permits greater contextualization of conversations, a proper table or diagram can give context for the information displayed. I’m curious what Tufte would think of some of the other tools we’ve looked at in this course. He has written about iPhone applications, but I want to know what he thinks of Google Wave. Certainly he’s gotten an invite, right?

Yesterday was another full day of stimulating talks. First was the SLAIS colloquium student panel, “Learning on the Job.” Students spoke about their summer work experiences at the music division of Library and Archives Canada, SFU’s Bennett Library, RM and archives of the UN, and the library at the Museo Nacional del Prado. Seriously, I never cease to be surprised at the variety of fun things that librarians and archivists get to do. Cataloging wax cylinder recordings? Be still, my beating heart! Kirsty really emphasized the network of contacts we all have as student librarians: we can tap into SLAIS faculty, UBC Library staff, SLAIS alumni, as well as contacts in whatever organization we find ourselves in. It’s a reassuring reminder that we really never are alone.

Directly following the panel, Donna Kynaston talked about her experiences in records management and archives at the World Health Organization. She highlighted some of the quirks of recordkeeping in many of the international organizations founded after World War 2 — namely, that they inherited a British registry-based administrative system (and some funny British colloquialism as well). There have been the typical problems with email, particularly when transactions take place entirely through email. When there’s a business requirement for the official record to be on paper, that obviously becomes a problem.

She also discussed the lack of legislation in international organizations. In most jurisdictions, records managers have a lot of legislation both to uphold but also to help motivate the folks who create and use records. Laws about freedom of information, protection of privacy, public records, e-discovery and the like all give guidance for records management. International organizations like the WHO don’t have those laws to follow. (This makes public access very interesting — you can get a pdf of the WHO archives access policy here.) She pointed out that other drivers are effective — namely, desire for accountability, administrative efficiency, and the preservation of historical memory — but it’s an interesting environment for records management.

Finally, she gave a delightful nearly-lost-but-found archives anecdote. One of their most heavily used collections is a fonds of historical photographs, 30,000 prints and even more negatives from the 1940s-1980s. (I believe this is its finding aid.) It was about to be thrown out, but was rescued from a storage space beneath a boardroom when the facility manager thought to ask if the archives wanted to keep ’em. It’s a familiar, shocking, and heart-warming story. And a good reason to work on raising awareness of archives, eh?

Yesterday was my Science Zine Workshop over at Woodward Library. We had an intimate group of mostly library folks, but an absolutely delightful time looking at zines, talking about what makes them special, and then making a zine together. I used a modified version of the Independent Publishing Resource Center’s Zines 101 lesson plan, and yes, we focused on science. You might not realize how thrilling this is for me — science zines are relatively rare in the sea of perzines, how-to zines, and political tracts.

We talked a lot about why authors might choose the zine as a format, rather than say, posting information to a blog or submitting an article to an academic journal. I have to say, I found myself making some comparisons to the instruction UBC Library does for English 112 students: when you look at a zine, think about these questions:

• Who is the author? (it may be anonymous or pseudonymous)
• Are there ads? (almost definitely not)
• Do they cite their sources? (rarely in a properly formatted bibliography, more likely in a “further reading” sort of way)
• What kind of language does the author use? (often conversational, sometimes spicy)

We also talked about why zines are a good forum for talking about science in particular. Zines can be used to break complex topics into more simple narratives. They offer a space to discuss something you care about without the pressures to meet any standards or uphold obligations to advertisers or other parties. They can be anonymous in a deep way: I can make a zine and leave copies on the bus and no one will ever know that I made it. It got me thinking about why *I* value zines so much, both as a creator and as a reader.

Thanks to everyone who came, and to my supervisors at Woodward who helped me put it together. We’ll be sending a copy of our zine in to the COPUS Year of Science Zine-a-Thon contest, so keep your fingers crossed.

Later in the afternoon, I went to the also delightful but otherwise dissimilar panel discussion on Video Games, Virtual Worlds, and Real Learning. A couple times throughout the presentation, I heard the statistic that in 2011, 80% of active Internet users will be using virtual worlds. (I didn’t catch the source for this number, if it was given.)

Eric Meyers talked about his research in virtual worlds specifically for children, including places like Webkinz, Woogi World, and Barbie Girls. According to numbers from webanalytics sites, the vast majority of users of virtual worlds are under the age of thirty, many of them between 5 and 15. Eric posed some intriguing questions: How can schools allow or benefit from these spaces? How do children understand truth and authority in virtual spaces? How . Where does the learning happen? He described spaces where kids make tutorials for other kids, helping shape the experiences of other users. Fascinating stuff that I had no idea about.

He also asked about the use of virtual world Second Life among folks in the audience. (Minimal.) He used the term “dead avatars” to contrast the steep learning curve in adult virtual worlds like SL to the low threshold for entry in child-specific sites. To be honest, the stories of new avatars running around naked and confused (or bored) has kept me from trying SL yet. However, our final presentation for LIBR 559M will be held in SL, and I welcome the push to get in there.

The other presenters were Kathy Sanford and Liz Merkel from the Faculty of Education at UVic, talking about their work with adolescent gamers. They focused largely on a crisis in (dis)engagement in schools: by looking at kids who are very, very engaged in their gaming, what can we learn about how they are not similarly engaged in school? It sounds like a fulfilling research project, they’ve been working with some kids for about 4 years now. There was some theory I didn’t completely catch onto, but I took down some titles. (Things on “complexity science” and emergent systems — sounds pretty adaptable.)

I also felt a little unsettled by their discussions of “survival of the fittest.” This was given as a model used in education, one that may be challenged by the kinds of cooperation used in video games. Hmmm. See, the misrepresentation of evolution is one of my personal pet peeves. I actually made a zine about natural selection this summer, intended as a pocket-guide to prevent the kinds of agonizing things that I hate to hear. Which includes the term “survival of the fittest.” Merkel rightly pointed out that Darwin never used this phrase, but I would’ve appreciated a bit more on what he actually meant by “fit.” Fitness, in the Darwinian sense, is not about being strong or fast. It’s about reproductive success: basically, you are considered fit based on how many grandkids you have. Which may be based on your strength or speediness, but could be based on all kinds of other factors. This is why we have developed all kinds of cultural adaptations to improve our lives — the competition for survival does not result in a simple throw-down where it’s every man pitted against every other.

This is a fairly minor quibble though, as their talk gave me a lot to think about. I appreciated their point that no two players experience exactly the same game — it is an individualized experience. They also emphasized the cooperation and creative collective action these kids use to improve their experiences. For example, one of their participants told them about a Halo party he had hosted, where he and his friends collected all the computers and TV screens they could find, so they could all play the game together. They ended up with more kids than space, so one kid played, presumably on a laptop, while sitting in the bath tub. It requires creative and collaborative action to have that kind of fun.

It’s been a busy week, and I haven’t caught up on my posts. On Thursday I went to the first Works (un)Cited event, put on by LASSA, our department’s student association. The goal of the evening was to give students a chance to practice public speaking in a low-risk environment, and also give us all a chance to learn what other folks are thinking about. The line-up was excellent — I missed the first talk, and walked in on the last tantalizing slides of Mahria’s talk on the human brain. I wanted to highlight some rambling thoughts relevant to LIBR 559M. Professor Heather O’Brien talked about her work on engagement. It struck me that this is a concept considered in many different disciplines, but rarely in intersecting ways. (This is a little of how I felt at infocamp — all the UX business has been going on in a big way, and I had just not tapped into those conversations at all.) To give just one example, take a look at this delightful article I found over the summer. It’s a designer’s musings on an issue that regularly wrestle with: how do we physically manifest the memories and information that exist in digital format? As the author states,

If so much of our personal history is getting compressed into data, and digital imaging, cloud computing, and streaming media have become an integral part of daily experience, being sensitive to the physical presence of these devices is an important responsibility.

I’ve been seeing many tweets about the Barnes and Noble e-reader Nook, which are mixed, as usual, with misguided statements about the death of print. My boss over the summer pointed out to me once that books have been a very successful media for a reason. Just because another format for reading will also be successful does not mean books will suddenly have no audience.

I realize this is all a bit of a ramble, but I’ll accept it as one of the “half-baked” blogs mentioned on the Sunday Edition’s enjoyable piece on News 2.0 this morning. One of their interviewees used that term to describe reports that say, basically, “This is what I know, this is what I don’t know…what do you know?” So, whaddya know?

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p.s. Did you know it’s Celebrate Learning week at UBC? There are a few events I’ll definitely be attending.

Monday is the zine workshop I’m teaching at Woodward, followed by “Videogames, Virtual Worlds and Real Learning,” which should be a lively panel. It’s 4:30-6:00 p.m. in the Dodson Room, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Wednesday, there’s a student panel for our normal lunch hour colloquium, 11:45 in Barber 155, directly followed by a talk by Donna Kynaston, the head of records and archives for the World Health Organization.

Anyone keen on any of the other events?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvRnD6WD8w&feature=player_profilepage[/youtube]

I just came from a SLAIS colloquium by Vancouver’s City Archivist, Leslie Mobbs, with the fantastic title, “Raising the Roof: Towards an Outreach and Awareness Strategy for the City of Vancouver Archives.” The Archives seeks to increase visibility through four tactics: strengthening existing relationships, establishing partnerships, building community, and leveraging technology. These are, of course, all intertwined. I’d like to highlight some of the great technologically-enhanced-relationship-projects Mobbs discussed.

Most prominent is their Youtube channel. This has been a vehicle for promoting their Archival Films Online initiative. The films in question, many of them privately donated home movies, were essentially inaccessible to the public, since the Archives did not have a projector to play the films. Digitizing the films and posting a copy on Youtube allows greater access than was previously available. However, Mobbs noted that the Youtube videos are not intended as a definitive display of the holdings. For archives, the context of records is imperative to fully understanding them and Youtube presents certain limits for the amount of description that can be appended. (Alas, it doesn’t permit the hierarchical display that, say, EAD-encoded descriptions do.) Mobbs said that the point of their Youtube postings (and of their new Twitter account) that these tools are aimed to bring people into the archives, not to be the primary display of holdings. Interesting, eh? It highlights their position to explore both in-person and online connections. It seems that the Archives has intentions to do both, so keep your eyes peeled.

p.s. The Archives also recently hosted a Hackathon, encouraging folks to play with the data freely available from the city. Read about it here and here.

In LIBR 559M, we’ve been discussing the permeable nature of personal and professional presentation online. It makes me think back to ARST 555, and the presentation we did about John McDonald’s article Managing Records in the Modern Office: Taming the Wild Frontier. Way back in 1995, McDonald wrote this excellent analysis of how the change to personal computers threw many kinds of traditional record-keeping. From the abstract:

From a record-keeping perspective, the modern office is like the wild frontier. Office workers can create and send electronic messages and documents to whomever they wish. They can store them according to their own individual needs and then delete them without turning to anyone else for approval. There are no rules of the road. The autonomy of the individual reigns supreme!

That is, as office hierarchy was changed by technology, traditional record-keeping strategies fell apart. As the personal computer became the location where records were made and kept, workers started thinking about those items as, well, personal. In a more general way, this happens to many people as we use new technologies. This applies to social media as well: for example, many professionals use Twitter for both personal and work-related information. Or, as Sarah Palin dealt with last year, we may use our personal email accounts for official business.

Anyway, I have been thinking about this in connection with Google Wave. I haven’t gotten to test it out yet, but I’ve been seeing interesting comments by archivists and records managers. As more and more functions can be incorporated into a single tool, it can really muddy the records being created. This is all the more true when creation can be done as a group, or individually but anonymously. My understanding is that Wave will permit more integration of the elements (IM, email, etc.) contributing to any activity. As Alan Bell notes, “Google seems to have created the first collaborative environment where context, conversation and object are captured together and can be rendered together as the record of any collaboration.” Wowza! Despite the challenges for actually figuring out what the record is, let alone how to preserve it long-term, that’s an exciting possibility. However, if folks are using their Google Wave accounts for both business and pleasure, the work of records managers and archivists becomes much, much messier.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzmAav8yCkI[/youtube]

Rob recently blogged about a commentary about the way that social media could have a negative impact on lonely college students. Something about this reminds me of a This American Life radio segment about the early days of voicemail at Columbia University. Within this system, messages could be forwarded to other people on campus and this show focuses on the story of how one message went viral. It’s a great example of how new technology can be used to reinforce community within a physical community. Also, it’s really, really funny. You can listen to it here. Beware, there is some rather spicy language.

There was an interesting post to the Arcan-L list today about a somewhat surprising side-effect of digital publishing. The zoological science community has certain set protocol for recognizing the preferred terms for animal names. This has traditionally meant looking to published print materials. As more and more journals move to electronic-only versions, this policy needs to be adapted. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is now in the process of drafting changes, and is seeking input not only from scientists but from archivists. As noted on their website, “Electronic-only publications should be allowed, if mechanisms can be found that give reasonable assurance of the long-term accessibility of the information they contain.”

The question is: what constitutes reasonable assurance? It’s relative, of course. In our class on digital preservation, Luciana Duranti always pointed us to patents: national patent offices have very, very good recordkeeping systems, because a lot of money and legal battles depend on those records. I got into a bit of an argument with a software fella at Infocamp about why I like my government to take new technology slowly. It’s odd to find myself advocating such caution in innovation, but sometimes stability really is more important.

Anyway, I’m glad that the ICZN is asking for input from archivists on this issue, and I hope they get some valuable commentary. You can see the full information here.