a brief thought on the 80/20 rule

This article from Inside Higher Ed doesn't specifically mention information resources, but it got me thinking about a study I read earlier this year about Wikipedia being around 80% right in a given subject area.

If that's true, it's another potential data point explaining why traditional reference sources are getting spanked.

the wave of the present, part deux

This morning's Inside Higher Ed brings the news that starting in 2011, current University of California Press journals will be available via JSTOR along with the backfile.

The article mentions the Ithaka report from 2007 that libraries have to get more involved with scholarly publishing. I'm inclined to agree, but we also need to recognize that small libraries like mine have limited capacity to do that.

On the other hand, if our acquisitions budget went more toward directly supporting the infrastructure of scholarly communication, and less toward lining publisher pockets, that money would go further for greater good. That makes me really happy that it's JSTOR doing this.

the wave of the present

Kind of old news at this point, but ACS going online-only is still news.

If not exactly unexpected. At my university, science faculty and students had been asking pretty much since I started here (and probably before) when we'd be getting core publications like Science and Nature online. (We now do, after considerable budget reshuffling.) We'd been getting ACS's journals online for quite awhile, and I can't remember the last time I saw anyone looking at a scientific publication other than American Scientist in print.

If ACS passed the cost savings of this move on to its subscribers? THAT would be news.

newsbit: Zotero suit dismissed

As per this post from one of the project's directors. Excellent news!

Notes on the invisible library

One of the things I think about a lot is how the library is changing as the physical facility decouples from the collections it has traditionally housed. In my own personal taxonomy these thoughts group under the heading "Invisible Library", largely because I occasionally encounter students who use the library without knowing it--discovering a journal we subscribe to while using Google, for example. I gave a presentation on campus around this topic last fall and one thing that came very clear to me is that, somehow, we have to stop treating our digital resources in a way equivalent to our physical resources. Publishers do this, but libraries do, too, and it's in danger of killing us.

An article in the latest Journal of Academic Librarianship addresses this issue, adding a third dimension: namely, the people providing library services. It also highlights the phenomenon I mention: patrons can discover library resources through avenues other than the library, and often do. (This is one reason why it would be really nice to somehow handle library patron authentication at the vendor's end, rather than the library's. If there's a nice big banner across the top of the e-journal index page that says "SUBSCRIPTION PROVIDED BY PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY", does it matter whether they got there through the library website or through Google? I submit that it does not.)

A lot of what it talks about here--transformation of library space, digitization of information resource, and a service emphasis on outreach, information literacy, and value-added technology--is already happening; according to long-range plans at some institutions, by fits and starts at others. Some of the technological dimension was addressed in my MLIS program, especially the information architecture side, and some of the Web development and resource management components. But much more, such as data mining, scripting, and technology-dependent aspects of information use (I've been asked how to make charts in Excel so many times in the past month that I've lost count) was not.

The article makes it sound like MLIS programs should become computer science lite degrees, and I'm not entirely convinced that they shouldn't. I love our IT crew, but if certain parts of what we do pass into their domain, it'll be frustrating for them, tragic for us, and a loss to the institution as a whole.

And the MPAA continues its slide into irrelevance

MPAA says teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs.

I think they're actually serious.

Dear LITA:

I just added you to my ALA membership renewal for the first time last month. For, I might add, a pretty penny. (Although ALA's maddeningly useless membership renewal confirmation does not tell me how much I actually paid for the package deal. Dear ALA: some of us itemize our tax returns. What kind of receipt doesn't include an amount paid?)

So, when the very first bit of communication I receive from you is, first of all, close to a month later, and secondly, includes "Former ALA member ID" in the header, and thirdly, is a solicitation for me to RE-JOIN a division I joined FOR THE FIRST TIME less than four weeks ago, it doesn't fill me with confidence.

THIS is the ALA division chiefly concerned with technology in libraries?

I'm still waiting to be impressed.

Jason Griffey's Top 5

This is actually from December, but check out Jason Griffey's TechSource post on the top 5 most influential technologies of 2008.

As I said there, it interests me that three of the five are devices--hardware.

Thoughts on Source Evaluation: Acknowledge Popularity

I've been reading a lot lately on evaluating information, especially Web sources. Much of the literature on evaluating Web sources predates the level of sophistication and richness of content we're seeing now: open-access journals, government reports, newspapers, Google's Life magazine image archive, and so on. But one article I skimmed again recently discusses why popularity and relevance, which seem to be (so far as outsiders can determine) two of the major criteria in Google's ranking algorithm, aren't valid for evaluating an information source.

Tell an undergraduate student this and watch the confusion crawl across his/her face. I also happen to think that it's not necessarily true.

What's really going on here is that there are two parts of evaluation. One is, "Is this good information?" The other is, "Should I use it?"

There are scenarios where one might have a valid use for information that one knows is of poor quality, after all. But that's not really my point.

My point is that while popularity is not a good sole indicator of quality, it's worth considering because first of all, it probably put that search result on the first page for you, and secondly, one would do well to think about why so many people are looking for, clicking on, and linking to this think.

Might even be because the information in it is good.

The real criticism here, I think, is of popularity as an authority indicator. A few months ago I came across an article in the computer science literature, from the late 1990s or early 2000s, that suggested exactly this as a search engine algorithm.

Hmm.

Wouldn't that be an interesting idea to get students to unpack?

It's times like these that I wish I had entire semesters, instead of maybe one hour over the course of four years, to get this stuff across.

The Arresting Image

Like a lot of librarians and writers (I happen to be both), I have a habit of privileging text over image. Partly it's upbringing, partly it's preference; however vivid and absorbing an image, I'm habitually more drawn to text, both for information and for entertainment.

In the past month, though, I've twice been pointed to the Boston Globe's The Big Picture. As MediaShift puts it, the Big Picture is "a large-format photo-blog" that "has created a way to display powerful images in a user-friendly manner". Simply put, it does this by making the images really, really large, and captioning them. The result is beyond attention-getting; it's far more absorbing than the images that typically accompany online newspaper stories, which often seem to be stuck in as an afterthought, or a way to balance the page layout. (Some of these, to be fair, link to larger pop-up versions of themselves--the Big Picture's images are still larger, though.)

This week I'm thinking a lot about the presentation of information, as my library website is about to go through a minor bit of redesign. We won't be changing the site architecture, but we will be doing some aesthetic rearranging. A few months back I asked, here and elsewhere, for examples of library websites that showed particularly good design. The response was mostly resounding silence. Library websites tend to be ugly, for the same reason that a lot of online newspaper sites are just the print version ported to the Web, often to a visually cluttered result: we're not used to thinking about how to make what we offer appealing to the eye in this medium. Larger monitors help; I read online a lot more since I got my 17-inch Macbook. But you can't count on that, not with mobile technologies taking off the way they are.

Now that I've been in the library field a few years, I'm thinking seriously about what aspects of the field interest me, since there's not enough time to try or do everything even in this little disciplinary slice of the world. We pay a lot of lip service to the necessity of good online service, especially usability, but rarely talk about what that means in terms of aesthetics and presentation. The Big Picture shows why these things are important.

A timely essay on Wikipedia

I'm in the reading/musing/planning stages of an article that pertains to Wikipedia. Actually, it's about cognitive authority and how Wikipedia pertains to that. I think. As I often tell student researchers, your topic has a way of trying to morph on you when you're doing your lit search.

So there's this article on Alley Insider, appropriately titled Who the Hell Writes Wikipedia, Anyway?, and although it's not a robust study of the subject, it's worth looking at simply for raising the question in a way that suggests that there's an answer. A lot of faculty (with complete justification, I emphasize) disallow Wikipedia because anyone can contribute, but we don't spend a whole lot of time talking about what that means and why it can be problem, especially since for a lot of needs (not necessarily those of the classroom or the assignment), Wikipedia is just good enough.

The ongoing core argument about Wikipedia continues in the comments, which are more interesting than comments on news stories typically are, in my experience. This is in part because a lot of the commenters are Wikipedia contributors--often disaffected former contributors. Which means that they, like most sources, should be read critically, of course.

Sometimes I think the most interesting thing about Wikipedia is that it has created this debate, one that honestly I think is overdue.

Another shift in the sea: CS Monitor going online

In a way, I'm surprised it took this long for a major newspaper to shift to primarily online. Even when I was getting a printed paper, I typically took the weekly one because I haven't had time to read a paper every day for years (whereas it's easy to dip into a news site for a few minutes in a break from work or during lunch). And I've been seeing this shift with research journals, too; it's been going on for years, of course, but for more and more publications, scholarly and non, online is becoming the principal rather than the alternative publishing venue. (In the case of scholarship, often with prices to match. Unfortunately.)

I'm sure that all the national dailies are trending this way. I'm also sure that none of them wanted to be the first to jump. I find it interesting that even the Monitor is saying that it basically has to do this:

"Changes in the industry - changes in the concept of news and the economics underlying the industry - hit the Monitor first," given its relatively small size and the complex logistics required for national distribution, Mr. Wells said. "We are sometimes forced to be an early change agent."

And so it goes...

WaPo's TMI Editorial, Part 2

Yesterday's post only got us halfway through this recent editorial in the Washington Post (a news source I'm having increasing trouble taking seriously, even though it's my hometown paper), so let's continue with this little gem:

The opportunity to educate millions of citizens, so essential to significant movements of the past, has dwindled. In the early New Deal era, the Roman Catholic "radio priest" Father Charles Coughlin promoted ideas for economic reform to a weekly audience estimated at 40 million, which helped pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt to enact Social Security, the Works Progress Administration and other programs. Today's top talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, reaches only about 14 million people per week.

This comes after some more extensive comment on media fragmentation. I mention the context because one might well be moved to wonder how, in an age of information ubiquity, the opportunity for education has dwindled at all. But what Horwitt is really talking about is claiming and holding people's attention. Librarians are familiar with this problem, to be sure. On the other hand, here as elsewhere Horwitt's real complaint seems to be that journalists no longer have a monopoly on sharing, interpreting, and explicating current events.

Speaking as an information professional, I have two things to say on that: 1) it's not clear that journalists ever did have such a monopoly, and 2) get over it.

And Father Charles Coughlin? Really? Horwitt's idea of a good supporting example is a notorious anti-Semite who's better known for being against the New Deal than for it? Horwitt isn't a journalist, but if this is his idea of journalism, maybe that's a good thing.

It is true that Coughlin was one of the first to harness the power of radio for political ends. He certainly wasn't the last, though. And if Limbaugh only reaches 14 million people per week, I have trouble seeing that as a bad thing. That's a qualitative judgment on my part, but in a way, that's my point, and the biggest problem I have with Horwitt's argument: he's making a case for a situation that disallows and silences heterogeneous points of view. It's hard to see how such a situation can possibly further the cause of a democratic society.

Moving on:

Without broad media coverage, the civil rights movement might never have succeeded. In 1965, front-page newspaper coverage of the bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., helped push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, write journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff in their 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Race Beat." Even the Fairbanks Alaska News-Miner carried the story on the front page for 10 straight days.

Fair enough. In fact, journalism today could draw a lesson or two here, and arguably has, if the State of the News Media report's content analysis of newspaper coverage in 2007 is anything to go by. Newspapers seem to have figured out that their reports aren't first on the scene anymore; where they continue to excel is in in-depth analysis.

But if Horwitt is arguing that such coverage no longer exists, that doesn't follow from his previous points. He goes on to say that in the wake of declining newspaper coverage, "other news outlets aren't picking up the slack", and for evidence cites the declining audiences of major television news--as though no other news outlets exist. Considering his earlier statements about radio, one wonders why he doesn't mention this news outlet that he clearly values. Could it be because listenership is largely holding steady, which appears to counter his argument?

He's right that TV news audiences have been on the decline for years, though. On the other hand, one wishes that he'd looked at which online news sites overall (instead of just blogs) get the most traffic. CNN and MSNBC may not have figured out how to make money with their online channels, but that doesn't mean they aren't attracting large audiences.

Anyway, while the editorial thus far is vague as to its point, weakly argued, and cites poor examples (it'd make a great example of what not to do in an information literacy workshop), the foregoing is as nothing compared to what Horwitt recommends to ameliorate this state of affairs. To wit:

Rather than call for government regulation of technology itself, perhaps the best way to limit the avalanche is to make the technologies that overproduce information more expensive and less widespread. It could be done via a progressive energy tax designed to keep energy prices at a consistently high level (while providing assistance to lower- and middle-income Americans).

At this point, what capacity for commentary I possess fails me. Horwitt is actually arguing that the best way to preserve democracy is to reduce access to information.

Seriously.

I found myself wanting to look behind the curtain, to see if perhaps Horwitt was making a play for Jonathan Swift-style satire. He writes social commentary disguised as country music and impersonates Bill Clinton; this suggests he has some sort of sense of humor, however unrefined.

Others elsewhere have pointed out why Horwitt's comparison to the cost of shipping (which is still, despite the skyrocketing cost of fuel, a relatively small portion of the overall cost of manufacture, delivery, and retail) isn't really germane, and his quote about computers being "the most energy-intensive of home devices" comes from a paper on the energy intensity of computer manufacturing, leads one to conclude that he's advocating reducing the information glut by taxing computer makers.

At this point, I'd like to know whether Horwitt drives a car manufactured in the past decade, uses a bank or credit union, or shops in a grocery store. For someone who claims to specialize in studying energy consumption, he doesn't appear to understand the implications of what he's advocating.

Or maybe he does. After all, he argues that "an energy tax, by making some computers, Web sites, blogs and perhaps cable TV channels too costly to maintain, could reduce the supply of information" (emphasis added). How on Earth could this be achieved, without also driving up the costs of banking, store supply management, and automotive onboard electronics, unless you're taxing energy use based on the use being made of that energy?

Horwitt is starting to sound like those people who advocate closing all the libraries and replacing them with a personal computer for every family, people who have clearly never observed neophytes in public libraries attempting to use the Internet. And as the new media landscape evolves, it's also starting to look like he's complaining about a nonexistent problem. Consider the introduction to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's State of the News Media 2008 report, particularly this quote:

Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to make. Even with so many new sources, more people now consume what old media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before. Online, for instance, the top 10 news Web sites, drawing mostly from old brands, are more of an oligarchy, commanding a larger share of audience, than in the legacy media. The verdict on citizen media for now suggests limitations. And research shows blogs and public affairs Web sites attract a smaller audience than expected and are produced by people with even more elite backgrounds than journalists.

By Horwitt's definition, it appears that democracy is safe. By my own, I'm reminded of a song by The Who. The one that goes, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Yeah. That one.

I was going to end there, but I can't resist poking a little more, at this:

A reduced supply of information technology might at least gradually cause us to gravitate toward community-centered media such as local newspapers instead of the hyper-individualistic outlets we have now.

If Horwitt cared to look, he might see that this is already happening. In my own community, a diverse area encompassing multiple neighborhoods, languages, cultures of origin, and socio-economic conditions, we have a news resource that concentrates on news within the community. It's already been credited with helping to solve several burglaries, to bring traffic to new businesses, and has been cited by citywide media on issues of interest.

It also just happens to be a blog.

Oh, WaPo, We Knew You When

I've been thinking a lot lately about information quality, and information evaluation, and other such good and crunchy things that concern librarians. (Well, all right. I took some time off from thinking about these things to get married, hence the recent radio silence here.)

The Washington Post ran a...I guess it's an editorial, judging by the tone, on information overload. Except that what it really is is a thinly-veiled screed decrying the decline of information quality in the age of information profusion, complete with a eulogy for the selfless newspapers that still provide good, hearty information to the soup of public opinion. (Or should that be stew, or something even less savory?)

My first thought is that Dusty Horwitt should read some history. Specifically, of newspapers and journalism. Particularly of the 19th century.

My second is that Horwitt's piece is pretty profuse, itself. You can throw as many statistics on the printed page, or the computer screen for that matter, as you want, but by themselves they don't add up to an argument.

In fact, let's unpack this piece a little, titled: "If Everyone's Talking, Who Will Listen?"

Let's start with this little tidbit:

In August 2007, there were about 100 million blogs. Of those that reached 100,000 people or more in a month, only about 20 focused on news or politics, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a company that measures Internet traffic.

Why is this bad? If the point is that the profusion of information channels fragments audiences--and we see throughout the piece that this is Horwitt's point--then shouldn't we be pleased at that relatively low number? And notice, Horwitt doesn't tell us how many of those 100 million blogs actually do reach 100,000 people or more in a month. We can't find out from ComScore, either, since their data is proprietary, and Horwitt's article doesn't link to any citations. (In itself, very common in newspapers, even online ones, even those reporting on scientific research studies which are themselves available online in open access publications. Tell me how the Internet doesn't help spread information, again?)

Then there's this:

According to Nielsen Online, the average visitor to newspaper Web sites stops by for just 1.5 minutes per day on average. By contrast, the average print newspaper reader spends 40 minutes with each day's edition, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

That does suggest fragmented attention spans, if not necessarily fragmented audiences. On the other hand, it really doesn't tell the whole story. Among its unanswered questions are the following: how much overlap exists between online and print newspaper readers? (Not a lot, as it turns out, but Horwitt doesn't even address the question.) Also--and this is a glaring omission--newspaper website are not the only source of news online. Even newspapers and blogs (Horwitt's targeted bugaboo) together are not the only sources of news online. Horwitt completely fails to mention television and radio channels which operate websites, not to mention news sites which aren't tied to printed newspapers at all.

Also not addressed is how many different newspaper websites that average visitor may visit in a day. I don't have data on this, but on an average day I'll visit at least two national newspaper websites, two city newspaper websites, anywhere from one to six regional newspaper websites, and a local blog operated by a couple of local media veterans who understand that beat reporting techniques do just fine in the blog format. Add it all up and I'd guess I spend more than 40 minutes a day reading the news, and that doesn't even account for the news radio I listen to on my commute.

Maybe I'm exceptional. Could be. But the State of the News Media 2008 report (which is, by the way, a product of the Project for Excellence in Journalism) suggests that if you take print and online newspaper readership numbers together, newspaper readership is growing, not shrinking. So what's the problem here?

Maybe it's this:

The overload siphons audiences and revenue from newspapers such as The Post and other outlets that can spread important information, forcing these media to shrink and to rely increasingly on advertising to stay afloat.

It's true enough that lower readership of print newspapers in particular means that print advertising is less effective. On the other hand, to suggest that newspapers have not historically had to rely on advertising to stay afloat is disingenuous at best. The real problem is that the print advertising format does not translate well to the way that people read news online: what's more, as the State of the Media report points out, newspapers have been losing classified advertising revenue for years. It's not a new problem, and it's only indirectly related to the proliferation of online information sources. Sure, Monster and Craigslist do provide information, but nobody would call their content news.

And we're only halfway through this editorial. More unpacking to come, hopefully tomorrow.

A media-literacy tool for the digital age

In the past week, two of my friends have called my attention to the PhotoShop Disasters blog.

We've all seen them: pictures that are funny, or just plain peculiar, and obviously--or sometimes not so obviously--improbable. Is it real life, or is it PhotoShop? Sometimes the illusion is so well done that it's difficult to tell.

Sometimes the results are funny. Sometimes, well, not so much.

Doctoring photos is nothing new; we can point to plenty of examples similar to the above in media from around the world, the U.S. included. PhotoShop, though, makes photo doctoring easier to do--though if the person doing the work isn't particularly accomplished at it, it can also be easier to spot.

When does such modification improve or clarify, and when does it deceive?