Home » Posts tagged '75 days' (Page 14)
Tag Archives: 75 days
60 Days to Goverrnment Information Liberation
Thanks Jim and Daniel for your willingness to tear away at our longest standing point of contention -- the future need of possession to define what we do as librarians, especially government information librarians. This thoughtful and flexible intellectual exchange continues to be a booster shot of optimism that librarians will still ground their arguments not only in the rhetoric of advocacy, but also from serious intellectual foundations that frame our daily practice. This is why I enjoy the Thomas Mann articles so much.... And, no, I do not think we will convince one another to switch sides. But that is not necessarily the point. Think of it this way -- it takes at least two notes (or tones) to make accessible music. I would like to think our two points of frame a greater spectrum of possibilities for our profession. When I speak of a duality in formats, I do not see it as a zero sum proposition -- rather I see a series of librarian centric choices being made based on what librarians see as the principal purpose of their institutions. Which -- may or may not -- be the same as their community of users or other groups with different goals and interests n the same problems. The best book I read on this was written by Patrick Williams -- The American Public Library and the Problem of Purpose. 1988, New York: Greenwood Press. The world wide web -- even with all its flexibility and fragility -- enables to us to explore a new kind of government information librarianship, but not at the cost of more traditional forms. Possession remains a critical component in this, but is no longer a social good that is dominated the dominion of libraries. Yes the governments are taking back their possession of information sources through the digital media and e government services. And yes, under the Gutenberg traditions and technologies, this physical possession was more distributed among the social and economic classes because of the physical characteristics of the paper and print book. But you can also see this kind of distributed shared possession showing up in the digital world -- for instance -- with many other web sites capturing the lost or deleted pages of change.gov. What rankles us as government information librarians is that we perceive this act of preservation to be better done through rational and centralized functions of our governments. It is a public good that deserves a proactive public preservation. And it rankles us so much that for the past hundred years we have recreated thousands of smaller and localized variations of what we think the government should be doing. I have no problem with this argument, and will remain as vocal and full-throated in my rhetoric as anyone in the defense of libraries and their righteous place as critical institutions in our democracy and civic culture. What I do argue for us to seriously consider as our next century project, however, is a form of government information librarianship (and librarianship in general) that exists regardless of the format or technologies. My favorite question I love to pose for my library graduate students runs something like this -- Can doctor still be a doctor without a hospital? They usually answer -- of course. Can you be a lawyer with out a courthouse? Again -- affirmative. Now the money shot -- Can you be a librarian without a library? Dead silence. What I am trying to do here is tease out for them the critical intellectual and fundamental things we do in that wonderfully complex exchange of knowledge among individuals and their institutions of government. Possession of material might have once been central to that purpose. And in the case of some of our institutions (even depository libraries) that command and control might still be in play. But I also strongly suspect that much more intellectual effort and research will be needed in order to build a community of theory and practice that imagines a world where this idea of possession is much less exclusive or destiny for any one institution. Now we are getting somewhere… See you on Day 59 Continue reading
61 Days to Government Information Liberation
Just got finish reading an article from the upcoming Sunday edition of the New York Times -- "If You Liked This, Sure to Love That" which talks about the public contest Netflix is running to improve the accuracy of the search engines that recommend movies to their users. Here is a section from the story that describes the problem and the prize -- "THE “NAPOLEON DYNAMITE” problem is driving Len Bertoni crazy. Bertoni is a 51-year-old “semiretired” computer scientist who lives an hour outside Pittsburgh. In the spring of 2007, his sister-in-law e-mailed him an intriguing bit of news: Netflix, the Web-based DVD-rental company, was holding a contest to try to improve Cinematch, its “recommendation engine.” The prize: $1 million. Cinematch is the bit of software embedded in the Netflix Web site that analyzes each customer’s movie-viewing habits and recommends other movies that the customer might enjoy. (Did you like the legal thriller “The Firm”? Well, maybe you’d like “Michael Clayton.” Or perhaps “A Few Good Men.”) The Netflix Prize goes to anyone who can make Cinematch’s predictions 10 percent more accurate." Deeper in the story is this tidbit -- "IT USED TO BE THAT if you wanted to buy a book, rent a movie or shop for some music, you had to rely on flesh-and-blood judgment — yours, or that of someone you trusted. You’d go to your local store and look for new stuff, or you might just wander the aisles in what librarians call a stack search, to see if anything jumped out at you. You might check out newspaper reviews or consult your friends; if you were lucky, your local video store employed one of those young cinéastes who could size you up in a glance and suggest something suitable." And then this -- "Cinematch has, in fact, become a video-store roboclerk: its suggestions now drive a surprising 60 percent of Netflix’s rentals. It also often steers a customer’s attention away from big-grossing hits toward smaller, independent movies. Traditional video stores depend on hits; just-out-of-the-theaters blockbusters account for 80 percent of what they rent. At Netflix, by contrast, 70 percent of what it sends out is from the backlist — older movies or small, independent ones. A good recommendation system, in other words, does not merely help people find new stuff. As Netflix has discovered, it also spurs them to consume more stuff." The implications for government information library service seem, to me, profound. Automated trust? Where could we go with this when it comes to that sense of trust the informs the best part of librarianship and the community of users that rely on our institutions. I know some libraries are using aspects of this kind of recommendation automation ... but I love the notion of using the social software tools in such a way to help people find more stuff they might in which they might be interested. I know there is a huge gap between selecting movies and TV shows based on likes and dislikes and what we do as government information librarians when we explain large or small complex policy/legal connections. But just as Jim points out about the inherent necessity of collaboration embedded in librarian practice and theory (and we will continue to agree to disagree about the centrality of possession in that mix) -- I can only dream of an government information search algorithm that picks and chooses its way among the complex of relationships embedded in government information. If you like this regulation on natural gas, then you might want to consider this one. I know this happens at a very "structural" level in the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations that link the regulations through citations and their foundational public laws. And I know that, in a very real sense, subject headings and other authority records do this at a kind 19th century linear approach. But it seems to me that I spend most of my flesh and blood library time explaining these connections to our users rather than seeing any evidence that they grasp these library connections intuitively. How can we make our library intuition more transparent? In some ways we are flesh and blood alogrithims -- which gets to another part of the story that delights me, when the contest participants sharpen their mathematical tools -- "As the teams have grown better at predicting human preferences, the more incomprehensible their computer programs have become, even to their creators. Each team has lined up a gantlet of scores of algorithms, each one analyzing a slightly different correlation between movies and users. The upshot is that while the teams are producing ever-more-accurate recommendations, they cannot precisely explain how they’re doing this. Chris Volinsky admits that his team’s program has become a black box, its internal logic unknowable." Which has always been the challenge of teaching student librarians about the art of reference work -- there is this black box quality to how we know what we know and where to search for relevant information. See you on Day 60. Continue reading
62 Days to Government Information Liberation
I am at another slog point in the conversation. I am thinking about a couple of things -- the future of education and government information librarians; and what aspects of government information access should transcend all levels of government. To the first, I am pondering one of the first blogs I posted back in January here. 10 months later I think my mind has shifted on a few points -- particularly when it comes to the issue of formats. Jim's responses to my earlier 75 day posts have got me reconsidering my positions. It is somewhat amazing that we started this conversation three and half years ago with dueling articles in the Journal of Academic Librarianship about the future of the federal depository library system.... Which brings me to my second musing -- the future of government information service in libraries -- especially as framed by century long traditions of formal depository libraries. Here, I think the creation and distribution mechanisms recast the traditional library approaches radically. I think we should be working towards some kind of overarching standards, protocols, expectations for all library-based government information services -- regardless of which level of government it comes from, or in seeming contradiction to my statement above, format. In other words,the pressures of e-government services delivered in library settings set new expectations for our users and how we are trained as professionals. It is a shift from a world of government information organized by static bibliographic standards to one driven by a dynamic information liquidity/exchange where users' particular needs combine with available government information resources/services to create a continuum of knowledge possibilities. To be continued... See you on Day 61 Continue reading
63 Days to Government Information Liberation
What interests me most about the current and future roles of libraries (and what draws the distinction between Jim and myself) are the possible ways libraries can transform within a dynamic information world driven more by decentralized creation, distribution and a heavy focus on users. Fair point, Stehle did not directly refer to a digital world library in so many words, but I would argue the article's descriptions of successful public-interest organizations can only exist if there is such a beast. My tendency to push this point is not as a zero sum proposition (though the rhetoric can be a bit thick at times) -- libraries can only thrive at the expense of the digital world (or vice versa) -- is simply not true. Jim and I are agreement that libraries and their social purpose are a righteous thing, and deserve a place of honor in the private and public markets. I agree with Jim, as well, a blended library of both paper and digital sources -- as a transitional organization -- will survive best in the near future as the digital/paper scales recalibrate constantly. The forces driving this balancing act are energized through the competing commercial and public interests for the right to digitize the paper universe and organize the evolving digital one into something more along the lines of that other digital holy grail, the semantic web. The roles libraries played in the late 19th century with private publishing empires of mass circulation books and periodicals (first set of standardized cataloging rules, periodical indexes, etc.) or the federal and state governments (creation of the modern Government Printing Office in mid-1890s)were as full partners in the best cases, useful allies in others. Those days are long over. Our roles with the information industry today (if I can use that retro designation) is much more as a customer or competitor. Further complicating the issue is how the web has unleashed a greater role for the user to assume their own information destiny (witness the power of social software, self-publishing, blogs, etc.) But the biggest difference, I think, between the two perspectives rests not on technology -- but on the library's social purpose. We government documents librarians of old were borne into a culture steeped in the lore of collections/possession and selfless local public service (primarily through the model of a depository library) Gutenberg's Government Information Librarians. Librarians seeking a career path in government information must deal with the fact that collections are being digitized, public services are now a blend between specialized subject and generalists, government services and information sources are now tightly bound together, leaving little room for the traditional roles libraries used to intervene -- except on behalf of economically dislocated or those unable to reach the web through their own means. More and more users over the last decade, with the ability and resources, can now access much of the material distributed through and unique to depository libraries. Does that threaten depository library system? Only if we imagine it terms of a Gutenberg Galaxy of information technology and mass media. My argument is not to fight this change, or ignore it; rather, simply, to adapt to it. Jim and I are in agreement that much that is digitally available out there, and properly considered to be government information, is chaotic, episodic, subject to bad policy and technological applications -- or simple corrupt politics. Among the few institutions trying to knit a narrative from this confusion of public knowledge are special interest organizations (profit and non-profit), news media, educational institutions, and, the best of the lot, libraries. Of course there are government organizations working towards the same goal of order from the chaos (Government Printing Office, Library of Congress, Government Accountability Office, National Science Foundation, to name but a few.) And here, again, Jim and I perhaps share a common ethic and credo of what might be called information marines. This is an image I sometimes use with my library students -- picture strong and robust individuals, armed with a certain attitude and knowledge that allows them to storm the rocky shores of ignorance, ready to take on even the must obscure question or problem. And then preserve how they did it in their long term memories. Tattooed on their arms (or chest) -- DEATH BEFORE DISINFORMATION! I like this version alot better than the library action figure often promoted over the last few years. In fact, I am willing, with proper attribution of course, to offer the image and phrase to FGI to start their own action figure to compete with Nancy Pearls conceptual dominance ... my people can call your people .... But this eagerness to challenge the impossible is less Walter Mitty and more of a real attempt to get back to the public purpose of our institutions. And that is what I always like about librarians, for the most part, we are all optimists .... which will best serve us through our long slog along the borderlands of ignorance. Hooah! See you Day 62 Continue reading
Funding Collections and Services in the Public Interest
Do you ever worry about funding for your library? Have you ever thought about how to get a grant to help your library? Do you wonder about how you might attract grant funding to a library in the age of Google and the Web?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, I recommend the article Digital Infrastructure and Public Interest by Vince Stehle, in Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, Fall 2008.
(I posted a link to this article a few days ago but, after John referred to it in his 66 Days to Government Information Liberation post, I wanted to follow up a bit and mention why I think the Stehle article is important for libraries. This also gives me an opportunity to contribute some more to the excellent discussion that John is facilitating about Government Information Liberation.)
Stehle is a program director at the Surdna Foundation, which makes grants in the areas of environment, community revitalization, effective citizenry, the arts, and the nonprofit sector, and he was writing for Grantmakers in the Arts Reader. In addressing his audience of grantmakers, foundations, and people who support non-profits he says that there is an opportunity and even "an imperative" for foundations to support non-commercial work and help build "a public interest infrastructure" that will "promote the free exchange of knowledge over the Internet."
In specifically emphasizing the need for non-commercial support he says that we cannot rely on the private sector to operate in the broad public interest except as that interest translates into profit:
"While there are billions of dollars in Silicon Valley venture firms seeking to invest in the next Google, Facebook, or YouTube, there is no equivalent capital pool available for investment in the expansion of social enterprises operating in the public interest."
We often make that point here at FGI and extend it to those in government who see their information content as an "asset" and a source of needed dollars and not as a public good that should be in the public domain, freely and openly available for use and reuse. As Stehle says:
"So the real challenge is for grantmakers to figure out how to effectively identify, vet, and support promising new media and information services that put the public interest before commercial profits." [emphasis added]
I believe we in libraries should listen to Stehle's message and think about what it means for grant support for libraries. After all, most (all?) libraries are non-profits, and so many of our best libraries (and certainly our FDLP libraries) explicitly support the public interest, and libraries need funding to do their work.
To put this in a library context, I think we need to think about what libraries have to offer that other institutions and grant seekers do not. As I mentioned in an earlier post, libraries -- because of their values of free, equitable, open public access to information -- are better positioned than anyone else to seek and get funding for those very kinds of activities that Stehle describes.
But, how do we differentiate libraries from others? What are our unique roles? Many libraries are struggling to define their roles and purposes in society. John picks up on this and says that Stehle is one of those who "argue from the perspective, the library/web morphing together into some kind of global resource is a done deal." (I disagree with John on this; I don't see where Stehle says this or anything like it.)
John seems to be saying (correct me if I am wrong) that the center of libraries' responsibilities has shifted because there are new distribution mechanisms and because we have new abilities to make better use of information. He says that it (the role of libraries?) "is something no longer centered on possession and/or control...."
I think this is a grave mistake. While I agree strongly with John that libraries can and should use technology to "knit together the medium of governance (politics, policy, law, and programs) with how our communities use the civic message to inform their daily lives," I also believe that possession and control of information is an essential, primary role for libraries. If we do not possess copies of information and control where it is and control its very existence (keep it from disappearing or being altered or lost), we cannot do the exciting mashups that we want to do.
I also think that, while libraries can and should use technology to "knit" and "weave" information from a lot of different sources (see: collections, services, and "mini-libarians"), I don't think that this is a unique role for libraries -- nor should it be. What libraries can do that is unique, though, is select, acquire, organize, and preserve information and ensure that our services for that information make it possible for others to do their own "knitting and weaving."
In short, libraries can make the case that one of their roles in society is to maintain digital collections that others can use and reuse and mix and mashup. We can make the case that society will lose information if it relies only on information-producers to preserve information for the long term and we can argue that society will lose free, open access if we rely on those who see their "content" as an "asset." We can make the case that libraries are non-profit, public-interest organizations that will guarantee long term preservation and free access to information. We can argue that if the information is not preserved, there will be nothing to share and knit and mash-up. We can argue that libraries facilitate information use and reuse.
But, don't take my word for it. Re-read the excellent article Managing Digital Assets in Higher Education: An Overview of Strategic Issues by Donald J. Waters from 2005 (or my brief summary and comment of it). Or read the paper that Stehle refers to, Sustainable Public Media Infrastructure which describes non-profit organizations that are creating permanent, sustainable public knowledge and communications infrastructure that is designed for public benefit. Then reflect on the primary, central importance of permanent digital collections in libraries.
Continue reading
Latest Comments