Nov. 20: Nicholson, Rose

Scott Nicholson's article, "Digital Library Archaeology: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Library Use Through Artifact-Based Evaluation," compares the science of archaeology through the ages to bibliomining and other research into digital library use. Nicholson suggests that library science has not grown as much as the pure sciences because of a lack of hypothesis-based research and traditional scientific process. The author stresses looking at patterns of use but also maintaining user privacy in the process. He states that "the focus of the present work is to understand the interaction between a user and electronic resources through a digital library service" (500). The main point of the article, as I see it, is that there remains much research to be done and the archaeological method is quite applicable in the digital realm. I agree with Nicholson that user privacy is of utmost importance in user-centered research. User-centered research seems to be the current trend in library science. The benefit of being able to converse with the actual living users of a system, unlike trying to piece together information from artifacts left behind by earlier civilizations, gives library science an advantage that archaeology does not have. By using this information carefully, library science can gain a better understanding of digital library users and create a better system based on their behavior.

Daniel E. Rose's article, "Reconciling Information-Seeking Behavior with Search User Interfaces for the Web," discusses user search behavior in a variety of contexts. The author notes that today's information seekers use more simplified queries rather than the complex Boolean logic of former information retrieval systems. Today most of the more complicated search mechanisms "happen behind the scenes, while relevance ranking determines how results are presented to the user" (797). The contexts in which Rose looks at information-seeking behavior are the goal of the user, the cultural and situational context at the time of the search, and the repetitive nature of the search task (797). Rose identifies three types of information needs: 1) navigational - for example, finding a particular web site without prior knowledge of its URL; 2) informational - simply finding information related to search terms; and 3) transactional - finding a service, such as a database, that will allow the user to investigate her/his query further. Rose states that despite these different types of user searches, "nearly every Web search engine offers users the identical search experience" (798). Cultural and situational contexts, as well as the iterative nature of the search task, further complicate user-search engine interaction. Rose suggests that Web search interfaces should take these points into consideration and that these insights might change the face of the search engine as we know it today.

Nov. 13: Audunson, Liu

Ragnar Audunson's article, "The public library as a meeting-place in a multicultural and digital context: The necessity of low-intensive meeting-places," discusses the role of the public library in today's multicultural world. Audunson compares modern multicultural society with "the so-called information or knowledge society" (429). He states at the beginning of the article that the two are 'seemingly unrelated' but that both have a great impact on public librarianship. I couldn't agree more, although I can easily see the correlation between the diversification of society with the information explosion we are now experiencing. It seems to me that it might be less isolating for ethnic and cultural minorities to move to a completely foreign society (the article mentions Lapps and Romany as examples), where they may not even speak the language. If information is more widely available, especially digitally, I would think this would help ease the transition into the adopted society much more so than before the advent of the Internet. Audunson traces the public library's roots from the Enlightenment to its modern role as the seat of community democracy, promoting cultural tolerance and community involvement. The public library, the author notes, should be a place "where people belonging to different cultural groups can meet and communicate" (433). He highlights this further by explaining how the wide availability of digital information can foster communication with greater numbers of people. Audunson calls the public library a "low-intensive arena" in which this communication can take place. These arenas make it possible for people from different cultural groups and with different values to come together and discuss social and political issues. He explains that "high-intensive arenas" (such as the workplace, church, families, etc.), although vital to an individual's sense of self, can "create social and cultural boundaries and demarcations" (437). The public library, therefore, must be upheld as a necessity by its community. It remains as the one societal institution where all forms of information and people from all walks of life are not only welcome but also encouraged.

Ziming Liu's article, "Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years," looks at how the explosion of digital information has caused the emergence of screen-based reading, as opposed to traditional hand-held print reading. One goal of Liu's study is to understand these changes in order to design better digital library resources. Some recent studies "argue that the arrival of digital media, together with the fragmentary nature of hypertext, is threatening sustained reading" (701). However, Liu's study contradicts this theory. Although the author doesn't deny the emergence of screen-based reading as a new reading behavior, his study finds that most readers still prefer the printed word to its digital counterpart for a variety of reasons. Annotating and highlighting is the main reason people prefer printed documents for in-depth reading. As Liu notes, anyone can use a pencil or highlighter on a piece of paper but annotating and highlighting electronic documents requires certain knowledge that not everyone has. Liu points out that screen-based reading has its advantages, such as browsing, scanning, and keyword spotting, but that paper will likely remain the preference in the future for in-depth reading.

Liu's article struck me as quite appropriate to my life. I think the availability of information in the electronic form is great but I, both as a student and as just a regular person, much prefer to hold what I'm reading in my hand. I sometimes even print out lengthier emails just so I don't have to stare at the computer screen too long. Also, a little secret about me: I hate ebooks. Well, hate is a strong word but I don't really like them much. If I was assigned a book to read and it was only available to me online, I would be very unhappy. I would probably go instead to the public library and get a physical copy of the book. I, like many working folks, spend way too much time every day with my eyes glued to a computer monitor (well, in my case, two computer monitors). It's nice to do some old-fashioned print-based reading every once in a while. I think Liu's study is interesting and it will be even more interesting to see how reading behavior evolves in the future.

Nov. 6: Shaker, Terdiman

Lee Shaker's article, "In Google we trust: Information integrity in the digital age," discusses the safety and reliability of Google and how the public's view of it is shaped partly by its financial success. Shaker takes a good look at Google through two years of New York Times news stories about the company. He finds that most (over half) of the stories within this two year period solely discussed Google's "corporate interests" (9). This, the author maintains, colors the public's view of Google and erroneously allows for its trust in Google to grow. Shaker discusses the framing of news stories and how, for example, using quotes from prominent business people (instead of getting unbiased views from many sides), who attest to Google's prosperity, further serve to exacerbate the growing problem of a false sense of trust based on nothing more than its fiscal profits. The author also considers Google's questionable privacy practices with regard to its users. He states that Google's "privacy policy makes it clear that it is a document to protect the company's interests first, to reassure users second, and protect users lastly" (5). Shaker wishes to stress that users of Google (as well as, I assume, other information providers) be somewhat wary and realize that media coverage of its financial success is not necessarily reason to believe that no information risks exist with using the product.

Daniel Terdiman's article, "Folksonomies Tap People Power," discusses the different tagging styles used in sites like del.icio.us and Flickr. The author explains that del.icio.us uses a broad folksonomy, meaning that many users tag the same item (in this case, a URL), while Flickr is a narrow folksonomy - small numbers of users tagging many different individual items (photographs). Terdiman notes that tag use is on the rise in blogs and other social sites and stresses that the more people that get involved, the greater the value tags will have.

I finally checked out del.icio.us after reading about it last week and it seems like a pretty useful tool for someone who a) either has a huge number of web sites s/he likes to keep track of, or b) likes to learn what other people consider valuable information about specific sites. To me, it's somewhat reminiscent of Wikipedia, where many people have the opportunity to create and edit information and, together, the information for the most parts remains reliable because it is under constant scrutiny. On the other hand, it doesn't look like users can edit others' tags so I would think that "bad" tags would eventually be phased out by "better" ones, if that makes sense.