hangingtogether.org

Metadata, Not E-Books, Can Save Publishing

O’Reilly TOC—Tools of Change for Publishing   •  July 29, 2010

Needles in haystacks. “E-books will not revolutionize reading, nor will they change the content,” says metadata enthusiast Nick Ruffilo. Reading on a screen rather than paper will not create new markets, but better metadata on each book could allow readers to find more of what they like, regardless of format: “If every book had this data, you could essentially have an eHarmony for books. You fill out a small profile of your likes and dislikes and now are shown a much smaller set of books to choose from.”

Not surprising but interesting to hear coming from somebody who was an early innovator in recommendation systems. It also confirms what we’ve known for a long-time about library descriptive data—it’s a crude tool for the task of getting people more of what they want. Our “tags” are tough to mobilize for that purpose. For a really good effort in this regard check out WorldCat Genres from my colleague, Diane Vizine-Goetz and her team in OCLC Research.

(Michalko)

Mao, King Kong, and the Future of the Book

Triple Canopy   •  Issue #9

A trip down memory lane. Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book, reminisces about his days with LaserDiscs, HyperCard and CD-ROMs.

Read this. If you weren’t around when these were happening then you’ll be amused and amazed at what Stein and others were doing (did Alan Kay really draw those pictures of an “iPad” in 1967!?) and the extent to which we stand on their shoulders. The reminder about Laurie Anderson’s “Puppet Motel” was particularly laden. I remember having that and thinking it was brilliant. Of course, it’s now unobtainable and likely unplayable. The music without the immersive, weirdly unsettling environment can be purchased, and you can see the Voyager demo for the CD-ROM.

(Michalko)

Here at HangingTogether.org we like to have fun. My colleague Merrilee is a case in point. You can often find her toodling around in a cupcake or a pumpkin-like vehicle on The Playa. And sometimes we even play together, as we did about ten days ago.

On Sunday, July 11 my colleagues Jennifer Schaffner, Jim Michalko, Ricky Erway, Jackie Dooley, a friend of hers, and I all went down the South Fork of the American River in a paddle boat. We paddled, we laughed, we got thoroughly wet, we fell into the boat (thankfully not OUT of it), we got tanned and/or burned, and we had a great picnic lunch catered by Jennifer. I recommend it highly.

The Internet: Everything You Ever Need to Know

The Guardian   •  June 20, 2010

Perspective is everything. Open University professor John Naughton freely admits that this is not really everything you need to know about the Internet, but he makes a useful point about taking the long view of this game-changing technology. As Zhou Enlai observed when asked about the significance of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to say.”

I’m sure you know John Naughton. If not you should familiarize yourself. He’s an always-interesting commentator on the Internet, technology and the World Wide Web. His news and magazine columns are always worth the time and his blog (online diary) Memex 1.1 is personal and wide-ranging. This piece is a nice reminder of some important things we forget (or didn’t really see clearly) about the Internet.

(Michalko)

This NY Times piece - Video Games: Tragedy and Comedy, Starring Pac-Man - cemented for me that video games are providing new narratives that are well understood by an enormous audience which uses them as reference points and the materials for new creations. It’s a medium that is contributing to the cultural creation cycle. It is also one about which I know nothing. I increasingly feel like this is a gap but don’t imagine I can remedy it. This kind of contribution to the creation of new art was first brought home to me when Matthew Barney observed about his Cremaster 3 film set in the Chrysler building that he consciously thought about video game levels as the framework for the narrative (such as it is). In fact, a Barney fanatic created a level within the PS3 game Little Planet that reproduces a portion of this section of the Cremaster cycle.

In this New York Times article they show that the flow goes both directions with classical Greek myths being dramatized via set pieces from various popular games.

“For “Grand Theft Ovid” on Saturday, Mr. Kim and five students sat at a table covered in laptops and game consoles (a sixth student was up in the projector booth); the projector displayed images from various games onto a large screen in front of the audience.

Suddenly, Daedalus and Icarus were standing by the water (in the game World of Warcraft) before Icarus flew too high and fell to his death (in Grand Theft Auto IV)…”

A few of us started bandying about some public speaking highs and lows and thought we’d share them. If there’s a lesson to be learned I think it’s something about a back-up plan!

I was in the middle of a meticulously scripted researcher scenario using live internet at an important meeting when the internet went down city-wide. I had prepared lifelike backup slides and no one knew the difference.

Early in my career, I gave a conference plenary about collaboration. It consisted of a dramatic recitation of how wonderfully Canada geese collaborate and how we should emulate them. It established a real theme for the day. The next morning the cover story on the newspaper that greeted us at our hotel doors was about the Canada goose problem and all the approaches the city was trying to get rid of them.

My first public speaking engagement was almost derailed. I had gotten a permit to take the videodisc (yes, I’m old) — that was the basis for my presentation — out of the building. But I had gotten the wrong type of permit (a collections pass, rather than a property pass) and the guard wouldn’t let me leave with it. I needed to get to the airport, so I called my boss who took another copy of the videodisc down and out the front door with no pass at all.

For my first major performance, I knew my subject inside out and had prepped a handful of 3×5 cards. I was quite used to talking to crowds of up to about 40. When 400 showed up, I choked. Froze. Literally opened my mouth and nothing came out. Luckily my more experienced co-chair sat me down and gave the presentation I should have.

At an important venue, the table mike failed; then the (replacement) hand mike failed; then the pc failed — then the network connection of a new laptop failed. The room was long and narrow and terrible acoustically. I ended up hiking up and down the long center aisle, nearly shouting to an overflow crowd. I was funny, articulate, highly successful, charged up on adrenaline and operating with no notes, no safety net.
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When I was a kid, I lived for the gold star. I was an excellent student, but had poor social skills. Actually, I had excellent social skills, too, but I didn’t save them for the playground. My third grade teacher made a deal with me; if I managed to get through a day without talking to my neighbor during class time, she would give me a gold star. It didn’t happen often, but when I came home with a gold star, my mom was proud and so was I.

Today, we got a gold star. HangingTogether was tagged as a “notable” blog in the Salem Press Library Blog awards (general interest category). 80 of the 400 blogs are “notable,” and I’m pleased we are regarded as a cut above others (as was our colleague Roy Tennant, who also writes here). Check out the rest of the list. For me, there are some familiar names as well as some new ones to add to the blog reader.

Stars of the Stalls

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Why Human Beings Love Lists

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Ithaka S+R recently published its Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies. It considers the way faculty views of the library are changing, and analyses library roles into three key functions:

“The library is a starting point or ’gateway’ for locating information for my research” (which we refer to as the gateway function). “The library pays for resources I need, from academic journals to books to electronic databases” (which we refer to as the buyer function). “The library is a repository of resources – in other words, it archives, preserves, and keeps track of resources” (which we refer to as the archive function).

Ithaka’s analysis shows that the gateway function has declined (its importance rating has dropped from 70%-58%) over the six years in which the biennnial studies have been made, while the buyer function has steadily increased (81%-90%). The archive function has remained relatively static at just over 70%.

Many of the findings in this report are interesting, and relevant to us as we focus - via our Working Group on Research Services - on the specific topic of Support for Research Dissemination. We have chosen the word dissemination with some care. What we will be looking at is researcher behaviours and practices concerning institutional repositories, individual websites, subject archives, virtual research environments, blogs, blog aggregations and other social venues. In other words, every research dissemination venue except the conventional (and still overpoweringly influential) modes of scholarly publishing - the journal, the monograph and the conference paper. We will look at the way researchers use these alternative venues to disseminate their work, and the factors that account for the types and rates of dissemination. Read the rest of this entry »