Librations

Okay so I just saw this so I am admittedly engaging in a knee-jerk reaction but I ran across a completely new term today: High-Tech Anthropology®. It was created and registered by a computer programmer, analyst, architect, manager, and executive and addresses the lack of community/cultural/people sensitivity in software design. I’m all about cultural sensitivity and I think that programmers and professionals creating tools for people to use should know the user very well. And since anthropologists study pretty much anything related to humanity, especially including tools, the idea of merging these two fields isn’t really that far-fetched. My problem, however, is with this term…its implications and its use.

I wonder about their methods:

“Interestingly enough, many of the best practices did not come from computer science; they came from anthropology. So we began to talk to anthropologists, study their techniques, and learn from their discipline. Eventually, we even called our practice “High-Tech Anthropology®” and our team members “High-Tech Anthropologists®.”

I got my undergraduate degree in anthropology. I’m getting an MSI to become an ALA-certified librarian. I like titles and I do, generally speaking, like the educational landscapes I must traverse through to get these titles. Talking to an anthropologist doesn’t make you one.  I feel like this organization, however well intended, has made the same mistake they seek to redress: they are making assumptions that their methods and approaches are correct and appropriate without taking into context the paths that are needed to properly use these approaches and methods.

Besides, anthro is in DDC 301 and computer programming is in DDC 005. That’s like stacks and stacks away.

I espouse interdisciplinarity, the intellectual weight of non-expert knowledge and I like the idea of a practice of High-Tech Anthropology®, I just have a feeling that this is well intended but ultimately kind of misses the point. That or I just pointed out how much of a hypocrite I am and that I really am a Category Nazi who doesn’t like to shake up her p’s and q’s. Probably my reaction is a bit of both.

Say what you will about Nicholson Baker (of Above the Fold fame/infamy). The man can write.  Persuasively and well.  In the most recent edition of the New Yorker, Baker takes on the Kindle, writing a humorous and thought-provoking first-hand account of his recent purchase of a Kindle 2.

As an author, lover of literature, and a man concerned with the aesthetic qualities of books, Baker provides a detailed review of his experience using the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX.  Highlights include:

The lack of contrast on its screen:
“The problem was not that the screen was in black-and-white; if it had really been black-and-white, that would have been fine. The problem was that the screen was gray. And it wasn’t just gray; it was a greenish, sickly gray. A postmortem gray. The resizable typeface, Monotype Caecilia, appeared as a darker gray. Dark gray on paler greenish gray was the palette of the Amazon Kindle.”

An elegant and effective description of the rights you have (and the ones you sign away) to your digital content:
“Here’s what you buy when you buy a Kindle book. You buy the right to display a grouping of words in front of your eyes for your private use with the aid of an electronic display device approved by Amazon. …Kindle books aren’t transferrable. You can’t give them away or lend them or sell them. You can’t print them. They are closed clumps of digital code that only one purchaser can own. A copy of a Kindle book dies with its possessor.”

And a hilarious accounting of the ecological ramifications of the device:
“Yes, it’s made of exotic materials that are shipped all over the world’s oceans; yes, it requires electricity to operate and air-conditioned server farms to feed it; yes, it’s fragile and it duplicates what other machines do; yes, it’s difficult to recycle; yes, it will probably take a last boat ride to a Nigerian landfill in five years. But no tree farms are harvested to make a Kindle book; no ten-ton presses turn, no ink is spilled.”

Ultimately, Baker concludes that while Amazon “is very good at selling things,” it hasn’t yet designed an ebook reader that can truly replace the utility and aesthetic joy of books and newspapers.  For books, Baker recommends reading on an iPod Touch or an iPhone over the Kindle.

As a book lover, librarian, and student of art and design, I’m stuck ruminating on Baker’s descriptions of the Kindle’s many failings when it comes to replicating the aesthetic experience of books and newspapers.  But I get paid to care about books, to understand and evaluate their properties as both objects and containers for information.  Will the average reader care about any of this?  Will he or she notice the lack of contrast between creamy paper and crisp, black letters in a beautiful and (readable!) font?  What about the lack of typographical design, illustrations, color, or other features? At first, no, they might not.  But I think they will eventually.

Beautiful and functional design often has the ability to be transparent if not invisible, especially to those unfamiliar with kerning, gutters, serifs, paper quality, binding methods, or other features of the books that occupy our shelves, coffee tables, and nightstands.  But I’m confident that readers will eventually notice they’re being sold an inferior product, and I look forward to widespread demand for higher-quality ebooks and readers.  If the Kindle is a terrible device, then the solution isn’t to reject the whole idea of ebooks and machines for reading.  Instead, I believe that readers, librarians, book lovers, and everyone else should be making lots of noise about the kind of ebooks and devices we’d like to see–their features, licensing and rights schemes, and overall user experience.

What do you think?

[Note: This content is cross-posted from a previous post on Hung Truong: The Blog!]

Looking back on my old posts from before I went to school at a hybrid Information/Library Science school, my opinions of librarians seemed fueled by a bit of prejudice. For example, in my visiting days post I wrote:

I sat down at a table whose occupants were librarians. Pretty much everyone there was an LIS (library and information services) specialist. This wasn’t really a great first impression, since I applied under the HCI (human-computer interaction) specialization, and to be honest, libraries aren’t really my thing.

What, exactly, did I have against librarians and libraries? I think I mostly felt that, from the school’s website (or the parts of the website that I studied), the program was more for people who were generally interested in information from a more technology-oriented viewpoint. So I was hoping to see more technological-minded folks at my table.

I still, however, decided to enroll. And I’m glad I did. Slowly, I think I started to understand what libraries are all about. I started using the local library. A lot. It probably also helped that I worked at a library my entire time at the school. I wasn’t studying to be a librarian, but I was exposed to the culture. Computer nerds and librarians make a good team.

So did library school actually change me? Or was I somehow intrinsically drawn to the program where computer nerds and book nerds collide? Maybe a little of both. I’ve always had a secret love for organizing and archiving things.

For example, pretty much no one in my family seems to care much about backing up files. I, on the hand, am a bit obsessed about it. I still have files from middle school preserved in their original file formats and directory structure in place. Who knows, some day I might want to look back on that stuff. I’m also kind of a nut when it comes to properly organizing and applying metadata (and preserving said metadata) from photos. Oh, and also backing everything up, both on-site and off-site (using multiple online services).

I also get really irritated when I go to the library and see something like this:

Is that a Drama and Horror blu-ray disc I see mixed in with the Action ones!? Usually I will take the offending discs and put them in the right place. There was also that one time I saw Harry Potter in Comedy when it should have gone in Fantasy. The worst is when a DVD gets mixed in with blu-ray. That’s like the same as a book being in the CD section! Oh man, now I’m rambling.

The point is, I think I already had some Librarian/Archivist in me before coming to library school. Hanging out with like-minded people probably reinforced the behavior mentioned above. And probably for the better. If you’re a computer nerd, I suggest you check out libraries (and librarians!). If you’re a library nerd, I suggest you check out computer nerd stuff (and computer nerds!). Together, we can make the world a more information-y place.

Although UGLi Blog is no longer being updated, we do continue to collect analytics. I am extremely pleased to report the following:

ugli library smells

On Saturday, July 25, 2009, someone in Washtenaw County googled “ugli library smells.” Not sure if that person was trying to send the internet a message (via google search, of course), or if they just really wanted to determine the nature of the complex olfactory sensations at the University of Michigan’s Shapiro Libraries. Any Librators care to identify some UGLi smells for our patron? I’ll get you started: burnt bagels at Bert’s!

P.S. The googler ended up here: http://ugliblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/library-orientation-coolest-gig-in-town.html.

Last week I was browsing through the links provided by my friends on Facebook (impressed by the way we are all using these technologies to increasingly share and disseminate information) and I came across a snarky commented link by a former professor of mine from my college years. He had shared a link to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education  about  “teaching naked”. Whoa! Wait! What? No, it’s not an article about liberating your inner nudist, but actually about teaching without the comfort of certain computer technology (I know… not quite so exciting, huh?). You can read the article for yourself but it’s basically calling for college lecturers and professors to stop using their powerpoint presentations as a crutch and go back to lecturing and creative teaching. This article caught my attention on several levels: as a student who experienced the transition to powerpoint presentations from straight lectures in college, as a graduate student in a School of Information where digital information technology is pervasive and ever present, as a budding champion of information literacy. I personally think this article should be printed out, old-fashioned style, and put in every (SI) professor’s mailbox, but that’s another story. The article has a great point, that I hope I can carry with me as I move through my profession: to really reach people you have to be creative, innovative, and passionate about what you’re sharing. You can’t rely on your slides to push you through your “lesson”. You have to reach inside yourself and [insert cheesy imagery about self-esteem here, personally I see Bastion fighting the Nothing or the Goonies pooling their talents to beat the Fratellis and get the Rich Stuff]. I know this sounds quite idyllic and naive and I know that it can be hard to be “innovative” all the time but teaching and learning isn’t a solo project–it’s an iterative process through which students and teachers share and analyze information. (Right? At least I think it’s supposed to be that way). It’s a challenge to find or create, as we have all discussed, “teachable moments” in a daily professional setting. But the article cites some interesting evidence about how lectures are more memorable if taught in a dynamic way that includes discussion and two-way communication. The article reminded me that no matter how technologies change, the way we as human beings interact and bond with each other doesn’t necessarily change. We all want to be part of the conversation and feel like we have something personal to contribute or to gain from interactions (even in class). This is why I totally agree with the article’s premise: that profs (and any other teachers–librarians, project coordinators, whatever) need to be dynamic and inclusive when they are sharing their knowledge with others. I think we’ve all seen examples of using technology to extend the power of sharing (ahem, what are you reading right now?) and examples of how it can be used as a crutch with narcoleptic results (I will not name names). So as we move forward in our lives and try to share our experiences with others we have to remember not to let our technology control us, but to control our technology. Isn’t there a movie quote about that somewhere?

So I think I may have backed myself into a story-time corner here.  I’ve got a lovely group of about 25 babies (ages 0-24 months) and their caregivers who are going to show up and expect the normal routine.  The “Hello and How Are You” song, followed by the song where we review all of the past themes from the series.  I’m in the midst of jungle animals, and as I add the animal onto the felt jungle, we sing a song about what sound that animal makes, and we all make the sound together.  This was perfectly fine for monkeys, elephants, lions, parrots, and I even managed one for hippos.  But, I cannot for the life of me figure out what sound a zebra or a giraffe makes.  (They don’t teach you that in library school.)  If I make something up, will I be promoting misinformation?

Dear UGLi patron,

I appreciate that we all have bodies! And all of our bodies produce mucus, and sometimes we’ve got to expectorate and get that stuff out. I am glad that you feel safe enough in the library to do what you need to do with your body.

However, I kindly ask that in the future, you make sure to read the label marked PAPER RECYCLING before spitting directly into the narrow slot on the lid of the container.

Yours sincerely,

Anand

For those of you Social Media Junkies & Mavens, I wanted to share this fun post at Crain’s Detroit discussing Sam Riddle’s Twitter addiction.  I feel that library emerging technologists often neglect to point out the value of Twitter as a potential PR weapon for folks facing felony charges.  Who needs a spin doctor when you can just post things like:

“”Mmmm Damn DetNews.com Is Wrong -Again – I was Never Paid By Kay Everett- Didn’t Even Know Her When Her Actions Resulted In Fed Charges.”"

Or this:

“Haters Step Aside”

Amen to that!

On a related note, Riddle tweeted about his visit to the Art Fair here in Ann Arbor last week.  Who knows, maybe he picked up a piece of the free candy which was such a hot item at the Health Sciences Libraries tent.

Check it out:  http://twitter.com/samriddle

Dear Librations Team,

I am so incredibly geeked that we are all working to put our good librations out into the world. I think we discover and consider many interesting things over our days and weeks, but often don’t have a space to share and discuss exciting new finds or thoughts together (perhaps we have disparate places where we explore ideas, but I see something very compelling about a collaborative space for our ideas to live, breathe, and be nurtured). Librations seeks to be that place.

Ideally, librations could happen in first life all the time, but with our diaspora from graduate school and the lived-in spaces many of us shared in Ann Arbor, keeping in touch becomes something we must attend to more actively. As we create new ways to come together and new gathering places to inhabit, I hope that librations is just one of many meeting facilities we develop over the course of our careers. I would love for librations to be an open and welcoming place for anyone that thinks, laughs, and appreciates community.

This leads me to the #1 (and pretty much the only) rule of Librations: you can’t stress out about librations. Consider that rule your “Prime Directive,” if you need it put in Star Trek terms. The moment this multifaceted project ceases to be fun, I will stop putting my soul into it, and I will find other ways to fulfill my needs for beer and information science chatter.

Librations should feel as safe, supportive, and comforting as we can make it. We should work to make sure we are not unintentionally using exclusive language (this will manifest in our awareness and sensitivity to identity and diversity issues, our explanations of inside jokes when they arise, and our use of simple, clear language to represent our ideas), but we will also acknowledge and appreciate the times when the language we choose can be nothing but exclusive. Librations’ asset will be that it is most accessible and interesting to people who share our values — nerdy or geeky interests that might be best shared over a beer with friends.

Whenever a new contributor joins Librations, ze becomes an Editor or Administrator of the blog. This means that you are empowered to edit posts and play with librations’ structure. There will not be any policing of content here — I trust you; Librations is your library/bar as much as it is mine, and that is the only way this place and this idea can truly thrive. Thank you so much for becoming a member of the Librations community. You are more than welcome here, and I look forward to discovering more about what librations means through our conversations together. Keep those good librations coming and don’t forget to stay hydrated!

Yours,
Katie Dover-Taylor
[Co-Founder & Creative Director]
http://librations.us

Though I’m usually more interested/involved in libraries at their intersection with the visual arts, I’ve been thinking a lot about newspapers lately.  This Thursday marks the final issue of The Ann Arbor News, and as Annarbor.com moves toward its debut through a series of publicly executed fits and starts, I’ve begun to worry about what will happen to the record of local life as we go forward.  While it seems unnerving to watch the demise of an often disparaged but admittedly venerable news source at the hands of a product that seems so desperately eager to be successful that it makes me want to zip myself into my hoodie and hide, the bigger issue in the long run is what will happen to all the information this new organization is producing.

Preview of annarbor.com

Appropriately, I found a copy of Information Today in my mailbox at work this morning. I usually consider the tabloid-size publication so hideous and boring that I quickly skim through it before stuffing it into another colleague’s box (note: their website is even worse). The major headline caught my eye, however: “Where Have All the Archives Gone? Newspaper archive aggregators face the challenge of all-digital, no-paper publications.” I consume 99% of my news online, through news sites, blogs, and the occasional Facebook link. I certainly belong to the target audience of these new all-digital news publications, and I understand that newspaper publishers have found themselves in an untenable situation at the crossroads of social change, historical convention, convenience and, of course, money. Nevertheless, when viewed from a librarian’s preservation-of-information-centric perspective, it is worrisome to consider the future: will an eighth-grader in 2019 be able to research the history of the Ann Arbor Art Fair? What will she find after 2009? Are we allowing our collective story to disappear at the hands of opportunistic corporations?

Before I work myself into a frenzy, however, it is useful to inject some historical levity. I remind myself, for example, that though the newspaper seems a sturdy, timeless institution of lofty, noble aspirations, it, too, has long been the product of for-profit corporations. And, as a former employee of the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL), I can attest that for years the archiving of and access to old edtions of The Ann Arbor News was not performed by the paper, but rather by dutiful librarians at AADL, intent on preserving the local history of our community. I fondly recall sitting beside librarian Dietmar Wagner at the Reference Desk as he diligently paged through each day’s paper, indexing its contents in a primitive database. Given all this, it’s not really surprising that Annarbor.com is more concerned with selling ad space than it is with posterity.

So who will step up to preserve this new online content? Information Today, in its aforementioned article, states that ProQuest, a purveyor of databases and other content, adds born-digital content to its Historical Newspaper collection, unbelievably, by transferring it to microfilm and then digitizing the microfilm before using OCR technology to add searchability. Information Today calls the process “Byzantine.” It reminds me of Disney’s 1954 animated short parodying the redundancy of bureaucratic operations, Pigs is Pigs. These are the people who are not only in charge of what gets saved, but we’re paying them for it? Seriously?

Ooops. I seem to have reached frenzied state again. So I’ll stop to consider the built-in archives of blogs and their searchability. Annarbor.com appears to be set up to echo blogs in format, so perhaps finding an old article will be easier than it was before, when a librarian had to index the paper (I’m leaving out the intervening years, between AADL’s clipping and then digital indexing of The Ann Arbor News, when the paper finally became available online, but not indexed, through the NewsBank InfoWeb database). But how long will that persist? And what about the advertisements and comments/opinions that contribute so much to telling the story of a time and place? Are we transitioning into a society without a traceable record?

Big questions for a Tuesday and a local paper. Welcome, readers! What do you think?

This post is brought to you today by the letter A.

I was listening to Weekend All Things Considered on Sunday, and caught a wonderful, insightful interview with the creator of a new web 2.0 information-seeking application. It’s called Aardvark, and maybe you’ve already heard of it.

Here’s how it works: the Aardvark app taps your social network on facebook to figure out who you know (or who you don’t know you know, or who knows someone you know, or, oh this always makes me dizzy) who knows about something you wanna know. Get it?

It’s like this: I’m wondering, gee, does anybody know of a good holistic doctor in Southeast Michigan?

And I ask that question via IM or email to Aardvark. The friendly rodent then does some fancy algorithmics and sends the question to people who might know about things related to the words in my question. Then they have the opportunity to send an answer back through Aardvark, who sends it to me. They self-describe as a “hub”.

My thoughts:

1. This is really cool! However, it raises the age-old information literacy issue of source authority. Why should I trust my uncleji’s cousin without knowing the guy? The idea is that someone who cares about the subject will answer, and I don’t dispute that. I’m not suggesting people will just send made-up answers to troll around. However, everybody’s got an agenda, all the time, and I don’t think Aardvark gives me sufficient metadata about the responders for me to adequately assess the authority of my sources. It’s probably better for “factual” kinds of information, but we all know that facticity is itself a tool of hegemonic dominance.

2. One lady’s “hub” is another one’s “goddamn meddling middleman who can collect my goddamn data on the frigging internet”.

3. I was happily surprised with the All Things Considered interview, because for once it wasn’t a mainstream media outlet going, “OMG YOU GUYS CHECK OUT THIS FREAKY THING ON THE INTERNET. IT MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE SOME SOCIAL UTILITY! STOP THE PRESSES! IT MIGHT KILL US ALL OR SAVE US ALL OR MAKE US ADDICTED TO THE SHINY COMPUTER BOX! I’M SO HIP RIGHT NOW.”

Anyway, so I was happily enjoying the interview until Guy Raz (the host) asked the annoying neoliberal question I suppose many people wanted to hear: why would anyone participate when they don’t “get anything” out of it?

Now, I was in the car listening to the radio, and I have a habit of talking back to it anyway. At the particular moment that I heard this, I was pulling into my driveway with all my windows down, and my strait-laced neighbors were out in their backyard (adjacent to the driveway) arguing about their grill.

And as I mentioned in my profile, I’m an angry librarian (I have my reasons). So, when Guy Raz pushed that “oh golly, isn’t money the only thing that matters in this world?” button, I blew a fuse, and yelled at a rather high fraction of my lungs: “IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE LIBRARIANS, A$$H***!”

And there you have it, kids: A is for Anand, Adultery, Aardvark, and Asshole.

Bottom line: Aardvark gets an A for concept, but I have to play with it more to evaluate the execution.