Here is the link to my Web site. Enjoy!
http://www.pitt.edu/~maj66/
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Week 12--Readings
Using a Wiki...
"Many professors are repeat users of library instruction so any stored information is useful."
When I was doing my practicum in the high school library, we were providing instruction on using the library for research on an STD assignment. This is an assignment that is has been done for years by at least three different teachers. Janna, the librarian who created the pathfinder for the assignment this year is new, and while at least one teacher did give her some information to work from, some also told her that "Karla (the other librarian) knows what the assignment is." Finally, the lessons were taught by Janna, Karla and me. A wiki would have been a great place for us to collaborate on the different aspects of the assignment--what does each teacher expect, what did we find when we were doing the lesson, what questions were asked frequently, etc. I can certainly see the value of wikis for collaboration between librarians. Teachers could also be encouraged to participate, which would add additional insight into the project.
Wikipedia
I'm glad I stuck around to the end of this presentation, because his answer to the teacher use question was something I had been wondering as well. My experiences with Wikipedia and teachers has been split between professors like Dr. He, who use Wikipedia articles to explain difficult concepts, to librarians and teachers at the high school level who talk about Wikipedia like it's the devil and frown upon its use. My personal experience with it has been favorable, not only for the information the articles provide but also for the resources that the articles point to. I think it's a great jumping off point for research, and hearing about the whole process behind its creation was very interesting.
Social Tagging...
"But still many students turn to the Internet as a resource, without guidance and without a critical eye."
I found this quite a bit during my practicum. I would give a great lesson on finding resources for a project, point out the best Web sites and how to find them easily using the pathfinder, but inevitably, several students would start their research by typing, "What are the signs and symptoms of herpes?" into the Google search box. It's maddening. While I think social tagging for the library has tremendous potential, I can't imagine high school students using it in a responsible way. The added steps to add a site to the folksonomy would make participation undesirable for most teen who are looking to find what they need and move on.
"Many professors are repeat users of library instruction so any stored information is useful."
When I was doing my practicum in the high school library, we were providing instruction on using the library for research on an STD assignment. This is an assignment that is has been done for years by at least three different teachers. Janna, the librarian who created the pathfinder for the assignment this year is new, and while at least one teacher did give her some information to work from, some also told her that "Karla (the other librarian) knows what the assignment is." Finally, the lessons were taught by Janna, Karla and me. A wiki would have been a great place for us to collaborate on the different aspects of the assignment--what does each teacher expect, what did we find when we were doing the lesson, what questions were asked frequently, etc. I can certainly see the value of wikis for collaboration between librarians. Teachers could also be encouraged to participate, which would add additional insight into the project.
Wikipedia
I'm glad I stuck around to the end of this presentation, because his answer to the teacher use question was something I had been wondering as well. My experiences with Wikipedia and teachers has been split between professors like Dr. He, who use Wikipedia articles to explain difficult concepts, to librarians and teachers at the high school level who talk about Wikipedia like it's the devil and frown upon its use. My personal experience with it has been favorable, not only for the information the articles provide but also for the resources that the articles point to. I think it's a great jumping off point for research, and hearing about the whole process behind its creation was very interesting.
Social Tagging...
"But still many students turn to the Internet as a resource, without guidance and without a critical eye."
I found this quite a bit during my practicum. I would give a great lesson on finding resources for a project, point out the best Web sites and how to find them easily using the pathfinder, but inevitably, several students would start their research by typing, "What are the signs and symptoms of herpes?" into the Google search box. It's maddening. While I think social tagging for the library has tremendous potential, I can't imagine high school students using it in a responsible way. The added steps to add a site to the folksonomy would make participation undesirable for most teen who are looking to find what they need and move on.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Week 11 Comments
http://adamdblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-11-reading-notes-11-22-2010.html?showComment=1290130482771#c6303899962442136137
http://pittlis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-eleven-reading-notes.html?showComment=1290130930822#c7689966507217926220
http://marclis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/readings_18.html?showComment=1290131334094#c2316520757520371355
http://lostscribe459.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-11-reading-notes.html?showComment=1290131616245#c1808947605576017206
http://pittlis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-eleven-reading-notes.html?showComment=1290130930822#c7689966507217926220
http://marclis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/readings_18.html?showComment=1290131334094#c2316520757520371355
http://lostscribe459.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-11-reading-notes.html?showComment=1290131616245#c1808947605576017206
Week 11-Readings
Web Search Engines: Parts One and Two--
There was so much good information in these two articles. They were a little hard to find, so I'm glad I persevered. After reading both I have one question: are faster searches really what the average searcher is looking for? I Googled "Beagle," and got 9,980,000 hits in .15 seconds. How many of those hits contain information that I will be able to use? How many are duplicates, and how many have nothing to do with beagles? Would the average searcher be willing to wait longer for searches that are better? I've waited several minutes for a YouTube video to load. If I needed reliable, valid information about beagles, I'd be willing to wait a little while if it were going to save me time on the other end when I didn't have to comb my way through 9.9 million hits.
The Deep Web and the BrightPlanet Project--
The statistics presented in this paper are staggering--the deep web is 400 to 550 times larger than the surface web, there are 550 billion documents in the deep web compared to one billion in the surface web, and 95% of the deep web is information that is available to the public for free. And these statistics are from 2001. Nearly 10 years later, have technologies been developed that allow the general public access to the deep web? If not, why not?
OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting--
"No one service provider can serve the needs of the entire public, hence user group-specific service providers have become the norm...These communities of interest are significant not only because they have adopted the protocol for a specific domain but also because they have developed additional standards, tools, and metadata scchemas to use along with the OAI protocol--much as the originators of the protocol had hoped."
It seems my questions about the deep web have been partially answered by the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It's interesting that an application originally designed for one use is being put to a similar use in many other communities. I wonder, as the projects grow, will they become more or less useful, as disparate vocabularies make aggregating metadata difficult. Controlled vocabularies are one way to avoid this problem, but who decides what vocabulary is the right one?
There was so much good information in these two articles. They were a little hard to find, so I'm glad I persevered. After reading both I have one question: are faster searches really what the average searcher is looking for? I Googled "Beagle," and got 9,980,000 hits in .15 seconds. How many of those hits contain information that I will be able to use? How many are duplicates, and how many have nothing to do with beagles? Would the average searcher be willing to wait longer for searches that are better? I've waited several minutes for a YouTube video to load. If I needed reliable, valid information about beagles, I'd be willing to wait a little while if it were going to save me time on the other end when I didn't have to comb my way through 9.9 million hits.
The Deep Web and the BrightPlanet Project--
The statistics presented in this paper are staggering--the deep web is 400 to 550 times larger than the surface web, there are 550 billion documents in the deep web compared to one billion in the surface web, and 95% of the deep web is information that is available to the public for free. And these statistics are from 2001. Nearly 10 years later, have technologies been developed that allow the general public access to the deep web? If not, why not?
OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting--
"No one service provider can serve the needs of the entire public, hence user group-specific service providers have become the norm...These communities of interest are significant not only because they have adopted the protocol for a specific domain but also because they have developed additional standards, tools, and metadata scchemas to use along with the OAI protocol--much as the originators of the protocol had hoped."
It seems my questions about the deep web have been partially answered by the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It's interesting that an application originally designed for one use is being put to a similar use in many other communities. I wonder, as the projects grow, will they become more or less useful, as disparate vocabularies make aggregating metadata difficult. Controlled vocabularies are one way to avoid this problem, but who decides what vocabulary is the right one?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Week 10 comments
http://skdhuth.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-10-notes.html?showComment=1289878948473#c5778733820137445191
http://nrampsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-for-unit-10.html?showComment=1289879205177#c7005020828007820328
http://pittlis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-ten-reading-notes.html?showComment=1289879689210#c7850762156681967141
http://jonas4444.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-for-week-10.html?showComment=1289880101312#c8266438736780789737
http://nrampsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-for-unit-10.html?showComment=1289879205177#c7005020828007820328
http://pittlis2600.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-ten-reading-notes.html?showComment=1289879689210#c7850762156681967141
http://jonas4444.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-for-week-10.html?showComment=1289880101312#c8266438736780789737
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Week 10 readings
Digital Libraries: Challenges and Influential Work
While I enjoyed the second article more than this one, what I found interesting in this one was the list of all the digital library standards and technologies that emerged outside the federally funded research, including Oracle, Yahoo, Fedora and Ex Libris MetaLib. Some good did come out of the federally supported projects, including Google, but it makes one wonder whether these things would have emerged on there own without government intervention and strictly supported by consumer supply and demand.
FYI:
armamentarium: the aggregate of equipment, methods, and techniques available to one for carrying out one's duties (I had never seen this word before.)
Dewey Meets Turing
What an interesting article. While librarians and computer scientists were busy trying to figure out how to collect and disseminate digital information, the Web exploded, bringing an unprecedented amount of information that no one ever expected to factor into the equation. I love the contrast between the roles of librarian and computer scientist. This article seems to provide a respectful overview of both positions without pointing fingers at who's wrong and who's right. And the conclusion is hopeful for both sides.
Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age
"At the most basic and fundamental level, an institutional repository is a recognition that the intellectual life and scholarship of our universities will increasingly be represented, documented, and shared in digital form, and that a primary responsibility of our universities is to exercise stewardship (emphasis mine) over these riches: both to make them available and to preserve them."
Scholarship in the digital age is a tricky proposition: those producing the content want it widely available, they want recognition (and often payment) for the work and they want the work preserved. Making this scholarship available and preserving it at the university level just makes sense. If this is something that a university is going to take on, they must ensure they are doing it properly and for the right reasons.
While I enjoyed the second article more than this one, what I found interesting in this one was the list of all the digital library standards and technologies that emerged outside the federally funded research, including Oracle, Yahoo, Fedora and Ex Libris MetaLib. Some good did come out of the federally supported projects, including Google, but it makes one wonder whether these things would have emerged on there own without government intervention and strictly supported by consumer supply and demand.
FYI:
armamentarium: the aggregate of equipment, methods, and techniques available to one for carrying out one's duties (I had never seen this word before.)
Dewey Meets Turing
What an interesting article. While librarians and computer scientists were busy trying to figure out how to collect and disseminate digital information, the Web exploded, bringing an unprecedented amount of information that no one ever expected to factor into the equation. I love the contrast between the roles of librarian and computer scientist. This article seems to provide a respectful overview of both positions without pointing fingers at who's wrong and who's right. And the conclusion is hopeful for both sides.
Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age
"At the most basic and fundamental level, an institutional repository is a recognition that the intellectual life and scholarship of our universities will increasingly be represented, documented, and shared in digital form, and that a primary responsibility of our universities is to exercise stewardship (emphasis mine) over these riches: both to make them available and to preserve them."
Scholarship in the digital age is a tricky proposition: those producing the content want it widely available, they want recognition (and often payment) for the work and they want the work preserved. Making this scholarship available and preserving it at the university level just makes sense. If this is something that a university is going to take on, they must ensure they are doing it properly and for the right reasons.
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