Folksonomies and the Revolution
The article by Ellyssa Kroski’s opening sentence (“there is a revolution happening on the Internet that is alive and building momentum with each passing tag”) threw me a little. The article itself was much more straightforward than I was expecting. Her point that folksonomies provide insight into user behaviour seems directed at libraries and librarians. I dislike the way that librarians seem on the outside of these discussions (except when we’re described as disdainful or losing our power.) Libraries—especially public and special libraries—do make huge improvisations to the traditional classification schemes based on user needs. (And yes, we can be rigid, but, you know, rigid in a wonderful way.)
The wikipedia article threw out a lot of terms (“workplace democracy”) but seemed fairly optimistic about folksonomies and tagging. The Lawley article referred to the minority view, namely, the “darker side of bottom-up classification”: the lack of precision, recall and authority.
The Quintarelli article also talks about the revolution: “new revolutionary ability”. I disagree with the point that traditional classification schemes require “expert users”. In an ideal scenario, the users don’t have to be experts. If they do, we’re letting them down. The downside of this is that it turns librarians into mediators of a sort, standing outside of the action and solely concerned with imposing order.
I suppose the big post-revolutionary question for all of us expert users is: do we find it easier to navigate the new folksonomies or the traditional schemes? And if we find the new ways better, how can we incorporate what folksonomies teach us about user behaviours into the schemes we already have?
Finally, I don’t think I am ever going to be someone who is ever going to comfortable with throwing one’s lot in with “the wisdom of crowds”, which Kroski seems to see as the thrust behind the revolution. I can see her point that tagging can “engender community”, but I think it would have to be a relatively small and committed community. There are accurate charges against the traditional classification schemes for being dated, politically incorrect, elite and exclusive, but trusting “the crowd” (known for being politically incorrect and often violent toward minority groups) hardly seems like a solution. (Carol Ou picks up on this too.)
Have a fun Reading Week everyone. And look Ma: no use of the word “interesting” this week!
Monday, June 25, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Case Studies & Other Notes
I wasn’t that impressed by any of the del.icio.us pages for the various libraries this week (La Grange, Lansing, Seldovia or Thomas Ford Memorial.) I thought that the PennTags was the best organized but they all seemed very befuddled. The Thomas Ford Memorial categories seemed to be very technology-heavy (gadgets, web, computers), while in contrast Seldovia had a mysterious “for public” category… surely everything on their publicly accessible del.icio.us page was intended for public? This makes me want to revise my conclusion in the last post—maybe it’s not an issue about classification but one about scope.
I really like del.icio.us and I’m trying to remember to use it more. The conversion from my familiar (and mostly reliable) folders of favourites is still a work in progress. I tend to be using it for things I stumble across that I’d like to read later, whereas my favourite seem to be sites that I want to explore more or think that I’m likely to go back to. RSS feeds have not grown on me at all. I’m using Google Reader, and I think that my reluctance is due to its similarity to email: it feels like yet another email to check daily (and I already have five of those!). I do like NetVibes, though, although its little weather application lied to me earlier this week.
In other social software news, I’ve spruced up the blog a bit, done some actual professional networking via Facebook (one of my former colleagues from my co-op placement found me… hey! it counts), and been nominated to create a wiki for work.
I really like del.icio.us and I’m trying to remember to use it more. The conversion from my familiar (and mostly reliable) folders of favourites is still a work in progress. I tend to be using it for things I stumble across that I’d like to read later, whereas my favourite seem to be sites that I want to explore more or think that I’m likely to go back to. RSS feeds have not grown on me at all. I’m using Google Reader, and I think that my reluctance is due to its similarity to email: it feels like yet another email to check daily (and I already have five of those!). I do like NetVibes, though, although its little weather application lied to me earlier this week.
In other social software news, I’ve spruced up the blog a bit, done some actual professional networking via Facebook (one of my former colleagues from my co-op placement found me… hey! it counts), and been nominated to create a wiki for work.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Readings (7)
This week is all about tagging. Tagging is, according to Hammond et al, a hallmark of Web 2.0 because it “advances and personalizes online searching.”
I think that there are two reasons why tagging is such a big leap forward. First, because it’s social. The whole internet can see (by googling my del.icio.us user name) that I have saved a heap of articles on Hillary Clinton (or whatever other embarrassing interest). And second, because, as Mathes points out, it’s user-generated. I can remember my first cataloguing class, in which classification was described as “that which brings order to chaos” (or something like that). This traditional kind of classification rested in the hands of the controlling few, holding the fragile line against the barbarians and folksonomies. (That’s for you, Lauralee.)
The leap from private classification (my many folders of favorites, for example) to social tagging is what Jon Udell is writing about when he refers to Dan Bricklin's "cornucopia of the commons." The implications for feedback and for tracking who saves your posts or articles is pretty interesting too. The difficulty, I think, comes when your classification system is completely different than mine. One of the wonderful things about LC or DDC is that you can refer back to them. I can see people getting very confused by some of my tags/tags-to-be/strings of tags.
Hollenback’s article on ways to make del.icio.us was frustrating. All of these widgets sound fun and useful, but this is a lot of information. I’m still figuring how to navigate and organized del.icio.us: what the advantages are, and what my preferences might be. Joshua Porter’s article was a bit more accessible for me. His point about tagging being the secondary point of del.icio.us is important. He states that, “to think that people tag so that this information can be aggregated is to give people a trait of altruism they just don’t possess” and yet I think that this is the thrust of what the implication for libraries is—a new system of classification through aggregation, not individual classification.
I think that there are two reasons why tagging is such a big leap forward. First, because it’s social. The whole internet can see (by googling my del.icio.us user name) that I have saved a heap of articles on Hillary Clinton (or whatever other embarrassing interest). And second, because, as Mathes points out, it’s user-generated. I can remember my first cataloguing class, in which classification was described as “that which brings order to chaos” (or something like that). This traditional kind of classification rested in the hands of the controlling few, holding the fragile line against the barbarians and folksonomies. (That’s for you, Lauralee.)
The leap from private classification (my many folders of favorites, for example) to social tagging is what Jon Udell is writing about when he refers to Dan Bricklin's "cornucopia of the commons." The implications for feedback and for tracking who saves your posts or articles is pretty interesting too. The difficulty, I think, comes when your classification system is completely different than mine. One of the wonderful things about LC or DDC is that you can refer back to them. I can see people getting very confused by some of my tags/tags-to-be/strings of tags.
Hollenback’s article on ways to make del.icio.us was frustrating. All of these widgets sound fun and useful, but this is a lot of information. I’m still figuring how to navigate and organized del.icio.us: what the advantages are, and what my preferences might be. Joshua Porter’s article was a bit more accessible for me. His point about tagging being the secondary point of del.icio.us is important. He states that, “to think that people tag so that this information can be aggregated is to give people a trait of altruism they just don’t possess” and yet I think that this is the thrust of what the implication for libraries is—a new system of classification through aggregation, not individual classification.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Finding Our Place
This video shows some application of social software by a library we at Western know well. It also features me... check out my big line around 4:40.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Readings (5)
RSS Continued…
The feeds from the Seattle Public Library was interesting, but also a little… scattered? I don’t know that someone who would read a book called Chick Living: Frugal and Fabulous would also be interested in a book called Pretend Play and Young Children’s Development. It works well in theory, but I think it’s a problem of classification, not the software. (And again, I think this would work well for a department or a faculty—especially if the department were studying something esoteric.) The ProQuest RSS Feeds has suggestions for professors that are eerily similar. I thought their Dissertations & Theses feed was an interesting idea, and their breakdown of sociology (what I did my undergrad in) was fairly comprehensive. Sociology is a pretty large discipline, so I don’t think it’s outrageous that a scholar wouldn’t have heard about twenty or twenty-five new dissertations in a given category. This could be really useful.
The Hollenback article’s focus on collaboration between the tools we’ve been discussing and experimenting with was interesting. I haven’t used Flickr, but I was a bit dismayed by his references to Friendster and Orkut. How many of these suckers do I have to sign up for to be considered socially networked? I already use (and hate) Facebook. I did find his comment that, “the real power of both Flickr and de.icio.us come from the concept of tagging” eerily reminicist of cataloguing (the imposition of order as that which separates us from the animals.) And I loved his imitation of Mac users (which I am not): “At this point some of you are saying, "Hey, what about this SuperNewsReaderPro I use on my Mac?” Damn you Mac users and your seemingly-supereverything.
The article about the successes of the University of Alberta libraries was interesting, but somewhat vague. I suppose I was expecting something with a result at the end of it (such and such number of students subscribed.) The article by Ian Winship was quite well written, even if it was a bit hurried, but I didn’t find anything new in it.
I really liked the quote at the beginning of the McKiernan article, which stated that “these do not amount to a revolution, but rather represent a step on the path to better information services, and one which takes advantage of advances in technology.” I also liked his focus on different types of libraries, including those, like legislative libraries, which are sometimes left to the fringes.
I am going to Feed2JS later in the week—I am having some internet difficulties this weekend which are making it excruciating for me to even leave the computer (lest my connection die again.) I will try to post about it later in the week, though.
The feeds from the Seattle Public Library was interesting, but also a little… scattered? I don’t know that someone who would read a book called Chick Living: Frugal and Fabulous would also be interested in a book called Pretend Play and Young Children’s Development. It works well in theory, but I think it’s a problem of classification, not the software. (And again, I think this would work well for a department or a faculty—especially if the department were studying something esoteric.) The ProQuest RSS Feeds has suggestions for professors that are eerily similar. I thought their Dissertations & Theses feed was an interesting idea, and their breakdown of sociology (what I did my undergrad in) was fairly comprehensive. Sociology is a pretty large discipline, so I don’t think it’s outrageous that a scholar wouldn’t have heard about twenty or twenty-five new dissertations in a given category. This could be really useful.
The Hollenback article’s focus on collaboration between the tools we’ve been discussing and experimenting with was interesting. I haven’t used Flickr, but I was a bit dismayed by his references to Friendster and Orkut. How many of these suckers do I have to sign up for to be considered socially networked? I already use (and hate) Facebook. I did find his comment that, “the real power of both Flickr and de.icio.us come from the concept of tagging” eerily reminicist of cataloguing (the imposition of order as that which separates us from the animals.) And I loved his imitation of Mac users (which I am not): “At this point some of you are saying, "Hey, what about this SuperNewsReaderPro I use on my Mac?” Damn you Mac users and your seemingly-supereverything.
The article about the successes of the University of Alberta libraries was interesting, but somewhat vague. I suppose I was expecting something with a result at the end of it (such and such number of students subscribed.) The article by Ian Winship was quite well written, even if it was a bit hurried, but I didn’t find anything new in it.
I really liked the quote at the beginning of the McKiernan article, which stated that “these do not amount to a revolution, but rather represent a step on the path to better information services, and one which takes advantage of advances in technology.” I also liked his focus on different types of libraries, including those, like legislative libraries, which are sometimes left to the fringes.
I am going to Feed2JS later in the week—I am having some internet difficulties this weekend which are making it excruciating for me to even leave the computer (lest my connection die again.) I will try to post about it later in the week, though.
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