sept 21, 2007friday afternoon seminar1 friday afternoon seminar, sept 21, 2007 reference library...

Sept 21, 2007 Friday Afternoon Seminar 1

Friday Afternoon Seminar, Sept 21, 2007

Reference Library Service in a Digital Environment:

A Question; an Explanation; and a Solution

Michael Buckland


Five ideas . . .

1. Understanding requires knowing the context. Context determines understanding.

2. Using Internet resources should be like using a library reference collection – and as easy and as reliable.

3. Design: Find the context of any museum object, document, or performance: What is related to it in what it is, where it came from, when it originated, and who is associated with it?

4.WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO (“4W”) as a structure.

5.Make better use of existing descriptive metadata.


Purpose of the Reference collection

1. Look up / verify factual data: “Ready Reference”2. Establish context for any topic.

esp. WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO

Understanding means knowing context.

Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays FacetDictionary, encyclopedia Topics Cross-refs WHATAtlas, gazetteer Places Maps WHEREAlmanac, chronology Time Timelines WHENBiogr. Dict., Who’s Who Persons Personal relationships WHO


Any word, name, document, or event

Any resource:Audio, Images, Texts, Numeric data, Objects, Virtual reality, Webpages

Any catalog: Archives, Libraries, Museums, TV, Publishers

Connect it with its context – and other resources.

Facet Vocabulary Displays

WHAT Thesaurus Cross- e.g. LCSH references

WHERE Gazetteer Map

WHEN Period directory Timeline

WHO Biograph. dict. Personal e.g. Who’s Who relations

Context and relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies – Project diagram.


The Internet Public Library offers a digital replica of a paper-based reference collection. Excellent. But could we do better?


Digital technology does not need to copy the hierarchical structure and constraints of codex technology . . .

Digital techniques can link directly and horizontally with:

-- Procedural interoperability (e.g. Z39:50) and

-- Vocabulary interoperability (e.g. Dewey’s Relativ Index to the Decimal Classification).

Suppose we designed directly to provide the functionality of a reference collection on those two assumptions.

Suppose that we started with the user’s need for know about WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHO.


Kung fu movies SEE Martial Arts filmsFORMERLY Hand-to-hand fighting, oriental, in motion pictures “Automobile” in four dialects:

- PASS MOT VEH, SPARK IGN ENG (U.S. Import/Export statistics) - TL 205 (Library of Congress Classification) - 180/280 (US Patent classification) - 3711 (Standard Industrial Classification)

“HS 847120 Digital auto data proc mach contng in the same housing a CPU and input & output device.”(International Harmonized Commodity Classification System).

NEED TO MAP TO & BETWEEN UNFAMILIAR VOCABULARIES

= Computer!

WHAT Subject headings Cross-references in& between vocabularies


WHERE -- PLACE Some problems with place names:

- Different forms: St. Petersburg, Санкт Петербург, Saint-Pétersbourg, . . .

- Multiple names: Cluj, in Romania / Roumania / Rumania, is also called Klausenburg and Kolozsvar.

- Names change: Bombay became Mumbai.

- Same names: 18 different places have been called Beijing.

- Anachronisms: No country called Germany before 1870.

- Vague, e.g. Midwest, Silicon Valley, Far East

- Boundaries change: 19th century Poland; Balkans; USSR.


WHERE Place name gazetteer Map

Ctesiphon (Ancient site)

Dots link to portal


WHAT is WHERE? Catalog + gazetteer + map. Search for books on Folklore, then geographical sort.


WHEN? What happened in IRELAND in 1690s?

Time Period Directory records in Google Earth. Zoom to Ireland and 1690s. Icon for siege of Limerick, 1690. Click link for library search. Catalog records list books and show context.


WHO Biographical Dictionary Complex relationships

Life events metadata

WHAT: Actions prisoner

WHERE: Places Holstein

WHEN: Times

1261-1262

WHO: People Margaret Sambiria

But ideally we need external links to the best resources!

Current project: Context finding for biographical texts.

Example: Electronic search engine pioneer.


Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, 1933-37; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d. 1970.

WHO?

Click a name to search for an internet resource.



WHERE?

Trace a life-path.



WHAT?

Find descriptive documents


New project! “Context and Relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies”

Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative; Celtic Studies Program; School of Information; Emma Goldman Papers; and the Queen’s University, Belfast.

Queen’s funded by JISC to digitize back-runs of 100 Irish studies journals JSTOR-style; Berkeley funded by NEH-IMLS Advancing Knowledge program to provide contextualizing tools.

We need online the functionality of a reference collection.

1. Context finder: Search support from text to reference works.

2. Context builder: Making, retaining notes / links to reference works.

3. Context provider: Enriching reference works by adding reverse links, e.g. place name gazetteer mentions where a place is mentioned in texts.


Initial sketch for “Context Finding / Building” interface.

Save search path

Save link & notes as “stand-off” markup.

Save link & notes as embedded mark-up.

Insert / block text

Define facet

Ranked lists of suggested resources for each facet chosen

Display of search result


Edmund Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum : Locorum et Tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae = An Index, with Identifications, to the Gaelic Names of Places and Tribes

If available online, one could, when reading an Irish studies text:

1. Search it (Context finder)

2. Markup text with links to it (Context builder);

3. Markup Hogan with reverse links to the Irish studies text (Context provider) – with rich consequences.


Facet Vocabulary Displays Reference GenreWHAT Topics Cross-references Dictionary, EncyclopediaWHERE Places Maps Atlas, gazetteerWHEN Periods Timeline Almanac, ChronologyWHO Persons Personal relationships Biogr.dictionary, Whos Who

Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays FacetDictionary, encyclopedia Topics Cross-refs WHATAtlas, gazetteer Places Maps WHEREAlmanac, chronology Time Timelines WHENBiogr. Dict., Who’s Who Persons Personal relationships WHO

Paper-based reference collection: Codex determines structure and use.

Reversed in a digital environment: Metadata forms infrastructure.


Importance of inverting the relationship between the part and the whole:

-- Indexes are created by inversion

-- Union indexes: Tell you which reference work mentions your query, like the Science Citation Index.

-- . . . and Google.


Technical comment: WHAT, WHERE, WHEN indexes are often complex. Links create infrastructure!

Library subject headings:Topic – Geographic subdivision – Chronological subdivision

Place name gazetteer:Place name – Type – Spatial markers (Lat & long) – When

Time Period Directory:Period name – Type – Time markers (Calendar) – Where


Conclusion:

-- The context finder supports reference queries;

-- The context builder prompts reference queries;

-- The context provider develops a reference environment far richer than could be provided on paper;

-- These tools would empower users and well as reference librarians

-- . . . and editors, publishers, and everyone else

-- . . . even from laptops in dorms from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

So what next?

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