Who's Bigger?: Where Historical Figures Really Rank -- Do they? Is this ranking global or local?

Who's Bigger?: Where Historical Figures Really Rank by Professors Steven Skiena  and  Charles Ward.

In identifying the most significant figures in human history the authors measure the impact of opinions. Thus the book, is a quantitative (aka metric) 'study' of opinions. Period. The ranking is based on a sample of the World's selected online resources, based on their format (i.e., web-based). It is not a rank by size of literature produced by a scholarly body or by historical period of occurrence or any other benchmarks of quantitative studies.

Summarily, this book is ranking of figures in human history by way of measuring the impact on opinions. WHEREAS, anyone who values facts, will not go near heresy/opinions/impressions/likes/dislikes, etc. Moreover a select sample of the Web, that includes the Wiki and similar community sources (attributed by academics as by and large anonymous, unreliable, and volatile nature), cannot be a means of a study to rank the sages of the ages. People who are looking at this pseudo-ranking approach, are getting excited that someone gets Top Rank. Is s/he really at the same NUMBER (based on the rule: What You See Is What You Get/vice versa, aka WYSIWYG/WYGIWYS) among the great historical figures??? Think twice, go check FACTS, and don't make historical judgments, based on opinions of Facebookers, Tweeters, clickers, likers, so on and so forth.

Hence, in deciding the place of historical figures, one must be careful. An Amazon's reviewer says: "Please don't buy this book. ...." [source: elmo]. In short,  opinions don't count, it is facts that are supposed to be used for ranking, and I would still recommend, The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History by Michael H. Hart.

Book Description: 

Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon? Washington bigger than Lincoln? Picasso bigger than Einstein? Quantitative analysts are rapidly finding homes in social and cultural domains, from finance to politics. What about history? In this fascinating book, Steve Skiena and Charles Ward bring quantitative analysis to bear on ranking and comparing historical reputations. They evaluate each person by aggregating the traces of millions of opinions, just as Google ranks webpages. The book includes a technical discussion for readers interested in the details of the methods, but no mathematical or computational background is necessary to understand the rankings or conclusions...

The 100 Most Significant Figures in History (first 25 ranked)
(image courtesy: miketrap.com/bostonglobe.com)

On the same shelf:

Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History ... ideas.time.com "A data-driven ranking. Plus, have former TIME People of the Year been predictive?" 

  The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History (Arabic Edition) Anis Mansour

The Film 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential People in the History of the Movies Scott Smith

LIFE 100 People Who Changed the World (Life (Life Books)) Editors of Life

The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History Dan Karlan

Reading now: Usage Statistics of E-Serials

Managing tight budgets, finding right service providers, selecting compatible-and-standardized tools to handle e-serials (data, access, licensing, technical support and usage statistics), motivating staff to adapt to the changing dynamics of e-librarianship, and finally meeting maximum user needs are all the crucial issues of today’s libraries. And for such a scenario here is a book--by David Fowler, presently Head Acquisitions Department, University of Oregon Libraries--as a resource, that helps in moving ahead in some of the significant areas of handling e-serials.

Incidentally, in the context of e-serials, cost (be it as single subscription or consortial bundles), purchasing decisions, library budgets, staff experience and exposure, and most importantly tools (especially,Issues with standardization of usage statistics) are all directly related to available and standardized tools for a ROI both for libraries, and information suppliers (aka information service providers). A few relevant questions, this reviewer can think, that are faced in dealing with e-serials’ usage data include:

a. What type and level of data do libraries want or expect in selecting / de-selecting e-serials (as discussed on p. 261)?

b. Is the supplier collecting legitimate numbers and facts and revealing this as-is to libraries (as discussed on p. 233)?

c. If data indicates a low use of a particular title (as discussed on p. 154, 220), does it mean first that the user is not in-need or otherwise unaware of ways and means to find it, or second, the library lacks a mechanism to create user-friendly gateway (especially the e-resources that may need a different path than what is required for a traditional print), or third there is a communication gap, in other words: lack of semantic synchronization (information seeking behavior matching with information provision)?

d. Is there a relationship between libraries using e-serials (be it on a stand-alone or consortial arrangement) in dealing with—transactions for instance, such as, a) Interlibrary loans, and b) document delivery-- and its impact on collection development / collection management?

e. Advantages and disadvantages of deriving usage statistics from local library management software (as discussed on p. 111), vis-à-vis supplier delivered metrics?

f. Shared-purchase and shared responsibility (as discussed on p. 43) is one size fits-for-all or requires customization by subjects / geography (e.g, Cancer library on p. 183; National Laboratory on p. 151; and Connecticut Academic Libraries, p. 79)? and

g. Electronic Resource Management (ERM) (as discussed on pp. 8, 130, and 252) is one part of the information management solution, but how about integrating a stand-alone resource and looking for an interface with enterprise content management (ECM) system?

While the above hypotheses are a good fit for a new book, and comparative librarianship always looks for such Web analytics, however, Usage Statistics of E-Serials addresses only a few of these concerns, issues and matrixes.

Usage Statistics of E-Serials, lacks a glossary of terms, such as, e-metircs (specifically in relation to web-metrics, librametrics, infometrics, etc.), usage (online, offline, and other modes of distribution permitted / adopted by libraries or end-users), access (in-house, campus wide, remote), tools (local, global, library vendor-supplied, publisher / service-provider supplied), techniques (standard, local), etc.

Further, the book lacks a conclusion. Any reader of a book on statistics is keen on finding an authoritative summary of all that is discussed in the book. For instance, a reader is left with no last word or opinion or ways to know if the editor agrees (fully, partially or not-at-all) with one of the author’s in this collection: ‘Lies, Damn Lies, and Usage Statistics: What's a Librarian to Do?’

Thematically speaking, the utility of the book would have been far more if it was focused on fewer themes or about any specific libraries. In this day of constantly changing dynamics, this book planned in 2004, data collected in 2006 (most cited references are pre-2006), published in 2007, today presents a little dated stories.

Hopefully the editor may consider a (qualitative and quantitative) sequel that is also inclusive of both vertical (within a library system: systematically analyzing budget, user needs, subject specialization, staff—generalists and specialists--storage, retention and deletion) and horizontal (across libraries on the above lines) usage statistics of e-serials .

Nevertheless, I recommend Usage Statistics of E-Serials as a useful resource for serials librarians and those involved in serials management in libraries.

On the same shelf:

• Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives: Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes ~ Robert E. Dugan
• E-metrics for Library and Information Professionals: How to Use Data for Managing and Evaluating Electronic Resource Collections ~ Andrew C. White and Eric Djiva Kamal
• E-metrics for library and information professionals: How to use data for managing and evaluating electronic resource collections. By Andrew White and Eric ... Acquisitions and Technical Services] ~ N. McDowell

eMetrics or Web-Metrics or Webometrics - A new book for Library & Information Professionals

Web-metrics or Web analytics as a term is yet to get a standard and acceptable name (aka. Webometrics, Webmetrics, emetrics, etc.). Interentingly, Library of Congress prefers for a book on e-metrics a subject heading, such as: Web usage mining.

The other subject headings for a book on e-metrics are:

• Digital libraries --Collection development --Statistical methods.
• Electronic information resources --Use studies.

I am reading, now, E-metrics for Library and Information Professionals: How to Use Data for Managing and Evaluating Electronic Resource Collections ~ Andrew C. White

My 2 cents: This is an excellent book, easy to read, thematically organized, and focused exclusively on developing metrics for library's electronic resources. Those who were used to user-studies, traditional library use-studies, library performance measurements, and quantitative methods, so on and so forth will find in this book great help to move forward (and thereby get to know some newer ways of looking at numbers and use behavior of the digital citizens). Highly recommend to any librarian / techie / information professional and interested in virtual library collections, Web Analytics, library management, etc.

On the same shelf: Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives

see here: Cyber Worship: Website Evaluation - Questionnaire and Survey Results 314-324.