Librarians' Response to Web Scale Search (aka Resource Discovery): Assumptions and Challenges

The term information industry includes publishers, distributors, librarians, search engine optimizers, etc. This industry, as a whole, is in a desperate race to find the best means of finding information.

Discovery Tools (Library catalogs, content publisher's databases, etc.) as a term refers to multifaceted databases that are evolving as a single point interface (to search less and find more using 'all' library resources, in one click). For a background and state-of-the-art reading, click here: Paths of Discovery.


In short, Google, Librarians and Discovery Tools are in the competition. In the following are the challenges faced by librarians' context in relation to planing and implementation of resource discovery--it is all about the evolving nature of effective ways of finding information, easily and user friendly.

Here are a few important contributions by librarians to understand the myths, presumptions, etc.:

• Top 10 Discovery Tool Myths [doc file]

Myth #1: My discovery tool is the biggest and /or the best.
Myth #2: Discovery tools will one day search all of a given library’s collections.
Myth #3: Federated search software is still useful
Myth #4: Discovery tools compete with Google.
Myth #5: The single search box is the goal
Myth #6: Discovery tools don’t require library instruction
Myth #7: Discovery tools are for mostly just for freshmen
Myth # 8: Subject-specific databases are dead
Myth #9: Discovery software vendor X pushes their results to the top
Myth #10: It only takes a few days to implement a discovery tool

• 8 hypotheses why librarians don't like discovery 

Librarians don’t like discovery tools because…
 1.They are too much extra work.
 2.They weren’t our idea in the first place.
 3.Strange things happen to our metadata.
 4.Talking about the strange things happening to the data is hard.
 5.They mess with the concept of the catalog.
 6.They are hard to use in reference interviews.
 7.They make users lazy and dumb. Sometime ago, I asked people about what they thought where the perceptions of librarians of their users.
 8.They cost us our jobs. Continue reading: A growing organism: 8 hypotheses why librarians don’t like discovery 

• More articles on Discovery - Google Sites
• 8 things we know about web scale discovery systems in 2013
• Culture Shock: Librarians' Response to Web Scale Search
• As Researchers Turn to Google, Libraries Navigate the Messy World of Discovery Tools 

Many professors and students gravitate to Google as a gateway to research. Libraries want to offer them a comparably simple and broad experience for searching academic content. As a result, a major change is under way in how libraries organize information. Instead of bewildering users with a bevy of specialized databases—books here, articles there—many libraries are bulldozing their digital silos. They now offer one-stop search boxes that comb entire collections, Google style.
That’s the ideal, anyway. The reality is turning out to be messier. Continue reading: The Chronicle of Higher Education

• Library Resource Discovery Products: Context, Library Perspectives, and Vendor Positions  Marshall Breeding --Single Issue Magazine – January 31, 2014
• Planning and Implementing Resource Discovery Tools in Academic Libraries  Mary Pagliero Popp
• Recent Developments in the Design, Construction, and Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Case Studies (Premier Reference Source)  Colleen Cool

The Infomedia Revolution: We are yet to see this dream fulfilled...

In 1995 Frank Koelsch, a Canadian author, wrote a book and its description says: "This text provides a guide for companies and individuals to Infomedia. It explains what it is, why companies should not ignore it, how (and when) it will affect various industries and what changes it will bring. The book is global in scope and provides numerous case studies."   Read more here : The Infomedia Revolution: How It Is Changing Our World and Your Life by Frank Koelsch

In 2014, after nearly 20 years, we are yet to see the revolution. Info-mdedia is by far very slow in its growth of the expected synchronization (of all types of media,  read ALL).  Eexcuse my inability to see any source, if you know of any recent Canadian developments, please send me a link.

We are however happy reading headlines about new interfaces that facilitate whenever meetings (that tend to be, overall, not really real developments), as in news: 

• State of the Modern Meeting: Infographic: Commutes and Conference Rooms No Longer Required
  Inaugural Report Shows Today’s Meetings are Mobile, Flexible and International

Iṣṭalāḥāt-i Sūfiyah by Khwaja ʻAbduṣṣamad, A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms in Urdu

PREFACE: Librarians continue to play an important role in creating consistent bibliographic records and in dealing with cataloguing issues, on an on-going basis. To be consistent the cataloguers and indexers need re-education of the trends, problems and alternative ways to resolve the problems. One great help comes from the big libraries, such as, Library of Congress, British Library, etc. in setting up working standards and best practice guidelines. Ask me for more on this. 

Istalahaat-E-Sufia  By Hazrat Khawaja Shah Muhammad Abdul Samad. Lahore, Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2011.

My review of this 2011 print: This glossary is a useful reference book in Urdu on Sufism. It helps a beginner as well an advanced student to know the esoteric and exoteric meaning of Sufi terminology. The value of the book is it makes use of Hadith / Quran or other sources to explain some of the important terms. However, it lacks an index (that helps find synonyms, or contextually related words). In addition wherever it mentions Quran, Hadith, etc., a full citation is missing. A future revision may restore the attribution of ownership, as well as improve its user-friendliness.  One may also see A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms  by Abd al-Razzaq al-Qashani ("This is the first accessible English translation from the Arabic of a book that has been required reading in Sufi circles for more than six centuries").

The consistency of transliteration as an example, here, is in ISTALAHAAT as found in the verso of the book. According to the Practical Standard Twentieth Century Dictionary: Urdu  into English, istilah (N.F), istilahat (plural) p. 58, 1980; Library of Congress is same; but Toronto Public Library uses Iṣṭalāḥāt. So much about the inconsistency in data entry. The resulting data search success or failure is dependent on a semantic search enginge (such as Google) or a literal search box (as most libraries have).

This post is also about the importance of attributing the ownership, systematizing bibliographic work and tackling cataloguing Issues, based on the case of an Urdu book on Sufi Terminology: 

(a) issues in transliteration (or Romanization) of Urdu Books,
(b) dealing with a Market that is more open / competitive / irresponsive and
(c) how to troubleshoot/avoid all related problems (esp., in dealing with rare/reprinted books, conducting proper search in library catalogs, retaining consistency in title, author name, searchability, findability and access).

The Urdu title that brings forth the above concerns, here is, ISTALAHAAT-E-SUFIA (اصطلا حاتِ صو فیا). While the book did not track down the original source, the catalogers too did not indicate that this a reprint of either a 1983 work (printed in Lahore, Pakistan) or 1929 (printed in Delhi, India). Compare the three prints of the same title, here:

2011 print  (note the changes in transliteration of the title, in each print):

• ISTALAHAAT-E-SUFIA  Lahore, Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2011. ISBN: 9693524195
  By Hazrat Khawaja Shah Muhammad Abdul Samad -- (also note the rendering of the title/author in  the Toronto Public Library Catalog: Iṣṭalāḥāt-i Sūfiyah ʻAbduṣṣamad, Shāh Muḥammad)  

1983 print:

• ʻAbduṣṣamad, Shāh Muḥammad. Iṣt̤ilāḥāt-i Ṣūfiyah / Shāh Muḥammad ʻAbduṣṣamad. Lāhaur : Makkah Buks, [1983?] 172 p. ; 22 cm. Note: First published in Delhi, India.  Library of Congress record

1929 print  (probably* the original work):

• Iṣṭalāḥāt-i Sūfiyah, Shāh Muḥammad ʻAbduṣṣamad, Dihlī : Dillī Printṭing Varks, 1929, 176 p. World Cat Record -- (*reviewer's note: According to the J Royal Asiatic Society dated 1847 ... paid Hafiz Ahmad Kabir for printing 500 copies of Istalahat Sufia. Based on this information, a future researcher has to ascertain the name of the actual  author who was definitely an adult in 1847, and thence track the date of its first publication???)

PS. The reading list, below, helps in understanding the crux of the problems as listed above (a, b & c).

Transliteration issues: 

>> Some Issues with the Orientalists' Urdu- English Dictionaries by Dr. Zafar Iqbal and Mahmood Ahmad

>> Roman to Urdu Transliteration using word list, by Tafseer Ahmed 

>> Why isn't transliteration from Urdu to Latin working properly in icu4c? 

>> English to Urdu transliteration: An application of Soundex algorithm by MA Zahid 

>> CILLA rules: Transliteration rules and cataloguing guide for material in public libraries in Indic languages : Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi and Urdu CILLA 

>> Masterpieces of Patriotic Urdu Poetry - Text, Translation & Transliteration in English & Urdu K C Kanda 

>> Knowledge Production, Pedagogy, and Institutions in Colonial India (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History) Indra Sengupta 

>> 2.10 Non Anglo-American cataloguing codes 

>> اردو اصطلاحات سازى / Urdū iṣt̤ilāḥāt sāzī by ʻAt̤ish Durrānī -- see also another link 

>>Guide for the compilation of terminological dictionaries (Malay language--Terminology) 

Urdu Book Market, Media reports:

• Plagiarize And Prosper | C.M. Naim - Outlook 

• A short, myopic and utterly biased guide to bookstores in Lahore
• The Five Forms of Plagiarism in the Urdu Literature
• Rare books: A forgotten history being preserved at Sangemeel
• Urdu book publishing - a field survey
• The lost world of Urdu books
• Ibn-i-Safi makes a resounding return 
• Disappearing Treasures: Public Libraries and Urdu Printed Books

• Jadīd ṣaḥāfatī Angrezī-Urdu lug̲h̲at = Jadeed sahafati Angrezi- Urdu lughat

  Author:	Sayyid Rāshid Ashraf; Muqtadirah-yi Qaumī Zabān (Pakistan), Islāmābād : Muqtadirah-yi Qaumī Zabān, 2006.

   

New Hazards For Book Reviewers, by Steve Denning

From a Book Review to a Criminal Trial in France
By ADAM LIPTAK, The New York Times,
"In a little more than a week, a court in Paris will decide whether a law professor in New York committed criminal libel by publishing a book review."

Steve Denning, RETHINK - Forbes, Feb. 21 2011
EXTRACT:
In a bizarre story in The New York Times...

... Moreoever “France is an odd place to adjudicate a claim concerning a review written in English by a German professor of a book written in English by an author living in Israel. The book was, moreover, published by a Dutch firm. The review was published on a Web site in New York. True, Ms. Calvo-Goller is a French citizen. But still.”

What’s next? Students suing their teachers for poor grades? Commenters in Amazon being sued for their less-than-five-star reviews?
Continue reading

Google Adsense Appears Anywhere, Anyhow

Thinking about competitive intelligence I have a moment's reflection. The question here is: How do businesses deal with competitors, and how they avoid each other? I found a search engine. In this context, isn't it against benchmarks of best practice in business management that Google Adsense should not be seen where Google is invisible. A competitor of Google, a less popular search engine, shows results from all other sources (READ AGAIN: it is minus Google) and has Google ads, the search engine is called Minus Google

And, about this new born minus-google, a news headlines says: Finnish blogger amputates Google from Google: A road map for regulators of the future, By Cade Metz in San Francisco


And, another question is: Why Does Google Allow Ads for AdSense Ready Websites?

Search for something like "work from home", "Internet jobs" or "make money online" on Google and you’ll see a flood of ads promising easy money through the AdSense program.
If you have ever tried AdSense on a site, you probably know how tough it is to make that first dollar but these ads, which are surprisingly served on the Google network itself, make things look so simple. Just order an "AdSense kit" for a few dollars and the money will start rolling in. continue reading: Digital Inspiration.

See also: The Google-Yahoo! agreement and the future of internet advertising hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, July 15, 2008.

  Any clue, or at least a response to this reflection?

Information and Emotion

This is not a review, probably a reflection of my previous blog post: Toxicity in the library workplace - a survey

Extract from a book review by Hamid R. Jamali @ Webology

Overall, the studies presented in the book cover several affective and emotional aspects of information behaviour of different groups of people in different contexts. While the first three chapters of the book provide helpful theoretical information about research on emotional aspects of information behaviour, the other chapters present a vareity of research questions as well as methodologies that can be applied to investigate them. Therefore the book can be a source of inspiration for those graduate students and researchers interested in this area of human information behaviour. The book is a valuable addition to the ASIST Monograph Series and a second enlightening book coming out of the SIG USE research community after the Theories of Information Behavior. The publication of this book can be a turning point for establishing a research community and literature related to the affective and emotional aspects of human information behaviour.

Book Publisher Experiments

Publishers warm up to 'Net, sell chapters, give away books Nate Anderson, Arstechnica (Feb 11)

Two book publishers will be making more 'print' available online: Random House will sell selected chunks, and HarperCollins will make some titles free to read.

continue reading info posted by Gwen @ Internet News

I predict that this wiki will be none to sticky

NB. This is not from my desktop.

Posted by David E. Williams of the Health business blog

Reed Elsevier and other big scientific and medical publishers have had a hard time adjusting to the electronic age. Their expensive journals are taking a drubbing from open source alternatives like Public Library of Science (PLoS) –co-founded by my junior high school lab partner, Mike Eisen. And despite the fact that the Health Business Blog itself is delivered to Elsevier clients thanks to an agreement between Elsevier subsidiary LexisNexis and Newstex, Elsevier is still in rather deep trouble.
Unfortunately for them, their latest innovation WiserWiki, isn’t going to bail them out. From Information World Review: continue reading

Info courtesy: Informaticopia