Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Information evaluation

As a tutor in a community college writing center I see all kinds of assignments. In one paper I read today the assignment asked students to evaluate a website based on a specific cultural group by deciding who the site primarily targeted and why as well as what kinds of information were available on the site. As a future information professional, I have completed these assignments in my classes.

For many students at a community college level, evaluating an information source is a new concept. Assignments like these give students the chance to question the information they are seeing on the screen and explore it somewhat in depth. Being able to quickly analyze a source is a critical skill in decision making. It can mean the difference between coming up with a source and coming up with the right source. This is about more than information, it is about finding what you need when you need it. A skill that many students lack.

Monday, November 26, 2007

True Knowledge...

The semantic web is amazing. I didn't really understand the concept completely until I watched the video on the True Knowledge website. The last time I heard the term semantics was in a linguistics course I took in college. I like the idea of connections which are more in line with human thought. When we think we draw on previous knowledge, ideas, conversations, concepts and contexts. Not that a search engine can fully echo that process, but True knowledge does build on the knowledge within its database and user added knowledge.

One benefit to True Knowledge is the ability for users to query in many different ways...asking questions or using current search phrases, or choosing from a list of what the computer thinks the user is asking.

Search results are displayed in more readable formats too. The definitions of terms and the answer are prominently displayed for the user so the answer is obvious. I am not sure how well this would work for document searches, but it is excellent for direct queries. The semantic web will make searches even easier for users and with user input, hopefully lessening the information divide.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Street Lit

I am doing a paper for my multicultural librarianship class on street lit. (That is, literature that focuses on African Americans living in the ghetto). In my research, some African American authors who write more literary fiction are angry because street lit is selling better than their books. Some say it is marketing, the way chain stores display tittles written by African Americans. Others say street lit sells so of course retailers are going to promote it. For librarians this creates collection development issues. Street lit's value for most people is entertainment and public libraries provide resources that entertain as well as inform.

Although, I don't really like street lit mainly because of its substandard sentence structure and adult-only subject matter, it is important for some people. Many librarians have found an increase in circulation in inner-cities. The books also walk out the door at an alarming rate, but that's another story. I think for libraries this is an issue of balance. Certainly, you do not want to focus the entirety of the of the African American fiction collection on street lit, but it's like graphic novels, romance, and other trade paperbacks, people love it. So if it checks out do we stock it?

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Teachable Moments

My youngest brother is eight. Being in my late twenties give my an interesting perspective both as a big sister and a future librarian. I watch to see what he picks up at the library. He loves non-fiction...books about dinosaurs, how cars work, and most recently, stars, are among his favorites. He asked me the other day when I was babysitting, "What does the big dipper look like?" "Is it like a big chip?"
"No," I said, thankful we were on our way to the library, "it's more like a big ladle, like mom uses when she makes soup. I can show you a picture when we pick out books today."

As soon as we got to the library, he was on a mission to find a book about stars or constellations....he pleased with my description when we found a picture. "Yep, it looks just like mom's ladle. Thanks." He took the book home so he could look at and read about the other constellations. It was a quick and easy find. So, what? Just a kid and a book. For me, it was a teachable moment, a chance to connect reading with the questions he was asking. It was a chance to show him how to find the information he wanted to know. In short, it was a lesson in information literacy that took five minutes.

Discards?

I recently read the well-known article Discards by Nicholson Baker. Baker rightly bemoans that fact that we are losing valuable information/historical records if we just get rid of the cards. But what about other countries? Recently, I had the chance to talk to a missionary from Japan who told me that the seminary library where he works as a professor still has a card catalog and uses the Dewey Decimal System. I am not sure if this practice is true of Japan as a whole or if the seminary just can't afford the time/money it takes to put everything online. I want to do some more research on this for my own curiosity...maybe we are the only ones discarding.