The goal of OneWebDay is to make the Web, and our individual connection to it, visible — so that we don’t take it for granted. We make progress when we make things visible.

What does that mean, really. For sure, I am just as excited as the next person about the social benefits the Internet can bring if used and protected, but have you see this website, and check out this button, isn’t just a bit too much:

Q: What exactly are the Web values we’re celebrating? A: That, too, is up to you. How has the Web changed your life? Increased your connectedness? More collaboration? More creativity? More openness to ideas? Q: What’s the political agenda behind OneWebDay? A: Just this: We want to raise global awareness of how important the Web is to our lives and how positive its values are.

The entire site and the project wiki is as empty as this. It all seems a bit masturbatory to me: all the illusion of something worthwhile, but really in the end narcissistic self-love.

1. A move to abandoning the LC system of headings (essentially leaving categorization to Google-like keyword searches and Amazon-like user recommendations)
2. To accept digital copies of those works not “born digital”, i.e. books, in place of their paper representation on a physical shelf.

The goal the administration of the LC has with these measurements is to bring the libraries into the “digital age”—however, Mann finds major faults with these developments and their move to exclude traditional methods of research. Furthermore Mann is not arguing from a position of ludditism or a desire to cling to the “dying book”. On the contrary, if we read his past works, Mann praises the computer as allowing new avenues for finding information that researchers would not found otherwise. However, Mann does call for caution against digital searches taking the place of traditional methods of browsing; rather, the two are naturally complimentary.

What Mann argues, far from helping the “modern user” of the library, is that these developments actually hinder the ability to complete through research. The “skewed vision” the administration has of users is the “lazy undergraduate” who would rather remain in their dorm room in front of their computer rather then walk the distance to the library to perform such outdated tasks as looking at a book. The vision, one held as far back as Leibniz, is of the Universal library, where every piece of information would be only a keyword or two away. The problem with this, however, is that the keyword search is not the sole, or even main, way in which scholars perform research. Mann cites usability surveys noting that 52% of respondents actually (gasp) go to the stacks to do research. 1

What benefits those who work beyond a simple one or two term Google-like search:

1. LC subject headings give the marked benefit of browsing by subject. Mann cites an instance where a researcher had done a catalogue search for “Yugoslavia” and “history”, and of course come up with an overwhelming number or matches. However, a quick browse through the more manageable Subject browse not only granted the researcher needed focus, but also outlined some areas of research which is first keyword search had missed entirely.While it could be argued that a better educated searcher could use keywords more appropriately, I sincerely doubt that the “lazy undergrad” could do so. Yet, as a supplement to keyword searches, categorical browsing allows for an additional level of flexibility.

   The Google software cannot display browse menus of subjects with subdivisions and cross-references, allowing researchers to simply recognize options that they cannot specify in advance [because they are unknown at the time of the initial search]. Library catalogs provide much more efficient and systematic overviews of the range of books relevant to any topic….While the Google project may enhance information seeking, it will greatly curtail scholarship—which requires connections, linkages, and overviews.

2. Secondly, and this is the point which struck me the most, is the notion of serendipitous browsing. This is the activity by which researchers go to a subject classified section and discover books which one had not set out to discover.

   One survey elicited the finding that “The importance of serendipitous browsing in library collections cannot be overemphasized by the majority of faculty space holders.”

   This requires that the libraries, despite the possibilities of computer organization, continue to arrange books on actual, accessible, shelves by a pre-determined subject classification. This also means that libraries cannot shuffle under used books off to book warehouses while digital copies remain on file.

What struck me by this is the fact that, true to the survey, much of my own research is done through the discovery of books in adjacent sections to the one I set out to retrieve. Mann gives the example, which I won’t go into, of a book discovery which would be next to impossible, even through a full-text Google search, but occurred through serendipitous browsing (hopefully this can become a technical term for this action).

Arguably user-initiated linking could allow for such connections to be made. However, there is the epistemological problem of how does one make connections before the connection itself has already been made? If two works or topics are already linked, then in essence the research itself is already done. How does a scholar make connections that have not been thought before? Often serendipitously, a fact Mann has gleaned from his 25 years of practical experience working at the Library of Congress.

This is not to say that Mann is decrying the use of computers for research. On the contrary, his printed works, Library Research Models for example, repeatedly praise the possibilities for research through computers; at the same time, they give a caution to balance one’s research through all avenues possible. And, in any event, this itself is the sign of a good researcher. And it should be our job as information professionals to train the “lazy undergrad” to use all means possible in their searches.

I think that this is the main point we have to remember. All of these things are not difficult to implement. Let us have Google-like searches, Amazon-like ratings and Del.icio.us-like tagging alongside subject classification. We can gain much from folksonomies, and we don’t have to do so at the loss of traditional hierarchical ontologies. The digital catalogue is flexible enough for both.

However, to limit ourselves to such simple searches is to, in Mann’s words, condemn ourselves to research which is “superficial, incomplete, haphazard, indiscriminate, biased toward recent works, and largely confined to English language sources.”

Here is the story, for those that don’t go to U of T. The main branch of the library, the fourteen floor Robarts, denies access to anyone who cannot flash a student, faculty or alumni card. The printed versions of all journals, if we even continue to receive them, are behind this barrier.

One of the main arguments in support for OA is that members of the general public, like Xuan-Yen, cannot access the electronic versions of journals. However, at U of T, you can’t even access the daily paper delivered versions of the New York Times, because they are on the forth floor, and access beyond the third is restricted to those with a library card. Xuan-Yen is not an anthropologist, nutritionist, or even a professional chef. She just likes to educate herself. She graduated successfully with a BA, and wishes to continue with her personal learning, for the pure pleasure of learning. She just gets excited about food, from the preparation to the history and politics of food. And she cannot do that under current conditions.

Well, partially, because to solve my ethical dilemma I told her about OA. Regardless, why should I be placed in an ethical dilemma in the first place? Having done my undergraduate degree in Philosophy, it is my belief that giving the opportunity for learning to someone should be the highest and greatest gift, and one of the most ethically sound choices.

A lot of what I am going to be researching is the fact that, at the beginning of the university, works were copied freely–in fact, to study almost necessitated free copying, which was a natural action to those working under manuscript culture. Digital culture works much in the same way, where reading necessitates making a copy, in every instance. Copying is essential and fundamental to digital communication.

So what happens? Peter Suber, the academic king of OA, links to her.

Ah shucks…..

Elayne Riggs noticed this article from the New York Time which begins:

Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon have amassed thousands of surface-to-surface rockets, including missiles with the range to strike cities in northern Israel, according to senior Israeli and Western officials.

However, the very next sentence reads: “As the Bush administration moves to confront Iraq, some officials are concerned that Hezbollah could step up its attacks on Israel.” Something amiss here.

Still, officials worry that the buildup of so many rockets could tempt Hezbollah to expand its operations. Adding to this worry is the fear that Iran or Syria might encourage Hezbollah to stir up tensions along Israel’s northern frontier to divert attention from Iraq and complicate the Bush administration’s plans to topple Saddam Hussein.

Elayne notes that page 2 talks about “Secretary of State Colin Powell.” So she does what every good reader of Orwell does, she takes a screen shot (shown left). Which is a good thing, because the original has been updated:

This article originally appeared in The New York Times on Sept. 27, 2002.

Let’s consider the fact that maybe the NYT was sincere in running (recycling? plagiarizing?) an old piece from before Iraq. But what is the context? Does it inform us of anything new? It contains no new commentary, no new analysis, and no information beyond what we already know: Hezbollah has missiles (really? that’s what that noise is…).

So there is no rational reason for re-running the story. Everyone tries to submit the same work twice, but at least they could run over it once and check for glaring errors. Have things become so bad were we cannot even cheat with intelligence?

Link (from Ann Bartow)

I plan to keep the old one as a more static and academic/professional site, but you will always be able to find here from there and vice versa.

Shout back if anyone can here me.

Steven

It is okay that things are not as I expected. I have whole year of compulsory courses to get into the swing of how things work. But what these course descriptions help me realize what I am actually interested in, when it comes right down to my essential drives or my passion.

Sure, I believe all the stuff I wrote in my personal statement. I want to analyze the social nature of information, how changes in media effect the way we think, how culture is being threatened (time for a plug: Free Culture Toronto!). I do care about readers and writers and users and collaborations between all of them.

But, deep down, I love the books. I want to shepherd the books. I want to have a big flowing outfit with a long white beard and a shepherds crook. This includes manuscript, printed books and even the lovely little humble little text file (side note, see Textfiles, an archive of the BBS textfile culture). Let the computer join the party.

So when I see courses like “Analytical and Historical Bibliography” I get crazy. “Rare Books and Manuscripts.” Damn, sign me up.