Hello all. If you substitute "Museum" for "library", "object" for "book", "virtual museum" for "electronic library" (you get the picture. .), this article has a lot of food for thought. Allison From: IN%"[log in to unmask]" "Louise S. Robbins SLIS 263-2105" To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] Subject: really worth reading >From: IN%"[log in to unmask]" "Sue Searing" >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: A long but insightful article... > >There's food for thought in this article. Hope you all haven't seen it before >on other listservers; it's new to me. Sue > >From: IN%"[log in to unmask]" "LIBrary Women And Technology" >To: Multiple recipients of list LIBWAT-L <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Karen Coyle's Talk at CPSR > >Here is the text of Karen's talk, courtesy of KC. > >--leslie shade > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >************************************** >* Copyright Karen Coyle, 1994 * >* * >* This document may be * >* circulated freely on the Net * >* with this statement included. * >* For any commercial use, or * >* publication (including electronic * >* journals, you must obtain the * >* permission of the author * >* [log in to unmask] * >************************************** > >ACCESS: Not Just Wires >By Karen Coyle > >** This is the written version of a talk given at the 1994 CPSR Annual >meeting in San Diego, CA, on Oct. 8. ** > >I have to admit that I'm really sick and tired of the Information highway. >I feel like I've already heard so much about it that it must be come and >gone already, yet there is no sign of it. This is truly a piece of federal >vaporware. > >I am a librarian, and I and it's especially strange to have dedicated much >of your life to the careful tending of our current information >infrastructure, our libraries, only to wake up one morning to find that the >entire economy of the nation depends on making information commercially >viable. There's an element of Twilight Zone about this because libraries >are probably our most underfunded and underappreciated of institutions, with >the possible exception of day care centers. > >It's clear to me that the information highway isn't much about information. >It's about trying to find a new basis for our economy. I'm pretty sure I'm >not going to like the way information is treated in that economy. We know >what kind of information sells, and what doesn't. So I see our future as >being a mix of highly expensive economic reports and cheap online versions >of the National Inquirer. Not a pretty picture. > >This is a panel on "access." But I am not going to talk about access from >the usual point of view of physical or electronic access to the FutureNet. >Instead I am going to talk about intellectual access to materials and the >quality of our information infrastructure, with the emphasis on >"information.". Information is a social good and part of our "social >responsibility" is that we must take this resource seriously. > >>From the early days of our being a species with consciousness of its own >history, some part of society has had the role of preserving this history: >priests, learned scholars, archivists. Information was valued; valued >enough to be denied to some members of society; to be part of the ritual of >belonging to an elite. > >So I find it particularly puzzling that as move into this new "information >age" that our efforts are focused on the machinery of the information >system, while the electronic information itself is being treated like just >so much more flotsam and jetsam; this is not a democratization of >information, but a devaluation of information. > > On the Internet, many electronic information sources that we are declaring >worthy of "universal access" are administered by part-time volunteers; >graduate students who do eventually graduate, or network hobbyists. >Resources come and go without notice, or languish after an initial effort >and rapidly become out of date. Few network information resources have >specific and reliable funding for the future. As a telecommunications >system the Internet is both modern and mature; as an information system the >Internet is an amateur operation. > >Commercial information resources, of course, are only interested in >information that provides revenue. This immediately eliminates the entire >cultural heritage of poetry, playwriting, and theological thought, among others. > >If we value our intellectual heritage, and if we truly believe that access >to information (and that broader concept, knowledge) is a valid social goal, >we have to take our information resources seriously. Now I know that >libraries aren't perfect institutions. They tend to be somewhat slow-moving >and conservative in their embrace of new technologies; and some seem more >bent on hoarding than disseminating information. But what we call "modern >librarianship" has over a century of experience in being the tender of this >society's information resources. And in the process of developing and >managing that resource, the library profession has understood its >responsibilities in both a social and historical context. Drawing on that >experience, I am going to give you a short lesson on social responsibilities >in an information society. > >Here are some of our social responsibilities in relation to information: >Collection >Selection >Preservation >Organization >Dissemination > >Collection: >It is not enough to passively gather in whatever information comes your way, >like a spider waiting on its web. Information collection is an activity, >and an intelligent activity. It is important to collect and collocate >information units that support, complement and even contradict each other. >A collection has a purpose and a context; it says something about the >information and it says something about the gatherer of that information. >It is not random, because information itself is not random, and humans do >not produce information in a random fashion. > >Too many Internet sites today are a terrible hodge-podge, with little >intellectual purpose behind their holdings. It isn't surprising that >visitors to these sites have a hard time seeing the value of the information >contained therein. Commercial systems, on the other hand, have no incentive >to provide an intellectual balance that might "confuse" its user. > >In all of the many papers that have come out of discussion of the National >Information Infrastructure, it is interesting that there is no mention of >collecting information: there is no Library of Congress or National Archive >of the electronic inforamtion world. So in the whole elaborate scheme, no >one is responsbile for the collection of information. > >Selection: >Not all information is equal. This doesn't mean that some of it should be >thrown away, though inevitably there is some waste in the information world. >And this is not in support of censorship. But there's a difference between >a piece on nuclear physics by a Nobel laureate and a physics diorama entered >into a science fair by an 8-year-old. And there's a difference between >alpha release .03 and beta 1.2 of a software package. If we can't >differentiate between these, our intellectual future looks grim indeed. > >Certain sources become known for their general reliability, their >timeliness, etc. We have to make these judgments because the sheer quantity >of information is too large for us to spend our time with lesser works when >we haven't yet encountered the greats. > >This kind of selection needs to be done with an understanding of a >discipline and understanding of the users of a body of knowledge. The >process of selection overlaps with our concept of education, where members >of our society are directed to a particular body of knowledge that we hold >to be key to our understanding of the world. > >Preservation: >How much of what is on the Net today will exist in any form ten years from >now? And can we put any measure to what we lose if we do not preserve >things systematically? If we can't preserve it all, at least in one safely >archived copy, are we going to make decisions about preservation, or will we >leave it up to a kind of information Darwinianism? As we know, the true >value of some information may not be immediately known, and some ideas gain >in value over time. > >The commercial world, of course, will preserve only that which sells best. > >Organization: >This is an area where the current Net has some of its most visible problems, >as we have all struggled through myriad gopher menus, ftp sites, and web >pages looking for something that we know is there but cannot find. > >There is no ideal organization of information, but no organization is no >ideal either. The organization that exists today in terms of finding tools >is an attempt to impose order over an unorganized body. The human mind in >its information seeking behavior is a much more complex question than can be >answered with a keyword search in an unorganized information universe. When >we were limited to card catalogs and the placement of physical items on >shelves, we essentially had to choose only one way to organize our >information. Computer systems should allow us to create a multiplicity of >organization schemes for the same information, from traditional >classification, that relies on hierarchies and categories, to faceted >schemes, relevance ranking and feedback, etc. > >Unfortunately, documents do not define themselves. The idea of doing >WAIS-type keyword searching on the vast store of textual documents on the >Internet is a folly. Years of study of term frequency, co-occurrence and >other statistical techniques have proven that keyword searching is a >passable solution for some disciplines with highly specific vocabularies and >nearly useless in all others. And, of course, the real trick is to match >the vocaubulary of the seeker of information with that of the information >resource. Keyword searching not only doesn't take into account different >terms for the same concepts, it doesn't take into account materials in other >languages or different user levels (i.e. searching for children will >probably need to be different than searching done by adults, and libraries >actually use different subject access schemes for childrens' materials). >And non-textual items (software, graphics, sound) do not respond at all to >keyword searching. > >There is no magical, effortless way to create an organization for >information; at least today the best tools are a clearly defined >classification scheme and a human indexer. At least a classification scheme >or indexing scheme gives the searcher a chance to develop a rational >strategy for searching. > >The importance of organizational tools cannot be overstated. What it all >comes down to is that if we can't find the information we need, it doesn't >matter if it exists or not. If we don't find it, we don't encounter it, >then it isn't information. There are undoubtedly millions of bytes of files >on the Net that for all practical purposes are non-existant . > >My biggest fear in relation to the information highway is that intellectual >organization and access will be provided by the commercial world as a >value-added service. So the materials will exist, even at an affordable >price, but it will cost real money to make use of the tools that will make >it possible for you to find the information you need. If we don't provide >these finding tools as part of the public resource, then we aren't providing >the information to the public. > >Dissemination: >There's a lot of talk about the "electronic library". Actually, there's a >lot written about the electronic library, and probably much of it ends up on >paper. Most of us agree that for anything longer than a one-screen email >message, we'd much rather read documents off a paper page than off a screen. >While we can hope that screen technologies will eventually produce something >that truly substitutes for paper, this isn't true today. So what happens >with all of those electronic works that we're so eager to store and make >available? Do we reverse the industrial revolution and return printing of >documents to a cottage industry taking place in homes, offices and libraries? > >Many people talk about their concerns for the "last mile" - for the delivery >of information into every home. I'm concerned about the last yard . We can >easily move information from one computer to another, but how do we get it >from the computer to the human being in the proper format? Not all >information is suited to electronic use. Think of the auto repair manuals >that you drag under the car and drip oil on. Think of children's books, >with their drool-proof pages. > >Even the Library of Congress has announced that they are undertaking a huge >project to digitize 5 million items from their collection. Then what ? How >do they think we are going to make use of those materials? > >There are times when I can only conclude that we have been gripped by some >strange madness. I have fantasies of kidnapping the entire membership of >the administration's IITF committees and tying them down in front of 14" >screens with really bad flicker and forcing them to read the whole of >Project Gutenberg's electronic copy of Moby Dick. Maybe then we'd get some >concern about the last yard. > >In conclusion: >No amount of wiring will give us universal access >Just adding more files and computers to gopherspace, webspace and FTPspace >will not give us better access >And commercial information systems can be expected to be.... commercial Louise S. Robbins Assistant Professor and Director, Laboratory Library School of Library and Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 Phone: 608-263-2105 (office) or 263-2963 (laboratory library) [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Allison Smith University of Wisconsin Madison School of Library and Information Studies [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~