Context Book: Creative Synergy

I wrote this post as an assignment for the Hyperlinked Library MOOC which is San Jose State University's first MOOC.  It is being posted here on Information Metamorphosis for the first time, and I will cross-post it to my MOOC blog.

This is not a book review.  I read one book followed by part of another, and was suddenly inspired.  Consider this strange equation.  It doesn't have an equals sign because this post is the answer.


     

These are two authors who would be in an adversarial dialogue on a talk show.  Seth Godin is very excited by the creation of communities based on shared goals on the internet.  Jaron Lanier is deeply concerned by internet trends that he believes are dehumanizing.  In fact, they are some of the same trends that excite Godin.

 I hoped to share Godin's enthusiasm when I read his book, but instead I found him disappointingly  repetitive.  Godin is a motivational speaker.  Hammering on the same points can work very well in a speech.  I found a TED talk by Godin from 2009.  If you view this, you will not have to read Godin's book and you will probably find it far more enjoyable.  I embedded the video of this TED talk.  If it doesn't appear in the version of the post that you see, it's here .


  I absolutely agreed with  Seth Godin about the potential of internet communities and the importance of the true fan spreading great ideas, but it wasn't until I read Jaron Lanier's dismissal of  the creativity of mash ups devised by true fans that I felt galvanized to respond.

Mash ups are based on synthesis.  They make connections.  Someone who has never seen such a connection before could be inspired. It was after I wrote that response in my notes toward Context Book, that the idea of Makerspace fandom came to me.  Libraries should think creatively about nurturing a fan community, and think fannishly (the way fans would) about creativity.

How do you promote a Makerspace?   Some libraries have posted  material about their Makerspace.  I was impressed with the variety of services that the Detroit Public Library Makerspace offers.  Here's a link to their page about it at http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/hype/hype-makerspace .  Yet it seems to me that fans could spread the word about the Makerspace  more widely than the library could on its own.

How do you establish a fandom? What if the patrons who use the Makerspace had a forum on the library website to post about their projects?  There could be some great discussions that support the Makerspace.  Patrons could post about the discussions on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter. This would increase interest in the Makerspace and its forum.  In addition to discussion, there could also be creative responses.  So suppose Sarah posted a picture of the dress she made on the sewing machine, and Joe posted a picture of the t-shirt with a silk-screened image that he'd just produced at the Makerspace. Then Judy mashes up the two images, and Bob becomes creatively inspired by the mashup and writes a poem about it.  Kerry sees the poem, and writes a drabble based on the poem. A drabble is  a story that is exactly one hundred words.  Sam could have found the drabble amazing and made a video of himself singing a song that he wrote based on the drabble.  These are the sorts of things that fans do when they get creative. Soon people would start coming to the forum to see the creativity and perhaps participate in it themselves.

Jaron Lanier criticized mash ups because they're derivative.  He thinks that creativity will become exhausted because it depends on earlier work.  Shakespeare was derivative.  He borrowed plots from other writers who no one remembers.  We remember Shakespeare because his derivative versions were so compelling. Shakespeare was not the only major artist who was derivative.  No one creates in a vacuum.  Artists form communities because they become inspired by one another's work.  The people in a fandom do the same. Occasionally, there will be incidents involving blatant copying from someone else. Fans will then spread the word that the offender has plagiarized. 

A Makerspace community forum will need  guidelines and policies to prevent abusive practices such as cyber-bullying.  (Yes, it happens, but I think Jaron Lanier exaggerates the extent of it. We are not all trolls as he claims. I also don't think Lanier should feed inner trolls by insisting that everyone engages in trollishness.)   The forum will also need encouragement.  Librarians should include creative responses in a description of what posts on the forum are appropriate.  Perhaps they could add a supportive comment now and then.  They could also survey the members of the forum about potential new Makerspace services which would cause these users to become enthusiastic  about the possibilities, and write social media posts asking others to support these potential services.  A Makerspace fandom is not expensive.  When it grows to a certain size, it will become self-sustaining, and it will pay the library back with boatloads of community support.

This post is about synergy.  My response to these two contrasting books is synergistic.  So is the process of building a fan community on a library website.  If your library doesn't have a Makerspace, consider how you could build a similar fandom around one of your programs.  

Touring with ALASC: The African American Museum and Library of Oakland

ALASC stands for American Library Association Students Chapter.  The San Jose State University chapter is very active and has received awards.  I have attended several other ALASC tours during my SLIS career.  They have always been interesting and insightful.  This is the first time that I have gotten the opportunity to describe such a tour on my blog at the request of  tour coordinator,  Elissa Papendick.

The African American Museum and Library of Oakland (AAMLO)was originally a Carnegie library built in 1902. It is an Oakland historic site but it was severely damaged in the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989.  AAMLO was closed until funding could be found to repair the damage and re-construct the building.  In the vestibule, I saw the plaque in honor of the restoration of AAMLO in 2001.  I also noticed the sculpted head of African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass which had been donated by former Congressman and Oakland Mayor, Ron Dellums whose papers have been deposited at the AAMLO archive along with those of current  Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Ron Dellums was the original head of the Congressional African American Caucus.  Barbara Lee is the current head of the Congressional African American Caucus.  As a resident of Oakland, I am proud that Barbara Lee represents me in Congress.

I and my fellow LIS students first spoke to the archivist.  He told us that many finding aids for the archival collections had been digitized, but he still had about a year's worth of work. He is trying to develop a collection policy for the archive.  He expects it to be a 20-30 page document. There are 300 feet of archival materials on site and another 700-800 feet off site.   Take a look at this page about AAMLO Archival Collections to get an idea of the amazing resources represented in this repository. There are 160 collections that are mainly photographic representing all aspects of African American life.  He would like to digitize some of these historic photos for the public to view online.When asked about the Black Panthers, he responded that the  AAMLO Museum has a small amount of Black Panther related material, but AAMLO archives didn't have the funds to purchase the papers of the most prominent Black Panthers.  They've gone to Stanford University's archives. The archive is open to research scholars by appointment.

In the Museum's gallery on the upper level, there was an imposing mural called Journey of Promise which portrayed national figures in African American history, African American figures in California history and local Oakland African American figures.  There were photo displays, and  oral history videos in the permanent exhibit with accounts from a diverse collection of Oakland's citizens belonging to a variety of backgrounds and occupations.  The current exhibit dealing with voting rights also deals with the issue as it applies to a number of different ethnic and cultural groups who have suffered voting discrimination.

It was in the gallery that the reference librarian spoke to us about the uniqueness of AAMLO.  Executive Director Rick Moss is a historian and a curator.  This makes AAMLO the only library in the Oakland Public Library system that isn't headed by a librarian.  Since AAMLO houses a museum, archives and library under one roof this is appropriate.

The library is composed of a 13,000 item reference collection dealing with African American subjects. No one can check out any books at AAMLO's library.  Every item remains on the premises of the library. 

After browsing through the reference library, I went to talk to the archivist a bit about digitization using Encoded Archival Description (EAD) which I had studied at SLIS.

I was glad to discover a library, museum and archive that I had never visited in my own city.  I hoped to return to AAMLO in the near future. 

Library Kindle Loans and Privacy

This is a re-blog from Information Metamorphosis on WordPress.

Since I'm a new blogger, I'm surfing the blogosphere  and uncovering posts that aren't the most current, but I feel that I have a perspective to contribute to this issue.

I just viewed Sarah Houghton-Jan's video posted October 18, 2011 to her blog Librarian in Black and here is my reaction:

I do agree with Sarah Houghton-Jan that librarians must stand up to protect the public from  potential misuse of  any records dealing with their reading.  Libraries have historically been a bulwark against censorship.  They have had annual Banned Books Week events.  Intellectual freedom has been an important value of  the library profession.  It's such a  core belief for me as a future librarian that I feel that Sarah Houghton-Jan's call to action doesn't go far enough.

Amazon has records of all Kindle e-book transactions, not just library Kindle e-book transactions.  If librarians really care about  reading privacy rights and intellectual freedom, then they shouldn't  confine themselves to pushing for the confidentiality of  library downloads through Amazon.  Neither Amazon nor the public will understand why library e-book downloads should have special status.  I think it's important to put it out there that the personal data associated with any book transaction should be kept confidential.  This should apply to all book vendors, not just Amazon.  It's terrific that California has a reading privacy law.  Yet when we're dealing with internet records, like those of online book vendors, the solution needs to be federal.    Libraries should advocate for Congressional legislation that protects reading privacy in all contexts.

The Goodreads Experience: What if Everyone Cared About Cataloging?

This re-blog from Information Metamorphosis on WordPress refers to an earlier period of time when Amazon and Goodreads were in conflict.  Now that Amazon has bought Goodreads, this conflict no longer exists.  Amazon has resumed being a metadata partner of Goodreads.  This post  shows that people who are not catalogers do care about cataloging on Goodreads.  I am sure they also care about cataloging on Librarything and other internet sites where ordinary users catalog.

 Goodreads  is a social networking site for book readers, but I have seen it characterized as a social cataloging site.  The main purpose of Goodreads is the formation of connections between members based on their reading preferences. Yet another important function of  Goodreads is the cataloging of members' books on virtual shelves.  Since members can examine each other's shelves and compare books,  cataloging facilitates the social networking aspect. There is a subset of volunteers that maintain the database who are called "librarians",  but any Goodreads member can enter a record for a book  that isn't found in search.   A  surprising number of members who aren't Goodreads librarians are concerned about the accuracy of the metadata.  They post to the group for Goodreads librarians asking for the titles, authors, formats, numbers of pages, publication dates and ISBNs to be corrected.  They are concerned about differentiation of editions as well.

When Amazon recently ended its relationship with Goodreads , Amazon's metadata could no longer be used.  Although Goodreads did eventually establish a relationship with Ingram, Goodreads librarians were called upon to assist in finding alternate  metadata sources.  The current Goodreads policy is that users can only enter data from books in hand, or from  libraries, publishers or author's websites. As a Goodreads librarian, I worked to recover data for books that I and my Goodreads friends had shelved.

During this transition to Ingram's  metadata, concern over missing information in records has become very prevalent on Goodreads.  There has been an increase in applications to become Goodreads librarians.

I mention all of this because there is an ongoing discussion on RDA-L, a  listserv devoted to the discussion of RDA,  on whether library users really care about metadata.  Based on my experience of Goodreads, it seems to me that many do care.  Professional library catalogers definitely are not alone in the metadataverse.

One of the stated purposes of  RDA is to allow for metadata sharing in a linked data environment.  The wide realms of metadata producers and users outside of libraries is being considered in the RDA development process.

Goodreads has been using Library of Congress  name authorities for disambiguation purposes for as long as Goodreads librarians have existed.  Worldcat is often utilized by these Goodreads volunteers to confirm the accuracy of user provided data.  There has always been a strong link between Goodreads and the world of libraries.  They are clearly an example of exactly the sort of non-library entity that RDA is intended to benefit.  So an examination of how Goodreads utilizes metadata, and the metadata needs of its users should be relevant to any discussion of whether ordinary users really care about metadata.

New York Public Library's Biblion Project

I have re-blogged this post from Information Metamorphosis on WordPress.  It deals with how a library can utilize linked data.

James Weinheimer's recent podcast of Cataloging Matters no.14 dealt with how linked data can be viewed in various ways.  He concluded that library users needed selection to make sense of that vast network of links.

I retained Weinheimer's salient point when I viewed the recording of the San Jose State University LIS Colloquium presentation by Deanna Lee today.  Deanna Lee is the Vice President of Communications and Marketing at New York Public Library.  The subject of her talk was NYPL's Biblion Project.  Biblion is an app that allows NYPL to present digitized archival materials in a manner that provides access to them for a much wider audience.  It also allows users to browse the materials in the same fashion that they would browse the shelves of a library.  This was a goal of Biblion.  Lee wanted users to be able to make serendipitous discoveries.  It occurred to me that the Biblion Project is an example of a library making use of the linked data paradigm.  All the materials in the collection are linked through the app.  Serendipitous discoveries are made by following links.

Lee pointed out that this project could not have been been realized so quickly if the collection didn't already have a finding aid and had not already been digitized.  I need to point out that archival collections are digitized using metadata schemas.  Encoded Archival Description (EAD) facilitates the digitization of finding aids.  Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) is often used by archives and museums to digitize the items in a collection.  So metadata is the foundation for the utilization of linked data.  NYPL  could not have selected this particular data set if  the metadata hadn't already been made available to them.  This is the key to the universe of linked data. So cataloging does indeed matter, and the methods used to catalog materials are crucial.  This is the means by which libraries can remain relevant for users.

Librarything vs. Goodreads

 This is yet another re-blog from Information Metamorphosis on WordPress that I created last semester when I was a Peer Mentor for LIBR 203 at San Jose State University School of Library Science.

Peer Mentors at SJSU SLIS do group presentations online through web conferencing.  These group presentations are called meet-ups.  When I did my Peer Mentor meetup presentation, I discussed Wordpress, Blogger and Librarything.  I was hoping that someone would ask me how Librarything compares with Goodreads because I was completely prepared for that question.  Since no one had any questions for me, I thought I would compare Librarything and Goodreads on my blog.

My recent experience cataloging on Librarything  for a special library with a small collection has persuaded me that  Goodreads is in no way the equal of Librarything when it comes to cataloging a collection of books.  I have been so impressed with my ability to obtain complete bibliographic records from libraries for use on Librarything.  Anyone who has cataloged on Librarything will be disappointed that Goodreads doesn't have this relationship with libraries.  If a member wants to shelve a book on Goodreads that isn't part of the database, he or she can't simply pull up a record from the Library of Congress.  If a book hasn't been previously shelved by a Goodreads member, or imported from Ingram, its current bibliographic partner, members must fill out every field in the record manually.  Unfortunately, some members have no idea of how to record information from a book in hand.  This means that the Goodreads database is riddled with errors.   The volunteers who maintain the database at Goodreads  have a task similar to the legendary Sisyphus.  For every record successfully corrected, there will probably be ten more that require revision that have recently been entered manually.

So why do I still love Goodreads?  The primary purpose of Goodreads is social networking  for book readers, and that is the area where it excels.  When someone requests to be your friend on Goodreads, you can do a book comparison.  It will tell you what books you have in common and the percentage of similarity between you.   There is an amazing array of  affinity groups.  Many select a book of the month to discuss or have reading challenges.   Goodreads has also added a tool that allows group members to keep track of their challenge reads.  Goodreads  does everything it can to facilitate  the formation of communities of readers.

Another thing that I love about Goodreads is that some of my Goodreads reviews appear on Worldcat.   Although Goodreads can't import metadata from Worldcat, Worldcat can harvest reviews from Goodreads.  I have established a shelf on Goodreads to identify which of my reviews appear on Worldcat.  I am proud  of my contribution to my favorite bibliographic utility through Goodreads.

The Value of the San Jose State University School of Library Information Science Peer Mentor Program

This is another re-blog from the WordPress version of this blog. I have decided to copy all my significant posts to this Blogger version because I will eventually be deleting the WordPress version entirely.

This post was created while I was a Peer Mentor at SJSU SLIS last semester.

 Peer Mentors are students at SJSU SLIS . Debbie Faires, who runs the program, requests applications every semester. Peer Mentors assist students in LIBR 203, the required introduction to the tools and technology used at SLIS. There are a number of good motivations for becoming a peer mentor. My motivations were an interest in helping students and a need for recent instruction experience. I taught a training class for U.S. Census enumerators, but that was back in 1990. I have had no previous experience in online instruction, and I thought that such experience would be useful for my future career.

The Peer Mentor program was established because LIBR 203 instructors teach multiple sections of the course, and cannot be everywhere at once. Vicki Steiner, the wonderful instructor that I'm assisting, teaches four sections of LIBR 203. Students are attempting to finish the course quickly, and will often need immediate assistance. Peer mentors have more to offer students than their availability. We can offer our experience as students in the program. We can offer practical suggestions about study habits and organization. We can make recommendations for courses in the areas that interest individual students, and tell you about their workloads. We can tell you who to contact at SJSU SLIS if you have a particular problem. If we don't know, we can find out. That is the value of having a mentor.

Those who are training for the information professions are in the business of helping people. This means that successful candidates for an MLIS degree want to help others. I have found librarians and archivists outside of SLIS who were willing to assist me. This is an advantage of being part of a helping profession. Students at SLIS should look for mentors along their career path. The best way to find mentors is by joining professional organizations, but students can also find mentors through volunteering and through internships. I hope that my students in LIBR 203 will take full advantage of the opportunity of having a mentor, so that can be more successful students.