Browsing as scholarly version of gambling

Gambling Women, Trade Centre / Finland, Kotka / Flickr user flydime

I think and write about browsing and serendipity from time to time, and my perspective continues to evolve. I’m a big fan of online browsing possibilities, and firmly believe that serendipity can happen in online and physical environments. But, as I become more involved with humanities colleagues, I’m increasingly concerned about the potential loss of physical browsing and serendipity as libraries respond to budget and space pressures by gutting their collections.
Do scholars really browse physical collections? Do they really make great scholarly discoveries while browsing? Yep — sometimes they do.
The act of browsing libraries with the hope of finding a key unexpected resource is a kind of scholarly gambling. Although ground-breaking serendipitous findings are rare, they happen just often enough that the psychological appeal of variable rewards kicks in. And like gambling, big payoffs in serendipity are fairly widely publicized and rewarded (Da Vinci manuscript found, Jefferson book turns up). Just as lottery ticket sales tend to increase after a big win, stories and examples of scholarly serendipity serve to encourage new scholars to view libraries as deep mines, where they can dig around until they find some previously undiscovered jewels.

Another way that scholarly browsing is like gambling is that “winning” is not purely random. Just as “chance favours … the prepared mind”, there are countless ways to improve your chances at winning gambling games.

Scholars, like gamblers, are drawn to the idea of the big win, the possibility that this time they will find something awesome, unique, ground-breaking — that they will hit the jackpot. And the jackpot for scholars is usually something no one else has found or used. Which means that every low-use item we remove from our browsable collections — either for off-site storage, shared print repositories, or (gasp!) deaccessioning — reduces the odds of any given scholar hitting a big jackpot. By removing low-use items from our collections, we may be increasing the chances for small and medium payoffs, but we are drastically reducing the opportunities for big winners. By keeping only the stuff that is already being used, we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, we may very well be reducing the opportunities for truly innovative and original research.

Stanford explores Linked Data

The Report of the Stanford Linked Data Workshop (July 2011) is now available (also available via CLIR).

The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) conducted at week-long workshop on the prospects for a large scale, multi-national, multi-institutional prototype of a Linked Data environment for discovery of and navigation among the rapidly, chaotically expanding array of academic information resources. As preparation for the workshop, CLIR sponsored a survey by Jerry Persons, Chief Information Architect emeritus of SULAIR that was published originally for workshop participants as background to the workshop and is now publicly available. The original intention of the workshop was to devise a plan for such a prototype. However, such was the diversity of knowledge, experience, and views of the potential of Linked Data approaches that the workshop participants turned to two more fundamental goals: building common understanding and enthusiasm on the one hand and identifying opportunities and challenges to be confronted in the preparation of the intended prototype and its operation on the other.

My favorite outcome of the workshop was the Value Statement consisting of 7 “pithy” statements on Why Linked Data Approaches are Worth Modeling/Prototyping (p. 20 of the Workshop Report):

1. Linked open data (LOD) puts information where people are looking for it – on the web
2. LOD can expands discoverability of our content
3. LOD opens opportunities for creative innovation in digital scholarship and participation
4. LOD allows for open continuous improvement of data
5. LOD creates a store of machine-actionable data on which improved services can be built
6. Library linked open data might facilitate the break down the tyranny of domain silos
7. LOD can provide direct access to data in ways that are not currently possible, and provides unanticipated benefits that will emerge later as the stores of LOD expand exponentially.

Here at Stanford, we have appointed Phil Schreur, Head of the Metadata Department, to be the Master of Linked Data Projects. Phil will be working with Jerry Persons (our Chief Information Architect emeritus), Michael Keller (University Librarian) and eventulay Hugh Glaser (University of Southampton) to generate a model for a sizable prototype of a discovery/navigation environment based on Linked Open Data.

Stanford Libraries will also continue to pursue our alliance with Metaweb/Freebase in transcoding our bibliographic facts to URIs. We will continue sending HighWire micro-data to Schema.org, which then finds its way to DBpedia. We are also exploring linked data collaborations with the British Library, the British Museum, and JISC.

Confessions of a book-lover

At Stanford’s New Faculty Orientation lunch today, I had a lovely chat with one of our new faculty members in the social sciences. She told me that she has only been to Green Library once since she arrived on campus; and then “confessed” that she was actually just looking for a novel to read. I assured her that we expect faculty and students to use our resources for all kinds of reasons, including leisure reading, and I even made sure she knew about our extensive video collection.
She then talked about what a beautiful building it is, and how she enjoyed wandering around the stacks. Then, again in a confessional tone, she talked about how she really is a fan of physical browsing. She reassured me that she loves the ease of e-journals and other online content, but that she thinks physically wandering the aisles of the library helps her find the “hidden gems” and make unexpected connections (sounds like The Library as Mine). She said she thinks she actually used to read more broadly when she received journal issues in physical form, rather than an emailed table of contents.
None of what she said struck me a particularly novel (no pun intended); but what surprised me was how embarrassed she seemed to be to admit to a love of the physical book and the physical library. She went to great lengths to tell me how much she loved ejournals and doing online searching and research, as if to reassure me that her love of browsing and of physical books didn’t make her a luddite.
Had it really become socially embarrassing to be a book-lover? Even on a college campus?

Visiting with the Emory Libraries

I had a great visit with folks at Woodruff Library at Emory University on Monday. They have some very cool things going on at Emory–from processing and providing access to the Salman Rushdie born-digital archives, to a new combined services desk, to planning for a Digital Scholarship Commons. I was also intrigued by the “grass-roots” Digital Library Initiatives group–staff from across the library who meet regularly to keep up to date on digital library topics (at Emory) and beyond. The group produces White Papers for the rest of the library staff on emerging digital library topics–short summaries, with suggested readings. The group is a volunteer, open-membership group, not an official working group of the library. I might have to steal this idea for our staff!

They also have a very active and well-attended weekly Info Forum program of talks for staff, for library project updates and other hot topics. The program is run by the HR department, but apparently library staff are not shy about suggesting topics and/or volunteering to present.

In exchange for the folks at Emory generously spending the day chatting with me, I gave a presentation for their staff on things we are doing here at Stanford: Public Services at Stanford: Good times, bad times (with apologies to Led Zepelin)*. Although I spent much of the presentation bragging about cool stuff we are doing (especially SearchWorks), I made sure to leave time to talk honestly about our challenges. I am very glad I did, because it set the stage for some really fruitful conversations throughout the day about some of the common issues facing large academic libraries.

* I link to the presentation on Google Docs, because it really makes no sense unless you can see the Notes View, and SlideShare doesn’t seem to accommodate that very well.

New tech meets old tech with QR codes

Whiteboard with QR code

Plenty of libraries are doing cool stuff with QR codes. We have added QR codes to our catalog records (public version to be released soon), even though we aren’t yet sure how they will be used.
We have also been playing around with different uses for small mobile whiteboards as ways to create some community and interaction.
Here, we ask a “This Day in History” question, and tape a QR code to the board for a resource that answer the question.

I expect plenty of patrons won’t know what the QR code is, which hopefully means they will ask.
From Wikipedia: “A QR Code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobiles phones with camera, and smartphones.”

All about Linked Data

Freebase & Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) are working together to create RDF triples involving Stanford’s holdings to test a large prototype of a Linked Data discovery environment

Linked Data describes a method of embedding semantic information into metadata so that objects on the web can be linked in intelligent ways by automated agents and software designed to guide readers to useful related information that they might not otherwise have discovered. Linked Data is a component of the Semantic Web.

Below are some suggested readings, presentations, and videos for learning more about Linked Data.

Very good Wikipedia entries (with lots of references):

• Linked Data
• Semantic Web
• Resource Description Frameworks (RDF).

Why Linked Data?:

• In By Any Other Name, Chuck Henry of CLIR explains the meaning behind attempting linked data projects.
• Presentation by Professor David Nicholas, Director of CIBER on information behaviour of the researcher of the future

From Tim Berners-Lee, who first envisioned a semantic web:

• Tim Berners-Lee’s TED Talks on Linked Data:
  • The Next Web of open, linked data
  • The year open data went worldwide
• Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, and Ora Lassila on The Semantic Web in Scientific American, May 2001
• Tim Berners-Lee Linked Data

On the Potential of Linked Data:

• In The Pew Internet and American Life Report, The Fate of the Semantic Web, “some 895 experts … predict the likely progress toward achieving the goals of the semantic web by the year 2020.”
• The Nuts and Bolts of Opening Government Data in the Spring 2010 Issue of JISC’s Digital Content Quarterly
• Daniel Chudnov Texas Conference on Digital Libraries keynote: Better Living through Linked Data

On Government Information and Linked Data:

• Short post by Ed Sommers of Library of Congress on the 5 stars of linked data
• Sommers on research ideas for library linked data
• A set of links and posts on linked data and government information at Free Government Info

Who’s surprised by the Ithaka report?

I was going to blog about the Ithaka Faculty Survey 2009, but Wayne Bivens-Tatum at Princeton already made most of my points on his Academic Librarian blog. Wayne makes the excellent point that the library’s declining role as “gatekeepers” in not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve posted before that I think we are in danger of becoming a Gate with no Fence.

I’m just wondering if anyone is seriously surprised by the Ithaka findings. Are there really folks working in academic libraries who don’t already know that discovery is happening elsewhere, that faculty are increasingly comfortable consuming digital content (especially journals), and that faculty remain conservative in their own publishing practices? If so, see the picture above.

The big question for us is “What are we going to do now?” And I still think some of the best answers will come when we start Thinking the Unthinkable, and stop worrying about saving libraries, and start thinking about supporting scholarship. See the Academic Library Manifesto for more ideas.

Stanford Libraries in the news

A round-up of Stanford Libraries in the news/blogosphere over the last month or so:

• Stanford University Launches xSearch, a Multidisciplinary Search: PR Newswire article about our newly launched federated search tool, xSearch.
• In Survey of Academic Librarians and Ebooks, Pointers Toward a Better System: Library Journal article about HighWire Press survey of librarians’ thoughts on e-books and e-book readers.
• Pac Rat: Article in The Atlantic about preserving old video games. See also: Library of Congress on a Quest to Save Forgotten Video Games
• Fending Off Digital Decay, Bit by Bit: NY Times article about preservation of born-digital archives. Mostly about our friends at Emory University, but Stanford’s Digital Forensics Lab gets a mention.
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Stanford signs new deal with Google

Stanford University has signed an expanded agreement with Google, affirming Stanford’s support for the amended Google Books Search proposed settlement and establishing Stanford as a Fully Participating Library under the terms of the amended settlement agreement.

As noted on the Google Public Policy Blog,

Stanford joins the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Texas, who also expanded their original partnerships with Google.

Some key quotes from the Stanford Report:

“Stanford is on the cutting edge of technology development and is using technology to improve access to information not just for their faculty and students, but for the world,” said Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director.

“Stanford is on the cutting edge of technology development and is using technology to improve access to information not just for their faculty and students, but for the world,” said Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director.

Provost John Etchemendy signed the agreement for Stanford University. “This agreement is consistent with Stanford’s mission of sharing and disseminating knowledge, and allows us to expand our participation by sharing more works from our library,” Etchemendy said. “We support the efforts to make books more broadly available to the American public and to all of higher education.”

Clearly, a key motivation behind Stanford’s involvement in and support of Google Books is a desire to increase access to our collection beyond the Stanford community.

Why I’m reading Lacuna on my iPhone

The story of how I ended up downloading and happily reading Lacuna on my iPhone got me thinking anew about the relationship between content and format. When we wonder if print is better than digital, or if a podcast is better than a lecture, we are asking the wrong question. It is more complicated than which is better, and it is more complicated than personal preference. We need to understand how the combination of format and content effect outcomes. Under what conditions is digital delivery of content going to produce better learning outcomes than print? Under what conditions is it more pleasurable to read a book in print than on a Kindle or an iPhone?

I began “reading” Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver as an audiobook. It was perfect for my wife and I to listen to on the way to our honeymoon in Mariposa, and on the daily drives into Yosemite that week. But we got through only a quarter of it, and when we tried listening at home I would get too distracted.
My wife plunged ahead without me, listening to it on her daily commute. I very much wanted to continue reading Lacuna as well, but I bike to work and don’t think I could listen fully and bike safely at the same time (feel free to insert walking and chewing gum joke here).
Yesterday I had 4 unplanned hours to kill in the Dallas airport so I naturally went to the bookstore. I almost bought a print copy, but Lacuna is not out in paperback yet. The hardcover was just too pricey and too unwieldy for travel reading. I’ve also found hardcovers unwieldy for my other usual pleasure reading locations–the bathtub and the bed. So, I resigned myself to waiting for the paperback.
Later, while playing with Duke’s Library app for iPhone, I searched for “Lacuna” and discovered there was a Kindle edition available (loaded on a Kindle available for check out at Duke). I quickly downloaded the Kindle for iPhone app, bought a copy of Lacuna for $9.99, and happily read a few chapters on the plane.
I was surprised at how easy it is to read a novel on the iPhone. I generally hate reading anything more than 2 pages on my laptop, so I didn’t expect to like reading on the iPhone. But size matters — the iPhone is light enough and small enough that it is like a very small paperback. You get about a paragraph per screen, and you turn the page with a flick of the finger.
Now, anytime I have some spare time, I can get back to reading my book, without having to carry a heavy book around. I can read it in bed, and am going to get a waterproof cover so I can read in the bathtub as well. In this case, my goal was portable pleasure reading, and the iPhone works great. I suppose an actual Kindle (or other e-book reader) would work too, but I don’t have one, and don’t really want to have to carry another device around with me. For my purposes, reading Lacuna on the iPhone is a perfect fit.

(Oh, and for those interested, I wrote about 3/4 of this post on my iPhone. I finished it up, edited, and added links on my laptop.)