Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar1 Friday Afternoon Seminar, Sept 21, 2007 Reference Library Service in a Digital Environment: A Question; an Explanation; and a Solution Michael Buckland

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar2 Five ideas Understanding requires knowing the context. Context determines understanding. 2. Using Internet resources should be like using a library reference collection – and as easy and as reliable. 3. Design: Find the context of any museum object, document, or performance: What is related to it in what it is, where it came from, when it originated, and who is associated with it? 4.WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO (“4W”) as a structure. 5.Make better use of existing descriptive metadata.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar3 Purpose of the Reference collection 1.Look up / verify factual data: “Ready Reference” 2.Establish context for any topic. esp. WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO Understanding means knowing context. Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays Facet Dictionary, encyclopedia Topics Cross-refs WHAT Atlas, gazetteerPlaces Maps WHERE Almanac, chronology Time Timelines WHEN Biogr. Dict., Who’s Who Persons Personal relationships WHO

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar4 Any word, name, document, or event Any resource: Audio, Images, Texts, Numeric data, Objects, Virtual reality, Webpages Any catalog: Archives, Libraries, Museums, TV, Publishers Connect it with its context – and other resources. Facet Vocabulary Displays WHAT Thesaurus Cross- e.g. LCSH references WHERE Gazetteer Map WHEN Period directory Timeline WHO Biograph. dict. Personal e.g. Who’s Who relations Context and relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies – Project diagram.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar5 The Internet Public Library offers a digital replica of a paper- based reference collection. Excellent. But could we do better?

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar6 Digital technology does not need to copy the hierarchical structure and constraints of codex technology... Digital techniques can link directly and horizontally with: -- Procedural interoperability (e.g. Z39:50) and -- Vocabulary interoperability (e.g. Dewey’s Relativ Index to the Decimal Classification). Suppose we designed directly to provide the functionality of a reference collection on those two assumptions. Suppose that we started with the user’s need for know about WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHO.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar7 Kung fu movies SEE Martial Arts films FORMERLY Hand-to-hand fighting, oriental, in motion pictures “Automobile” in four dialects: - PASS MOT VEH, SPARK IGN ENG (U.S.Import/Export statistics) - TL 205 (Library of Congress Classification) - 180/280 (US Patent classification) (Standard Industrial Classification) “HS Digital auto data proc mach contng in the same housing a CPU and input & output device.”(International Harmonized Commodity Classification System). NEED TO MAP TO & BETWEEN UNFAMILIAR VOCABULARIES = Computer! WHAT Subject headingsCross-references in & between vocabularies

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar8 WHERE -- PLACE Some problems with place names: - Different forms: St. Petersburg, Санкт Петербург, Saint- Pétersbourg,... - Multiple names: Cluj, in Romania / Roumania / Rumania, is also called Klausenburg and Kolozsvar. - Names change: Bombay became Mumbai. - Same names: 18 different places have been called Beijing. - Anachronisms: No country called Germany before Vague, e.g. Midwest, Silicon Valley, Far East - Boundaries change: 19th century Poland; Balkans; USSR.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar9 WHERE Place name gazetteer Map Ctesiphon (Ancient site) Dots link to portal

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar10 WHAT is WHERE? Catalog + gazetteer + map. Search for books on Folklore, then geographical sort.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar11 WHEN? What happened in IRELAND in 1690s? Time Period Directory records in Google Earth. Zoom to Ireland and 1690s. Icon for siege of Limerick, Click link for library search. Catalog records list books and show context.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar12 WHO Biographical Dictionary Complex relationships Life events metadata WHAT: Actions prisoner WHERE: Places Holstein WHEN: Times WHO: People Margaret Sambiria But ideally we need external links to the best resources! Current project: Context finding for biographical texts. Example: Electronic search engine pioneer.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar13 Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, ; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, ; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, ; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, ; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, ; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d WHO? Click a name to search for an internet resource.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar14 Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, ; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, ; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, ; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, ; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, ; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d WHERE? Trace a life-path.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar15 Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, ; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, ; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, ; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, ; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, ; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d WHAT? Find descriptive documents

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar16 New project! “Context and Relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies” Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative; Celtic Studies Program; School of Information; Emma Goldman Papers; and the Queen’s University, Belfast. Queen’s funded by JISC to digitize back-runs of 100 Irish studies journals JSTOR-style; Berkeley funded by NEH-IMLS Advancing Knowledge program to provide contextualizing tools. We need online the functionality of a reference collection. 1. Context finder: Search support from text to reference works. 2. Context builder: Making, retaining notes / links to reference works. 3. Context provider: Enriching reference works by adding reverse links, e.g. place name gazetteer mentions where a place is mentioned in texts.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar17 Initial sketch for “Context Finding / Building” interface. Save search path Save link & notes as “stand-off” markup. Save link & notes as embedded mark-up. Insert / block text Define facet Ranked lists of suggested resources for each facet chosen Display of search result

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar18 Edmund Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum : Locorum et Tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae = An Index, with Identifications, to the Gaelic Names of Places and Tribes If available online, one could, when reading an Irish studies text: 1. Search it (Context finder) 2. Markup text with links to it (Context builder); 3. Markup Hogan with reverse links to the Irish studies text (Context provider) – with rich consequences.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar19 Facet Vocabulary Displays Reference Genre WHAT Topics Cross-references Dictionary, Encyclopedia WHERE PlacesMaps Atlas, gazetteer WHEN Periods Timeline Almanac, Chronology WHO Persons Personal relationships Biogr.dictionary, Whos Who Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays Facet Dictionary, encyclopedia TopicsCross-refs WHAT Atlas, gazetteerPlacesMaps WHERE Almanac, chronology Time Timelines WHEN Biogr. Dict., Who’s WhoPersons Personal relationships WHO Paper-based reference collection: Codex determines structure and use. Reversed in a digital environment: Metadata forms infrastructure.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar20 Importance of inverting the relationship between the part and the whole: -- Indexes are created by inversion -- Union indexes: Tell you which reference work mentions your query, like the Science Citation Index and Google.

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar21 Technical comment: WHAT, WHERE, WHEN indexes are often complex. Links create infrastructure! Library subject headings: Topic – Geographic subdivision – Chronological subdivision Place name gazetteer: Place name – Type – Spatial markers (Lat & long) – When Time Period Directory: Period name – Type – Time markers (Calendar) – Where

Sept 21, 2007Friday Afternoon Seminar22 Conclusion: -- The context finder supports reference queries; -- The context builder prompts reference queries; -- The context provider develops a reference environment far richer than could be provided on paper; -- These tools would empower users and well as reference librarians and editors, publishers, and everyone else even from laptops in dorms from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. So what next?