The Synthetic Librarian

This post is an assignment for a graduate course I’m taking at the University of Alberta: EDES 501 an Exploration of Web 2.0 for Libraries. In this assignment, I am asked to reflective on what I have learned throughout the course, and discuss how it will impact me my future.

In EDES 501 we learn, primarily, through blogging. We are given 13 blogging assignments. For each one, we have to explore a different Web 2.0 technology, read about it, use it, reflect on it, and blog about our experience. Because the course is offered as part of the University of Alberta’s Teacher-Librarianship program, we are required to put these technologies into a library (or teacher-librarian) context. The blogging assignments require that we read the scholarly literature as well as the blogsphere. Finally, and most importantly, we must demonstrate our ability to use Web 2.0 technologies: we must apply these technologies by creating podcasts, videos, etc.

I believe that Cognition is for Action (Wilson, 2002, p. 626). Our intelligence comes from and is directed toward our need to interact with our environment. By demonstrating our use of technologies, instead of just discussing those technologies, we change the context of how we perceive those technologies and open ourselves to new opportunities for applying those technologies. EDES 501 changes how we think by making us do.

Two illustrate this, I will share three highlights of my EDES 501 exploration. Each be framed in the form of an assertion about Web 2.0. The most important one, I will argue, is that Web 2.0 is a technology that turns participation into value.

Highlights of my Web 2.0 Exploration

Privacy is Misunderstood

While I only touched on it lightly in several blog assignments, the concept of privacy was with me constantly during this course. Specifically, the notion that privacy is misunderstood by people both as users of Web 2.0 systems and by those who operate Web 2.0 systems.

The primary misunderstanding that must be addressed is that privacy is not confidentiality. Confidentiality (or secrecy) is one method we employ to get privacy. It is confidentiality that most Web 2.0 sites offer us instead of privacy.

What is privacy then? A traditional view of privacy is that one has the right to be alone or apart. (Woodward, 2007, p. x). Privacy, in the modern sense, is an individual’s right to control information about them (Acquisti, et al., 2007, Chapter 1). Both of these definitions are important in Web 2.0.

We would not like to have anyone feel that they are forced to participate or that we have invaded their private spaces. For librarians considering uses for Web 2.0, we must be sensitive to the fact that users may not appreciate us fulfilling our professional role in spaces that “feel private.” I have largely advocated for risking violations of this view of privacy (for example, when I suggested pro-active reference as a form of library marketing).

Mostly, this definition impacts the degree to which we might require users to participate in open social systems in order to benefit from library services. Users must be able to get reasonable access to library services, without having to join Facebook, tweet their personal questions, or expose themselves. Twitter evangelists take note: it is OK for people to NOT like and not value Twitter.

I am much more concerned with the second, modern, definition of privacy. I would be extremely critical of the privacy practices of Web 2.0 companies, but instead I will highlight how the emerging practices of Web 2.0 companies are creating the privacy: Web 2.0 is giving us increasing control over the information about us.

Facebook has had a number of “privacy train-wrecks”. Facebook has typically responded by offering users new controls to allow them to decide who can see their information. The fundemantal features of social media sharing are “sharing” and “social relationships”. As these services evolve there is a natural tendency to provide features that enhances these two things: find grain control over how and with whom we share. This is also, happily, the modern definition of privacy. By fulfilling our sharing needs, Web 2.0 must also fulfil our need for privacy.

It is important to note that there is a giant loophole in my optimistic observation of Web 2.0 privacy. Consider Facebook: since this release of their application platform privacy controls have been irrelevant, because it bypasses all those controls. Think also of Google. Google knows not only what you search for, but due to the popularity of its advertising system and analytics products, they know almost everything you read online (I challenge you to look at 100 pages and mark down which have Google urchin, analytics, or adwords embedded in them: most pages allow google to track you).

The standard discourse related to Web 2.0 and privacy however focuses around how much information we “put out there.” Through this course I have come to realize that the real issue is “how much control will we have to share with whom we want.” Libraries, as they develop their own Web 2.0 applications, must give users choices both to share and not share. Too many library applications today offer no sharing, perhaps under the misunderstanding that privacy is provided to patrons only when we keep their information secret. Let us, as a profession, find new ways to allow our users to share what they are comfortable sharing.

Organization of Knowledge has become Ambient Findability in Library 2.0

Why should we help our users “share”? Because, in Web 2.0 sharing is how information becomes organized (and organizing knowledge is a fundemantal aspect of librarianship).

The last chapter of Morville (200x) has this to say about the findability of stuff on the web:

Findability is at the centre of a fundamental shift in the way we define authority, allocate trust, make decisions, and learn independently…. Because our trust in authority has eroded, we must find our own solutions. We select our sources. We choose our news. But since we’re swimming in information, our decision quality is poor. So, how do we stop from drowning? We fall back on instinct. We retreat from data. We drop pull and endure push. We pay attention only to messages that find us. And when we do search, we skim. A keyword or two into Google, a few good hits, and we’re done. We satisfice with reckless abandon, waffling back and forth between too much information and not enough. And, we make some very bad decisions as individuals, organizations, and societies.

Morville (2005) paints a dire picture in that passage, but not all hope is lost (I highly recommend his book). Folksonomy, social tagging, is helping us organize the information on the Web.

Throughout this course, I have come back to social tagging over and over. It seemed that every time I explored a Web 2.0 technology, the way that I derived value from it required social tagging. Systems with rich tagging systems worked better for me than those without.

In social media sharing systems, enormous value is added when items are tagged. This helps us search for them, it helps us find which items are related to each other, it helps us understand what a person is interested (by seeing what tags they use). Even without substantial authority control, folksonomy is powerful here.

In social bookmarking systems, which exist to give us tagging abilities, the best ones were those that had rich displays that enable quick ways to find things that were tagged the same, and to let me find people who used various tags. Delicious does this best, but Diigo might become better.

I’m not interest in Twitter, but even as a non-tweeter, I found enourmous value in Twitter search systems, primarily because of the use of social tagging.

What I learned here is that social tagging is allowing everyone to participate in organizing the web. Not everyone will blog: writing is hard. Not everyone will Tweet: its just noise to many people. Not everyone will write book reviews: that takes time and critical thinking. But many people can and will tag items.

Participation is Value

This brings me my most important lesson from EDES 501. If Web 2.0 were a single technology, it’s function would be to convert participation into value. I held this belief before EDES 501 [it's not new, see (O'Reilly, 2004, "Architectures of Participation"], but I gained a much deeper intuition for how that is occurring and how powerful it is.

To me this implies that a critically important thing for libraries to do, without delay, is to find ways to allow users to participate through and in libraries, and for libraries to find ways to participate in the communities that they serve. Web 2.0 gives us the opportunities for this, but it is unclear where the low-hanging fruit (the cost-effective, expeditious opportunities) are.

I have pointed to the example of Bibliocommons which is an OPAC that provides social media features to library users. But it is not cleared if this is a “walled garden” or not. My exploration in EDES 501 made me somewhat wary of walled gardens in Web 2.0.

There are some things that are very obvious to me know. Libraries should be enabling bookmarking of their catalogues: if your library cannot do it, people will use something else instead. Libraries should be enable comments and feedback on many pages. Libraries should be allowing users to contribute (wiki-style) to learning and training materials for library systems. Our users understand our systems better than we do in some cases: leverage that experience.

Librarians hold the role of expert searchers, finders, and recommenders. The “participation = value” model of Web 2.0 suggests two things here: librarians should be looking for their users online, in social space, to fulfill those roles. Librarians must participate beyond the walls of their libraries because other people are already fulfilling that role online and doing a passable job of it. Librarians, show your strengths: be web maven.

EDES 501 has Changed the Course of my MLIS Studies

When I signed up for this course, I expected an opportunity for reflective practice and to revisit technologies that I thought I knew in a whole new way. I got that. I did not, however, expect this course to change my plans for the rest of my MLIS degree: it did that too!

Throughout this course, I have come back to the importance of social tagging over and over. Even after our assignment of social bookmarking, I kept exploring social bookmarking tools that I had never used. I put serious thought into what I wanted to be able to do with these tools and what others were doing with them.

Directed Study in my Future

This weekend I prepared an proposal to undertake a directed study course where I will develop a Firefox add-on that enables social search leverage social bookmarking. This is a direct consequence of my exploration in this class. Prior to the course, I felt that I understand social bookmarking and was using as well as I could. I realize I was wrong and that there are substantial enhancements that can be had. Several papers I read during the course suggested that social tagging is best when tag re-use in encouraged. Usability studies showed that social bookmarking toolbars are essential to making use of social tagging. When I consider the courses I have taken in information architecture and organization of knowledge, and combine them with the reflection I engaged in EDES 501, I come to a conclusion. More people will tag, and more people will tag better, if the usability of tagging is improved. Usability will lead directly to better organization, and better organization will result in greater opportunities for participation. Pure value.

Professional Development in my Future

As part of my assignment on Wikis I created a wiki for a separate project I have been working: Information Security Learning for Information Professionals (ISLIP). Previously, I developed a digital library using the Greenstone software for ISLIP. I’m convinced that a wiki is a better platform, and I intend to develop that project late next year. Similarly, during our assignment on social networks, I discovered the value of Ning, and created a Ning for Information Security in Libraries. I hope to promote that Ning next October during the EDUCAUSE Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

These are both activities I had planned to do anyway, but this course shaped how I will do them. In the case of the Ning, I am quite optimistic that I will come up with a way to use social networking to generate interesting in information security in libraries. I don’t think I would have considered social networking for this purpose had I not taken EDES 501.

Coming back to blogging

I’m quite happy with the outcomes of my blogging in this course, and what it helped me to discover. However, throughout the entire course, I felt that my blogging was unnatural. This is because it was done in the context of the marking rubric. I think I would rarely post anything as long as I have in this course. To address the kinds of issues that I have addressed in invidual blog posts in this course, normally I would take time to write multiple, more focused blog posts, and others that synthesize them.

I plan to return to a number of the posts I have written, and rewrite them in a more focused way.

I learned something about the pace I like to blog at as well. I think blogging once-a-week is what feels right for me. I don’t like short posts. I like to think about something and go back and edit my posts until they are lean and effecient. In this class I didn’t feel I could do that, but I was constantly aware of the desire to do that.

A note for those considering this course

For those who might consider taking EDES 501 in the future, consider this: EDES 501 temporarily made me a rockstar of the biblioblogosphere. As I am writing this, my blog is currently ranked #2 on Davey Pattern’s Biblioblogosphere “Hot or Not” scale. Basically, that means that I’m blogging about topics that are increasing in popularity among other library bloggers and not blogging about things that are decreasing in popularity.

It’s not just that one “hot-or-not” scale either. Of the span of this course, I’ve discovered that other people are bookmarking, tweeting, and linking to my posts. This isn’t just an ego boost, it means this course has directed me toward generating and finding value.

I believe that this has as much to do with the structure of the course, as it does with me. By making me do Web 2.0, but directing me to participate in the social web, EDES 501 pushed me to think about, write about, and participate in those technologies that are the hottest topics in current library discourse. That doesn’t just make me feel good about the course or about my blogging, its changed me and provided me with new opportunities!

References

• Acquisti, A., Gritzalis, S., Di Vimercati S. (2007). Digital Privacy. CRC Press
• O’Reilly, T. (2004, June). Open Source Paradigm Shift.
• Morville, P. (2005). Ambient Findability. O’Reilly Media, Inc.