Confessions of a Digital Collections Student

What do Digital Collections students do when they *should* be working on Digital Collections?  Why, they devote their time to revising an earlier poem from their online Stanford continuing education poetry class, of course.  Nevermind the hack(saw) job I’m doing of revising my poem at the moment.  The point is that during all of this time I should have been worried about archival appraisal and metadata and the like I’ve been spending the majority of my time trying to decide if I should defect to an MFA.  Except I don’t have a portfolio in the wings waiting to go.

So, in September, back when everybody said “Oh, no, you shouldn’t” I took the advice that I would give to my 20-year-old self (or younger) if I could go back: “Whenever the world suggests you are doing the wrong thing, it’s probably exactly what you ought to be doing.”  So I enrolled in the online poetry course.  I can’t say I have any regrets, except that I can’t seem to master the issue of mystery.  It remains my “poetic challenge” of the moment.

In fact, I suspect that mystery is precisely what governs problems with collections as well.  How much mystery is left to the user of a collection?  We can lead horses to water, but we can’t make them think.  Nevermind the issue of imposed information, collections, no matter how well-conceived, are as subject to mystery as are poems.

This is a problem probably all of us are facing at the moment — all of “us” meaning the students in Digital Collections, but also everyone who has ever attempted to bring together a collection.  What makes a good collection from the user’s perspective?  We know what we mean when we gather resources, describe them with metadata, and hope they hang together to form some cohesive, meaningful whole.  Does the user, though?

That’s what’s on my mind at the moment.  Collections and their mystery.

We have no idea if a collection of whatchamacallits will be to an user simply a bunch of whatchamacallits containing the one whatchamacallit they need and nothing more.  In which case, have we created a collection?  Or merely a filter?  Or is a collection merely a filter anyway?  I suppose at some level that’s what all collections really are, filters.

We don’t know whether a collection of whatchamacallits will be to an user a coherent, cohesive unit that tells them more about whatchamacallits in general.  At some level that’s what people who put together collections seem to want.  Look!  I’ve gathered all the greatest whatchamacallits in the world.  And they’re arranged and described so perfectly that they tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the nature of whatchamacallits.  Or at least about the greatest whatchamacallits in the world.  Or maybe just those whatchamcallits that I happened to come across and thought ought to be the greatest whatchamcallits in the world.  Or maybe nothing at all.  But I’ve gathered them for you all the same, and that ought to tell you that at the very least whatchamacallits are somehow in someway important to someone somewhere.  I think.  Or maybe I just hope.

We don’t even know if users will even ever wonder about whatchamacallits at all or even become “users” or if we’ll load up our storefront full of whatchamacallits and decorate them like a Manhattan Christmas Window and nobody will notice or even pass by on the sidewalk.

Thus, like poems, at some level collections are acts of faith and little more.  There’s a compulsion (see earlier Pogue post) about creating collections as there is for creating poems.  Though there’s never any guarantee that all that work, all that arrangement, all that description, all that editing and re-arranging will ever mean anything to anyone at all.  Even to the person who wrote that poem or created that collection.  Maybe our metaphors are dead in the water before they even hit someone else’s ears like nails on a chalkboard.  Such is what one writes when reflecting on poetry and collections.

Thus, most mysterious of all are these users and readers.  A good poem should move a reader and a good collection should meet the needs and/or wants of the user.  How do we know, though, who that reader or user will look like, think like, feel like, etc.?  How *can* we know the answer as either poets or collections managers if we don’t even know if readers or users exist beyond “potential”?

Now I’m off to revise, to figure out how to capture the rhythm of the word “rolypoly” in another bunch of syllables, to decide if my two themes should weave together or switch up halfway through, to figure out why, indeed, I wanted to use little gummy fruit snacks as a metaphor and if “ultramarine” and/or “Cennini” can fit in this poem to replace “azure” even if the two hues are nothing alike and Cennini has nothing to do with gelatin fruit snacks, “those puffy pillows of gelatinous goo.”  I wonder if “whirligig jigs” and “irridescent technicolor” and “flamboyant” are too much for one stanza to carry or if I should hold to a villanelle or or abadon that form and its heinous rhyming demands.

What do you wonder?  Do you wonder if Dublin Core is effective, or if you should choose something else?  Do you wonder if you should use Dewey or LC?  Do you wonder if you should focus on print or A/V or digital?  Do you wonder if you have too much of a collection that is pro-Palestinian and not enough that’s pro-Israeli?  Or maybe you should think in the opposite direction.  Do you wonder about the best format for preservation or is it pointless to worry about preservation?  Not every item in your print collection needs to be there for all of eternity or even 10 years from now; why do all of your digital collections need to be accessible 10 years from now?  Do you wonder about any or all of these things?

Some will say I’ve wasted my time this semester on my poetry course.  To that I have only to say:

Do you think it’s possible to create a metadata record that incorporates the villanelle with Dublin Core?  Or would a pantoum be better for that?

The Tchelitchew Problem

I have questions about Pavel Tchelitchew for any random passers-by, but librarians in particular:

Google returns 14,700 results (“about” anyway)

Worldcat returns “about” 122 results in English only.  These cover the variety of media under Worldcat’s domain.  An astounding number, really, since I happen to know that as of 1996 an Art Index comprehensive search on Tchelitchew (in print version) returned about 6 or 7 total results.  One of those results was a largely useless letter to the editor in Time magazine.  Or maybe Life.  I forget.  Anyway, it was a pointless result.

So here’s a question.  Tchelitchew, in English at least, is not an oft-studied artist.  Thus, 122 is satisfyingly sufficient to convince me that Worldcat has near complete coverage of the English-language bibliography on Pavel Tchelitchew.  Even Wikipedia’s little article is only two lines.  Here’s my chance to contribute to Wikipedia if I wish!  Anyway, they characterize Tchelitchew as a “Russian surrealist” artist.  Indeed, I disagree that he’s wholly Russian.  More pan-European.  And Surrealist?  Well, I see their point, but I don’t know that Pavlik dear would agree so much.

Point being, is this a “collection”?  Let’s say all the resources on hooziwhatzits number 10 monographs and nothing else.  No journal articles, no AV materials, nothing.  Do those 10 items constitute a “collection”?

My question arises from this notion that a collection almost always otherwise implies selection and inclusion (and thus exclusion).  Can a totality of extant items on a topic thus constitue a collection?  Why or why not?

I don’t have an answer myself (as usual).  I would say that at an absolutely theoretical level the answer is a definite maybe.  If I definitely chose to include all 10 items, then it would be a collection.  Right?  Or is it just a bundle of stuff, however small that bundle may be in its totality?  Must I first designate 9 out of 10 items to include to constitute a collection?

I’m struggling here, because can you “collect” items that exist in totality if they are that small in number?

In other words is a “complete collection” truly a “collection”?

Hmmm….  The world may never know any more than it will know that whole Tootsie Pop situation.

Finally, I realize I don’t really understand precision and recall.  Is it possible if there really are only 122 Tchelitchew items or only 10 hooziwhatzit items that I can truly achieve 100% recall AND 100% precision in a search?  But then, is it really a search?

Hm.  Have fun everyone!

Video Games and the like…

A while back there was a comment about video games by Briznack.  I would like to pick up on two items here.  The first is Briznack’s link which points to ABR Productions’ MySpace page which has a great background.  That’s neither here nor there, but I noticed so I’m mentioning it.  The larger issue, though, is about the nature of Video Games collections in libraries.  Briznack mentions that articles he has found on Video Games often talk about their ability to boost stats.  Damn it!  Are these written by librarians?  Damn those librarians!

Why?  Because this entirely misses the point, but more importantly, it misses a fantastic opportunity to make a collections-based case for video games.

That is to say that video games should not be sold on the merits of their popularity, especially to other professionals.  Rather, they should be sold on their merits as cultural products and as another medium (or form of media, as you may prefer).  Hm.  Actually I suppose it would be forms of media?  Since there are Sony games, XBox games, etc.?  Now I’m confusing myself about the nature of the whole medium/media thing.”  I feel certain the New York Times Sunday Magazine has run a William Safire piece about just this issue, so someone find that for me and let’s move on.

In other words, video games can and should be subjected to the same selection/collection criteria as anything else.  I don’t believe for a second that they would lose out on these merits, either.  Instead, I think that video games would find themselves more firmly rooted in the collective consciousness of librarians everywhere if they’d simply own up to the more valid forms of argument for the inclusion of video games.

Anyway, as Briznack seems well-read on this issue I’m certain someone(s) somewhere(s) has/have articulated these arguments.  If he doesn’t respond, though, I’ll try and follow-up with some on my own.  In some ways, even, the arguments over video games — stats aside — may well be some of the most critical arguments for our profession on the level of collections theory.  You may think that’s a little too grand of a statement, but all I’ve got to say to you is

I’m in your base killing your d00ds!

Information Imposition?

Is it possible to impose information?

Somewhere I read a question about whether or not collections represent a form of implicit censorship because some things are naturally excluded.  Then I wondered about this from the other end of things.  Can we impose resources on users?

Certainly one might point to propaganda and advertising as instances where attempts are made to impose information.  One could even argue that certain exposure is unavoidable and thus information is being imposed.  Is it true?   Am I forced to internalize information simply because it’s presented to me?

Then again, from the other side of things, can I avoid internalizing information even if I wish to avoid it?

If I’m driving down a highway and there’s a billboard with explicit nudity then, well, obviously people will object.  However, is this “information?”  OK, that stopped me before I got started.  How about this.  What if I’m driving down the highway or walking near an old ballpark where the…  oh, we’ll say the “crimson stockings” play in a city in the Northeast and posted in a manner that is highly visible to both highway drivers and ballpark passers-by (from a given vantage point, crossing a given bridge) and the sign happens to say “X number of children are killed by guns every year in [this state] alone?” is that imposed information?

Let’s assume for a moment that the statistic is unimpeachable.  Is that a misuse of the word “unimpeachable?”  Ok, forget that.  The statistic is not our issue.  Let’s say this is a tried and true fact and everybody accepts that.  However, what if someone doesn’t want to be exposed to that information?  Well, certainly the exposure has been “imposed” as it were.  Now, are they required to internalize that information?  Do they have a choice?  Can they ignore the information even if they wish to do so?

Hm.  Now I’ve convinced myself that, yes, it’s possible to impose information.

So if we accept that — and nobody is required to do so if you have good counterarguments — then are collections imposed information?  Well, there’s the “but people aren’t forced to use collections” argument.  OK, let’s accept that much, even given teacher- or faculty-imposed assignments since “imposition” is relative there.  Is it possible via collections to impose information?  How do you know to avoid a collection unless you know what’s in it?  What if you want one item from the collection, but do not wish to be exposed to the rest.  Books, fine, you can disregard those relatively easily.  What about digitally?  Can I avoid all information excpet the information I want?

A search for “stereotypical librarian” in Google one time suggested to me that I could NOT avoid information I wished to avoid.  Oh, God!  How I wished to avoid that information.  So was that information imposed upon me by Google, the information about people and their weird…  well, we won’t go there.  Trust me.  You don’t want to go there.

Now, see!  You’ve probably gone there.  Did I just impose that information upon you?

And if we accept that yes, information can be imposed, what does that speak to for information professionals?  Does that change anything or not?

This is one I’ll have to dwell upon for a bit.  I have plenty of questions, but no answers.  I’m good at that, aren’t I?  See!  That was a question, not an answer.

Pogue on Collections Theory

David Pogue has written an interesting piece on the why of home videos.  Ostensibly this is what he’s writing about here.  In fact, it seems he has far larger issues to grapple with then merely home video.

At the core of this article is a question we should all be asking ourselves, really:  Why *do* we build collections?  It sounds self-evident enough to answer this question at first pass, but in fact, it’s not so easy.

Pogue has his own reasons for why we shoot home videos (or build collections).  I’ll not rehash those here because I’ve linked above, and it’s my belief that driving traffic to David Pogue will probably make the world a better place, or at least a more interesting place.  Of course that’s presumptuous enough to assume anyone would come to *my* blog to be driven to David Pogue in the first place, but nevermind that.  It’s the thought that counts, or something like that.

I think Pogue has hit on a fundamental point, though, when he says it’s just human nature to want to record our lives.  Interesting.  Probably true.  Is it a cop-out answer, though?  I can’t decide.  When I was an art history major we were forbidden by one professor from utilizing any variant of the idea that “art is an expression of the human spirit.”  I understand why, too.  Why?  Because Post-It notes, hedge funds, professional associations and any number of other things are also equally valid “expressions of the human spirit.”  Are they art?  I guess that’s a matter of perspective, but the point being that’s a meaningless phrase.

So what about Pogue’s assertion that we record our lives because it’s human nature?  Is this another warm, fuzzy but bogus response to a difficult question?  Well, I don’t know that the same comment about lots of different things being also aspects of human nature applies here.  In the art example, there’s no point in repeating this notion of the human spirit.  It doesn’t *say* anything.  It avoids taking a meaningful stand on the issue.  In this case, though, the human nature argument seems to be the terminal point.  In other words, art as human expression says nothing about art in particular yet it implies at some level that this is unique to art.  Asserting that we record because it’s human nature, though, asserts only that and nothing more.  It doesn’t make an arbitrary distinction between crimes of passion and recorded memory.  They may both be human nature, but regardless, the need for recorded memory is because of human nature.

Dang.  This gets circular and pointless fast.

Speaking of circular this brings us back to the fundamental question, doesn’t it?  And it remains fundamentally unanswered, doesn’t it?

So I’ll conclude by pointing out that Pogue’s brilliance in this instance is not to be found in his comments about human nature, but rather in drawing out a question that is at the core of this course and of the information professions in general: Why do we build collections?  Or…  Why do we build collections?  Or…  Why do we…  etc., etc., etc.  No matter where you place the burden of the question, the answer just doesn’t seem easy.

I wish I could get at what I want to say.  Why can’t I?  Well, it’s probably something to do with human nature.  Of that much I’m certain.

Erotica for Digital Collections Enthusiasts: Part II

OK, so I got on this user-centric kick.  Actually it all began when I realized I’m a reluctant user-advocate.  For a long time now I’ve tried to fashion myself as the anti-social being I truly think I am.  Even my little Myers-Briggs tests always says so.  I’m like the Platonic ideal of Introverted according to every one of those tests I’ve ever taken.  I don’t remember what the others are.  All the stuff that society generally finds useless.  A counselor told me so, once.  “I always tell people of your type that I don’t know what planet is your planet, but this ain’t it.”

Anyway, despite all that, it turns out I worry more about people than I wish I had to.  Life would be easier without you lot.  So I thought I’d be happy enough just worrying about metadata or building collections or something of the sort.  Instead, I found out recently that what motivates me is this human element — i.e. the user.  I am firmly in the camp of saying “user” because “customer” is too artificial, too cheezy, and not flexible enough to cover the range of concerns inherent in the term “user.”  More on that in another world, another blog, etc.

My point, though, is I became kind of anti-collection for a while deciding that collections only achieve value inasmuch as they serve users.  Still, I’m not convinced, though.  I suspect there are any number of collections that one can imagine that would be cool, nifty, neat-o and downright wicked awesome that have no real immediacy to any specific group of users.  In fact, I wonder if a collection needs to be used at all to be of value?  There are tons of collections I hope either exist or actually do exist and upon which I place great value, but I have never used them.  And quite likely I never will.  These include myriad websites I bookmark and never go back to.  They include just miles of museum galleries and even miles of drawing cabinets for 2-D works I’ll never see.  They include archival collections and library collections the likes of which I’ll likely never see or have time to peruse even if I “see” them in passing.

So what now?  I bet you can think of your own collections that have no real immediacy for users and very likely never will in anyway that’s conceivable to us today.  Still yet, I bet you’re not ready to scrap those collections.

So the question becomes, if not users, then collections?  But how many collections can there be without users that are so valuable?  So if not collections, then users?  And if not either one, then what?

I could even use sleigh-of-hand trickery and claim users don’t know what their needs and wants are and so we have to build collections to decide for them.  That’s too presumptuous, though.  Even if we state that users will have needs/wants that are at present unanticipated, that still only gets us so far.

So what’s an info pro to do?

This leads me to my next digital porn collection.  Again, not literal porn, but titillating only to those who are enthusiastic about digital collections.

Wouldn’t it be great fun to create an oral history collection where every student of this course could be interviewed by another student of the course on “how you came up with your collection idea?”  and followed up by “Why do you think your choice counts as a collection and has value as such?”

Hm.  If only there were enough time…

Did I Read the Wrong Accidental Article?

I ended up reading the Dorothea Salo article assigned to the Institutional Repositories track of our course by accident.  In fact, I didn’t realize I was wandering into the wrong forum.  Still, I reviewed some of the posts to see what was said and realized that there were some violent and visceral reactions to Salo.  Naturally I had to go read the article.  Less because I needed to know what it said and more because, hm, a librarian who seems to have opinions and people generally hate her because of it.  I had to know, just simply had to know whether or not she was my long lost twin from whom I was separated at birth.

http://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/22088

I can’t say that I’m entirely sure why there was controversy now that I’ve read the article.  Some people loved it.  Some people hated it.  And nowhere did I see anything particularly controversial or “brutal” — as some people called it — about Salo’s writing style, word choice or least of all her ideas.

Let me see if I get this right:

Institutional Repositories try and gather materials from faculty, often peer-reviewed. (A generally stupid idea in my opinion anyway, given the plethora of materials out there that don’t already have a venue for deposit, publication, preservation — a point made by Salo, in fact).

They find faculty resistant to depositing materials because it’s a hassle or because they don’t see the point.  Librarians also don’t deposit materials for exactly the same reasons.  This seems to me to be more of a truism than a judgment call on Salo’s part.  I mean I don’t know first hand, but it’s pretty much an either/or proposition.  Faculty either deposit materials or they do not. Same with Librarians.  Same with any potential depositor, really.  Either they or they do not.

Repositories should stop trying to be collections for the sake of collections and start becoming user-need/want responsive resources instead.

So where’s the controversy?  Please.  Someone.

The nature of invisibility

At some level, I suppose, all information and knowledge has been necessarily invisible.  Well, there is an invitation to hair-splitting about exactly which, if either, of those two notions can be made tangible.  Though that is not my primary concern here.

What is increasingly the case is that information and knowledge are some kind of quasi-ethereal substance that seems half-there, half-nowhere, like light or sound.  Now, this is not a new consideration by any means.  It is also not a new consideration to worry about the invisibility of the library, or especially, of the librarian.  Many shy, quite and unassuming librarians have fretted themselves frenzied over the loss of their visibility.

The problem that worries me is, if it’s true that we are charged with worrying about the needs of the user, what do we do as users become more and more invisible?  Or do they?

Certainly we all know the pitfalls and drawbacks of trying to paint the picture of library services via circulation numbers, etc.  But what happens in our digital libraries as users became aggregated statistics?  Is this good or bad?

On the one hand aggregated statistics of usage available via digital collections certainly underscore what a community of users is aggregately interested in.  Though, what is potentially lost are the anecdotal and — I hate to use the word — qualitative measures.

I hate to say “qualitative” not because I sneer at it, but rather because qualitative, a set of methodologies fraught with the same problems of all sets of methodologies, cannot isolate those factors that inherently lack isolability.  This also is not new to researchers versed in quantitative, qualitative or hybrid methodologies.

Now, to be fair, some things are gained rather than lost.  This — as I have maintained all along — was the big fizz over 2.0.  Web 2.0?  Library 2.0?  Which do I mean?  All of it.  You know, the 2.0 craze.  Everything 2.0.  Some say we’re onto 3.0.  I’m not sure that I know what that might even mean.  Personally I’m surprised we didn’t just cut right to 2.0 2.0.  At any rate, the 2.0 craze was primarily fueled by the notion of social networking.  Theoretically it’s the Vannevar Bush vision of everything and everyone linked up.  But that’s a distortion of Vannevar Bush and always has been.  He didn’t want everybody and everything linked.  That would be a glut of meaninglessness.  He wanted everyone and everything linked selectively depending upon a given individual’s user needs.  Thus, his visionary status should actually be greater than it is, even, because it is not the technology he envisioned that was so astounding.  It’s the nature of the problems we would face via technology.

Bush wanted everything connected, but in a meaningful, highly uber-indexed way to facilitate quick, simple, on-demand retrieval of highly relevant resources.  He wanted precise recall, that is to say.  Bush’s vision and the 2.0 fizz are all about social networking (which in the human sphere is a bit of a redundant phrase) precisely because users need and want facilitators.  They may not think “I want a librarian” or “an information professional” but they want someone somewhere to facilitate their search.

This is not censorship because it does not seek to hinder the retrieval of any given bit of information or knowledge.  Rather, it’s saying if someone wants to find a recipe for pumpkin spice muffins they probably want to end up on Martha Stewart’s website and not some Alice Cooper adoration fan page.  Though I bet he bakes a mean muffin, to be sure.

The point is that 1) digital collections are, naturally, aligned with the same principles that have always guided any collection.  This much is not new either.  2) The more and more our users disappear behind monitors and the like, or into coffee kiosks, study groups and other currently under-identified library uses, then the more we need to push ourselves out into their world.  This also is not new.  It is, though, easy to forget.

Now my issue with 2.0 is that one, it’s an old tune.  I do agree with those who suggest it’s tired.  Personally I adore the Annoyed Librarian for her forward thinking Library Five 0 advocacy.   My issue 2.0 with 2.0 is that too many people thought it meant signing up on Facebook and SuperPoking each other.  And I’ve slung my fair share of gummy bears and certainly unmentionables.  But this is not “social networking” at the level of information and the generation of meaning for the user.  It’s good times.  And convenient.  But it’s not a venue for facilitation to any great degree.

I’ve thought a lot lately about archival identity, by which I mean what gives identity to a given archive.  And I think it’s a theory emerging that is applicable to all information venues.  There’s a subatomic like interplay of collection, user, AND facilitator (which may be automated and machine-driven).  Without the one the other two collapse.  It just does.  Like it or not it is nearly impossible to imagine information or knowledge or whatever level your buy-in that is meaningful to anyone without the implicit interaction (and usually pretty explicit interaction) of an end-user, but also and (front) end-facilitator, if you will.

Try it!  Drill it down.  Drill it down and down and down and when you get to the kernel of whatever it is you’re seeking that is unmoderated, unfiltered, unfacilitated by another human intervention let me know what that thing is you’ve found.  Except you can’t do that.  For as soon as you do you’ve lost what you’ve found by sharing it with me.

So it’s time we get out from behind our computer (smoke) screens and admit to being the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This is what I’ve decided.  We are not meant to place collections on a sterile slab for user dissection — at least because I don’t think we can if we want to.

So let’s take a lesson from 2.0 before it’s relegated to the oddish faddish nature of l33t or what have you.  Let’s remember that it’s the social of social networking that gave 2.0 it’s meaning.  And let’s make that phrase a little less redudnant.  Let’s stress the social.  Let’s syncopate that beat.

Of course my ideas may change…  But for now this is the conclusion I’ve come to.

Melleniata??

I must look into this and see if it’s viable.  Anyone know?

A snippet from the website, which is here: http://www.millenniata.com/products.php

About the Millennial Disc^TM and the Millennial Writer^TM

Millenniata’s products are the new Millennial Disc^TM and the Millennial Writer^TM. Together, these products will revolutionize the way we store and preserve information in the digital age.

Instead of burning new CDs or creating new magnetic tape backups every few years, companies and individuals will be able to write information onto a Millennial Disc using a standard desktop computer equipped with the Millennial Writer, and archive the data in its initial format for a thousand years.

What’s more, the Millennial Disc is backwards compatible, so existing CD and DVD drives are able to read data from the new Millennial Disc.

What a Wonderful World…

I see skies of blue…

Smart monitors, too…