Reading Response #4

Please read the rules about posted assignments before reading onward. 

Alenka Šauperl’s and Jerry D. Saye’s article, “Have we made any progress?  Catalogues of the future revisited,” is a follow up of an earlier article they wrote nine years ago.  In the earlier article, they provided suggestions intended to improve a library’s online catalog, in the user’s eyes.  They recommended showing the table of contents of books, and allowing users to comment on books they checked out.  The new article tries to answer the question of whether these catalogs made any progress within the past several years, in terms of user friendliness.  The authors wrote these articles hoping that with these suggestions, library catalogs would “survive ‘Google attack’” (Saye and Šauperl 2009).
    During this semester, Google has come up in our discussions, in both, positive and negative ways.  The projects Google Books and Google Scholar made some of my classmates angry, while others were awed by Google’s ability to spearhead such a movement.  “Google attack” seems even more likely today than it did nine years ago, as much as the search engine still retains its simplicity and popularity.  The word Google even became a verb in 2006, when the Oxford English Dictionary defined it as such (Bylund 2006). 
    As Google grows, how do Saye and Šauperl suggest for library catalogs to improve further?  One area that could use improvement is the results page.  Google lists its results by popularity, something the authors find alarming.  Google Books and Google Scholar lists results by loading date, another poor form of listing results.  The authors pointed to the North Carolina State University Library’s OPAC as an example of a sophisticated results page.  Unlike Google, their results page is listed by subject.  If a large amount of results are retrieved, the user is able to limit the results with various options (Saye and Šauperl 2009).  These intuitive results pages should be inclued in more OPACs, which hopefully will draw more users into adopting them.
    The authors also mentioned the need for OPACs to have multiple interfaces.  In my opinion, OPACs should become “pioneers” in creating different interfaces for specific groups of people.  As professionals, librarians strive to ensure freedom of information for everyone.  To me, this means providing information regardless of a user’s language barrier, disability, or age.  If a library is located in a multilingual neighborhood, the library’s OPAC should have an interface for those local language speakers.  If blind people use the library, screen readers should be installed, and the OPAC should have a voice input/output option.  For children, an OPAC using “Simple English” could make browsing easier.  Google and Amazon do not have such functions, and could bolster OPAC’s popularity with these groups of people.
      In their conclusion, Saye and Šauperl urge librarians not to “take ‘no’ as a satisfactory answer” when OPAC vendors and other librarians resist these changes (2009).  Librarians must demand these new features in their OPACs in order to keep up with the “Google attack” and to ensure the existence of OPACs in the future. 



Bylund, Anders. (2006, July). To Google or Not to Google. Retrieved from  The Motley  Fool website: http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2006/07/05/ to- google-or-not-to-google.aspx
Sauperl, A.; Saye, J. D. (2009). Have we made any progress? Catalogues  of the future  revisited. Journal of Documentation 65(3): 500-514.

(looks back again)

Wait, what?  It's already December?  New Year's resolution- work on blogging  >.<

For those of you in GSLIS, you can check out my group project's website on Oral History.  It's not fancy, but I coded it all by hand so it better work (shakes fist at computer)

	https://courseweb.lis.illinois.edu/~kdurba2/501

Reading Response #3

Please read the rules about using posted assignments before reading onward. 

      Gene Smith's Tagging: Emerging Trends taught me one important thing, that tagging has not gone "stale." Tagging has indeed evolved from the mess of delicious tags to the organized, semi-controlled, vocabularies of LibraryThing and Etsy.
       Since tagging has become such a part of the Internet today, it was surprising to read about two websites I use, LibraryThing and Etsy. Their creative mix of controlled and uncontrolled vocabularies could be the future of Internet libraries. Though Etsy does have a “controlled vocabulary,” it only exists at the very top tier. Sub-tags can be either chosen from a list or typed in by users. This system assures that at least in the main categories, redundant words are not used, and allows users to find the items they need. LibraryThing’s solution to tagging arises from the community. Users can link together tags that mean the same thing, with the most popular appearing in tag clouds. This methodology resolves the problem of redundant tags and solidifies the user community.
       Folksonomies might become a permanent fixture for the average user, but I believe information architects and librarians will never fully let go of the controlled vocabularies they have used for years. There is a reason why controlled vocabularies lasted for so long -- they work. The problem with controlled vocabularies is that it is hard to change them after they have been adopted. A better way of “linking” words has to be developed, in order to keep controlled vocabularies relevant for today’s users.
       Tagging has not grown stale, but it can if information architects stop working on improvements. Two websites, LibraryThing and Etsy, show that tags and a type of controlled vocabulary can be useful for finding information. Ultimately, that is what librarians want the most.

Reading Response #2

Please read the rules about using posted assignments before reading onward. 

Can user generated tags make users use catalogs more often? Information professionals are just starting to write about the tagging features made popular by Delicious and Flickr. Librarians frustrated with the controlled vocabulary of the Library of Congress Subject Headings are toying with the idea of incorporating user tags into library catalogs in order for them to be more user friendly. Peter J. Rolla’s article “User Tags versus Subject Headings,” a study about LibraryThing, provides a mixed review.

LibraryThing is a great site to publicly record and organize your book collection. User tags make this organization possible, allowing users to sort their books according to their own tags. It is as if a LibraryThing’s user created his or her own controlled vocabulary to define their collection. As with everything, user tags are both a virtue and a vice. The use of “folksonomies” can lead more general users to a book of their choice, but the lack of controlled vocabulary can make non-standard terminology a barrier in finding another book. This arises because of several factors, including synonyms, misspellings, and irrelevant personal tags.

As with many of the articles we have read in both LIS 501 and LIS 502, librarians must change with the environment and its users. We must try to save what worked in the past and blend it with the things that work in the present. In my opinion, though, Rolla’s call for more research should be replaced with a call for experimentation. The University of Illinois Vufind beta is starting to feature both, and hopefully will prove as successful as I think it can be.


Rolla, P. J. (2009). Can user-supplied data improve subject access to library collections? Library Resources & Technical Services 53(3): 174-184.

Reading Response #1

Please read the rules about using posted assignments before reading onward.

Class: LIS 501
Posted date: October 22nd, 2009

    Janet Swan Hill’s article “Entering an Alternative Universe […],” (2008) a paper based on a keynote speech, summarizes what I have heard from many people about the paradoxical world of librarians. There is a sentimental side, where librarians take time to find exactly what a user wants and believe themselves to be keepers of a public resource. The alternative universe, or the utilitarian side, finds librarians focusing on effectiveness and efficiency, by introducing automation that streamline a librarian’s work. Both exist side by side in today’s libraries, hindering any progress in finding ways to cope with desperate financial circumstances.
    Hill’s call to be open-minded about changes in cataloging are necessary in today’s world. In order to be relevant to our uses, we must change cataloging procedures that make sense to them. However, as Hill also suggests, we must ask some tough questions first, such as “What is our purpose? […] Do any of the things we are concentrating on distract from the main purpose?” (Hill, 2008, p. 226). These questions will put librarians on track to making decisions that could change the ways libraries work.
    Unfortunately, there is a catch -- not all librarians have the same answers to these questions. The little experience I have in the library world showed me that each librarian is usually an independent person with a lot of opinions. In order to bring about changes in cataloging, these independent minded people must decide to adapt for the sake of their library’s future. It will be a long road for real change to come to the catalog.


Hill, J. S. (2008). Entering an alternatve universe: Some consequences of implementing recommendations of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Library Resources & Technical Services 52(4): 218-226.

I'm a Liar Too

What can I say?  It happens to the best of us.  I think I wrote down that I was going to try a weekly/biweekly blog, but its been about a month since my last post.

It's week 8 and depite the online factor I feel almost exactly the same as last fall in undergrad.  I do what I have to do, I read the materials I believe are the most important, and though I am not the biggest participator, I attend and listen. 

The thing is that this semester is different than other semesters.  For once, I am actually pursuing my hobbies.  I am mass producing handmade greeting/holiday cards in order to sell at a couple of craft shows, so that is my nighttime activity.  I am taking a "class" on Ukrainain embroidery, so I try to put a little time into embroidering and designing every day.  And then, of course, I am in a long distance relationship- its hard, but I can't help it!

In short, I'm genuinely busy.

It's the LEEP weekend, and I am having a lot of fun.  The Rare Books and Special Collection day was especially AWESOME.  We were able to looks (and sometimes even touch) some of the objects in the collections.  Here are some of my highlights:

- manuscript with a doodle of a bird on the margin (I guess a Medieval reader got bored?)
- one of the first engineering books ever created
- a book of encyclopedia plates which had directions for everything, including building your own boat
-gloriously old and beautiful maps
-Irish political cartoons that make no sense to me, but must've made sense back in the times of the Land Acts
- a book with beautiful hand painted pictures of homes and cover of inlaid leather.
- "So Long, Hot-Metal Men" by Henry Morris: a book of his own typesettings, from Bird and Bull Press
- letters from Joseph Conrad to H. G. Wells, showing his creative process in writing books
- the manuscript for "The Time Traveler"
- story boards from Citizen Kane

and the motherload of motherloads: the Book of Genesis, from a Gutenburg Bible.  The amount of text lines increase thoughout the book, which makes people assume that this might've been from one of the earlier prints of the Bible....wow

As for today, the 501 presentations in Preservation were so enlightening.  There were four different preservationists/conservators talking about the different materials they deal with: general collection, special collection, a/v equipment, digital files, and musical instruments.  I learned about how they fix 100 year old horns, backup files, freeze/bake cassette tapes, and how they decide to chuck a book into the dumpster.  I had no idea that these librarians had disaster plans, and how they accept their imperfect environments and work with them.  I have a growing interest in digitization, so it was really cool to hear about all of these different problems conservators have trying to fix and/or put these objects on the internet.

This weekend is really turning out great.  My group for the 501 project is filled with wonderful people, its great to see everyone from 14.1, and meet people from 14.2.  It's been fun  :D  I can't go to the dinner, but I am virtually saying "hi" to everyone!

And We're Live in 3...2...1...

On September 9th, 2009, I attended my first LIVE session. What an experience! I know that I wasn't the fast chatter like others were, but it was interesting to be listening to the professor and reading the conversations of students at the same time. It was as if I was in school, except of course my classroom was my bedroom, and I was lounging in bed attending a lecture. I <3 technology!

We talked a lot about metadata this past lecture. What is metadata, you ask? For me personally, metadata is data about any data. A card from a card catalog? Metadata. The copyright information on the back of a title page? Metadata. The information that you get when you select a document and press apple + i? Metadata! Some people do not accept the first two examples as metadata, as they do not pertain to electronic sources, but I like the more inclusive definition.

A large portion of the student discussion was about the "evils" of Google. I'm not sure whether I would define Google evil- I AM using their amazing free blogging website (wink wink), and I use Google to search every day. The "evil" students talk about are Google Books, something that sounds great at first but as you think about it, not so great. In the end, Google is a for profit company- for them, putting books online isn't exactly for the greater good, but rather for the greater profit. I do not know what to think about all of this, I guess I'll have to read some comments.

Next time, I'll talk about our group project!

Finally Back in Action

I have to get back into the "groove" of blogging and being active on the Moodle. I have to say, making myself think about anything academic is hard right now, because I'm still thinking about my summer. For me, this summer was amazing. I did some camping, had my grad school orientation, and went to Europe for two weeks. It's Labor Day though, and that means that finally I have to get down to business. By Wednesday I will be back- mostly because we have our first assignment due. I do not know how that will end up, because I have not written since orientation. The assignment is to find an article about how one user group searches for information. I hope I remember how to search for things from orientation!

As I was gone for the first two weeks of my 501 class, I was curious to see how the archived chat sessions worked- do I see the white board, can I see the chat box, etc. Well, the answer is yes, so for all of you in my 501 class who rick-rolled our class in its final moments, I saw that :D

We also have a group project for this class. Usually, I am not the group project type of person, but this sounds interesting. It is about "genre-specific considerations" for different media types. We have to both orally present it to the class, and have to write about it in a group and individual level. I had to pick three options out of a large list of medias, of which I chose: 1) oral histories, 2) maps, and 3) comic/graphic novels (hehehe). Looking back, I wish I put aps as my first choice, but I would be very happy with oral history as well. Since I come to this program with a history degree, it would be cool to research this.

Because it is the regular school year now, I should be posting on a regular basis. Keep your eyes open!

Until next time, yours truly.