The Work of Knowledge

1. In Wikipedia, look for some of the concepts or topics we have discussed in class and share your impressions and comments about the information presented. Is there anything you would add or edit?

Shedroff’s Model of Understanding is not in Wikipedia at all nor is Nathan Shedroff. It seems like a significant work so I was surprised that it did not have an entry. This sent me to Shedroff’s website. I found the model of understanding in a section called Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design and discovered that the model (which Shedroff labels A Continuum of Understanding) is from 1994, much earlier than I assumed since Shedroff looks barely out of college in pictures I’ve seen of him on the web. The model of understanding is only a small part of his field theory of design which may explain its absence in Wikipedia to some degree. I will consider adding this to Wikipedia but there is not much on the internet about the model outside of Shedroff’s own words regarding it so it may prove difficult to do a thorough entry but the nice thing is that I could give it a start and others can edit as needed.

Nicholas Belkin has a brief entry and his ASK model is mentioned in the entry but does not have its own entry. Belkin’s original 1982 article is linked at the bottom of the entry.

Francis J. Aguilar does have a sparse entry but it could be greatly improved by adding some of the information from this article from the Harvard Business School. I would like to add that information (which will be much easier than adding Shedroff’s model of understanding) but even these edits require me to learn more about how to edit Wikipedia articles. I previously edited some years ago but the markup looks foreign to me now. The entry shows Aguilar as a living person but he passed away this past February and I removed the ‘living person’ category from the entry.

Marcia Bates has an entry and her Berrypicking Model is part of an entry on Cognitive Models of Information Retrieval. This seems like a minimal treatment. The image found on this page could be added and it would benefit from the addition of the 6 specific strategies that Bates proposed as part of her model. Wikipedia also mentions that the main entry is an "orphan” which means that it has no other pages linking to it. This certainly makes it difficult to find the page and it would be worthwhile to find related pages to link from.

Brenda Dervin and Sensemaking are well represented.

2. On page 212, Weinberger gives an example of a third-order description of an imaginary person. Imagine that you are preparing a resume for a job application – a first order information package - how would you better tag yourself in terms of the third order to make yourself more marketable?

I’m reading an ebook version and the pages don’t quite match up but I think this is referring to this description: “a potential team member can be a pretty good French speaker, a great applications expert, a mediocre people person, and very reasonably priced.”

My initial reaction is that the third order allows for more flexibility than I might prefer. Whereas on a first order resume, I could simply leave off certain things that I don’t want to mention, a third order resume might force me to say something like “barely tolerable people person.” I suppose the greatest benefit to me would be that I could feel free to include competencies in areas outside of what would be most directly relevant to the job I am applying for. When applying for my current job, the application was a typical first order type of document but it did provide plenty of space for me to expand beyond simple answers. I don’t recall the entire document or my answers but I doubt that my high level of competency with technology was asked about or answered but my fluency in Chinese was included. By tagging ourselves in the third order and letting employers know that they get MORE than an “assistant librarian” or MORE than a “staff accountant” we can make ourselves more marketable.

3. On page 215, Weinberger writes that “understanding is metaknowledge” – relate this to Shedroff’s model of Understanding as presented earlier in this course. Search for the model on the web if necessary.

Since we can define metadata as “data about data” I suppose we won’t be wrong to suppose that metaknowledge can be defined as “knowledge about knowledge.”

On Shedroff’s website, he writes about his model of understanding within the context of A Unified Theory of Design. He specifically mentions his “understanding continuum” here and includes this image:

There is much we can glean from just this image but there is one additional important aspect about knowledge that I will get to momentarily. From this image, we can see that knowledge is in the “no man’s land” between wisdom and information. Shedroff uses a line to mark this but it might be better illustrated by a gradient between the 2 colored halves of the large circle since knowledge rarely comes on us like the proverbial lightbulb over one’s head. As we gather information from a wide range of sources (indicated by the ‘global’ label in the image, we begin to process it in a way that leadds to knowledge. This newly synthesized knowledge can affect the way we continue to interact with the available information and we move more towards the personal and participatory side of the circle where we may discover some degree of wisdom. This all happens within our particular context as is noted in the image.

Another image from Shedroff gives some more insight into something unique about knowledge.

In this image, we see the important role that our experience has in the development of knowledge. In fact, it completely encircles the knowledge portion of the continuum to indicate its supreme importance.

My own unique experiences have granted a fertile field for the development of knowledge. I don’t mean that my experiences are better than anyone else’s nor am I saying that my knowledge is more vast or of a higher quality. Each of us has opportunities to learn from information presented to us within the context of our own unique experiences and we must choose how we will engage that information. I find it difficult to be critical of Shedroff’s model because my own life seems to reflect that his model may be true. Through conversations, stories, and integration of information into my context and experiences I have gained knowledge – sometimes even to a degree that others will listen to me talk about what I know. Whether this indicates some measure of wisdom I’m not sure.

In the section called “The Experience of Knowledge” Shedroff explains:

With every experience, we acquire knowledge; it is the understanding gained through experiences--good or bad. Knowledge is communicated by building compelling interactions with others or with tools so that the patterns and meanings in their information can be learned by others.

There are many types of experiences that confer different types of knowledge. Some knowledge is personal, having meaning unique to one person's experiences, thoughts, or point of view. Local knowledge is knowledge shared by a few people because of their shared experiences. Global knowledge is more general, limited, and process-based, since it relies on such heavy levels of shared understandings and agreements about communication. Effective communication must take into account the audience's level of knowledge. This makes it more difficult to communicate to larger audiences because the pool of shared knowledge is less detailed and more generalized. Knowledge is gained through a process of integration, both in the presentation and in the mind of the participant. Information forms the stimulus of an experience while wisdom can be the understanding of the message gained through the experience. Knowledge is a fundamentally participatory level of communication and we should always make it our goal because it allows the most valuable messages to be conveyed.

To me, Shedroff’s model and this explanation of our experiences as a source of knowledge is a superb example of knowledge about knowledge, or metaknowledge.

Messiness as a virtue

1. What are some of the messes in your life and how do you try to organize them?

Don’t even get me started!

My biggest overall mess is digital files on my computer. All of them. Every kind of everything.

The most important of those files that need organizing is my family’s digital photos and videos. I *do* have backups (offsite – in the cloud via Carbonite) but our local files are a wonderland of Alice proportions. Thanks to being a somewhat early adopter and to always having plenty of hard drive space, we have zillions of pictures and videos. I would put the over/under on the number of videos on our computer that are less than 1 second long due to the photographer wanting to take a picture but the camera was on video at 200. Yes, I probably have over 200 videos of someone standing awkwardly and someone (usually my wife) saying some variation of “oops, its set for video”.

I understand completely that it is not technically difficult to get our digital images organized but it is going to be painfully time consuming and I can’t foresee a time when I’ll be able to get to it. I really think that our best option may be to make a family project out of this and set up a few computers with access to these files and work on them while sitting around the dinner table for a few days over the next year or so. I will probably pay my children to do this with me.

Here’s what I know. What Gmail is to email, Picasa is to digital photos. But ONLY IF those photos contain something for Picasa to find. Right now, the only metadata included in my photos is facial recognition and I’ve only done that because it was so cool when it came out in Picasa 3.5. I used to have a fairly good folder system for digital images but the volume just got to be too much to keep up with. Furthermore, when I was the only person in my family who could operate both the camera AND the computer, I could import pictures how I wanted and when I wanted and I could add tags as I saw fit. As time passed, other family members started using the camera and downloading pictures to folders all over the computer. This is where things got out of hand.

I do not sort my email at all. I do have some filters set up to flag some different emails so I can be sure and notice them, but I don’t label very many and I never sort them into folders like I used to back in the day. I just search for them within Gmail. I’ve found that learning just a few search operators will put any email I desire on my screen in seconds. Picasa is waiting to do something similar for me but I *must* give my photos some metadata in order to be able to find photos. Picasa is so powerful that even though I don’t have much metadata, I can still find most pictures I want… often just using dates and people in the photos, but I definitely want more metadata.

2. What are your thoughts on the work of Valdis Krebs as presented beginning on page 180? Is this something that would interest you as an information scientist?

I’m extremely interested in this kind of work. My first exposure to how an organizational chart does not tell the entire story of an organization’s workflow was when I was about junior high school age (7th to 9th grade). My mother worked as the secretary (would be called an office manager today) at our church and the church was experiencing some growth. Besides the normal church activities, e.g., scheduling events, there were also some issues that arose from the numerical growth. At this age, I began to realize that people were not kidding when they would say “your mom keeps this place running.” She did! I don’t know exactly what the organizational chart for our church would have looked like, but I’m sure that Krebs would have found that all the traffic passed through my mom’s office and/or her phone line. Later I became aware of what sociologists call “gatekeepers”, which are those people who control access to those who have the power to make big decisions.

On page 173 of my ebook (I think it is probably about p 182 in the print version) Krebs talks about people who are “properly positioned”. I’ve always tried to position myself at the busy intersections of the organizations I’ve been involved with for a couple reasons: I like to know what is going on and I’ve found that I’m good at managing information and solving problems. I have found that a good place to be on the organizational chart is somewhere that gives you access to those at the top levels of your organizational chart but where you aren’t necessarily one of the masses down at the bottom of the chart. In one organization, I was involved with the network administration and other technology issues. I had regular access to the president of the organization but did not have other people above or below me on the organization chart, my job was like a strange growth out of the side of the chart (see below).

Positions like that tend to give a broad degree of freedom with exceptional access to those throughout the organization.

Our school library is somewhat like this although my specific position is not. Just being in the library seems to work well for my skill set and I’m able to serve everyone in the school so it is a good fit.

3. Relate what Weinberger is saying about the definitional view and the prototype view to the information behavior models presented in this course.

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4. What are the library prototypes? Experiment with identifying three levels of abstraction for libraries. Be sure to think about how different cultures may think about/abstract libraries.

Library prototypes would include a building, printed books, a circulation desk, and reference materials. Sadly, the “shushing librarian” also remains a prototype.

Libraries exist in different ways, such as openlibrary.org that we heard about in the Brewster Kahle TEDTalk, but I don’t think that a paradigm shift has occurred in the general population so as to see a digital only library as a prototype of libraries.

As for levels of abstraction… what about:

1st level	civic building	library	local education
2nd level	libraries	children’s section	school
3rd level	public library	story room	school library

It is also worth noting that computer programmers use libraries of code snippets and other tools.

TEDTalk: Brewster Kahle

2. Watch the TEDTalk video: “Brewster Kahle builds a free digital library” and post your thoughts on your blog.

So here we are in module 10 and I’m as agreeable with the TEDTalks as I was in module 1. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising because these TEDTalks were chosen because they are good examples of increasing access but I sometimes wish I could find more to disagree with so my posts might seem more interesting.

I didn’t know the name Brewster Kahle but I was completely engaged in what he was saying. I was very surprised to find out (over 17 minutes in) that he was talking about the Internet Archive. I’ve known of Internet Archive for many years and have used it regularly over the years but I only used the Wayback Machine and never noticed that they also archive texts, video, and audio! As a consumer, I am most interested in the texts and then video and finally audio. As an aspiring information professional, I’m so glad to see that this project has continued from the time of the TEDTalk filmed in 2007.

I hope that Kahle’s project will reach its goal someday of making all of the books in the Library of Congress available in digital format and that interested parties can figure out ways to make profits and secure the rights of the creators. It is interesting to note that even back in 2007, Kahle said that the technology already existed to complete the project, but it only lacked money to pay for the scanning overhead and a model in which people split money.

Not mentioned in the TEDTalk is Kahle’s opposition to Google Book. I have been generally supportive of Google Book because it seemed like the best chance to have all books scanned and made publically available and because it has been useful to me many times in the past few years. It has made me expand my thinking about mass digitization and which organizations might represent the best interests of humanity. The following paragraph is from Kahle’s page on Wikipedia and it is originally found here (original source video embedded below):

Kahle has been critical of Google's book digitization, especially of Google's exclusivity in restricting other search engines digital access to the books they archive. Kahle describes Google's 'snippet' feature as a means of tip-toeing around copyright issues, and further expresses his frustration in the lack of a decent loaning system for digital materials. He states the digital transition, thus far, has gone from local control to central control, non-profit to for-profit, diverse to homogeneous, and from "ruled by law" to "ruled by contract". Kahle states that even public-domain material published before 1923, and not bound by copyright law, is still bound by contracts and requires a permission-based system from Google to be distributed or copied. Kahle reasons that this trend has emerged for a number of reasons: distribution of information favoring centralization, the economic cost of digitizing books, the issue of staffing at libraries not having the technical knowledge to build these services, and the decision of the administrators to outsource information services.

Kahle is a wonderfully engaging speaker and I love the fact that he talks like a librarian and seems to have the larger mission of the library in mind as he tries to accomplish his organization’s goals.

Library ILS Lecture

1. Watch the MediaSite video of the lecture on “Library ILS” and post your thoughts on your blog.

NOTE: ILS stands for Integrated Library System

Open Source ILS vs. Proprietary ILS

It was nice to *see* some other SLIS students and get an idea of what a classroom looks like and how the lectures are recorded.

I like listening to the comments from the students and how Dr. Roland is eager for input about things he didn’t know about such as the WorldCat link that takes users to a website where they can buy the book they were looking for. It is unreasonable to expect anyone to have up-to-date knowledge of features that come and go so quickly and it is through these discussions that we all can gain insight.

If I were setting up an ILS at our library from the beginning, i.e., if we were just now moving away from cards and written ledgers, I would pursue using an open source ILS such as Evergreen or Koha. As we already have an OPAC, I’m not sure I would change due to the convenience of continuing with what we have. Our current OPAC, Follett Destiny, certainly has some positive aspects and seems to work very well for school libraries. I do have some issues with Destiny and since it is proprietary, I am extremely limited with what I can do to acquire the features I desire. Typically, all I can do is wait for an update and hope it has what I want. I am not yet privy to our budget but when and if that time comes, I will still keep an open mind about open source ILSs especially if we feel a need to redirect funds. In that case, the time and trouble spent to convert to a new ILS may be worth the cost savings.

Although I have some nitpicks with Destiny, it does seem like a “good enough” solution for our library. I have come to believe that some of what I perceived as weaknesses are actually due to inadequate cataloging related to what a modern OPAC can do for patrons. Many of our materials are cataloged to a bare minimum necessary find the item’s call number if you already know the title or author but they lack rich subject tags or the proper entries required to allow the OPAC to actively link to all of the materials written by a specific author. Furthermore, many records do not use the correct authority file so it further makes materials difficult to link together. Fixing these catalog entries is very labor intensive and the relative benefit is small so it is difficult to justify spending much time but it is important to realize that some collocation issues we face may be less related to our OPAC software itself and more related to our catalog records themselves.

One Search

I am very interested in the list included in the following slide. I think that each of these points would be of great benefit to me as a library user and surely I am not alone.

In our OPAC, we have a feature called One Search and it does go partway towards #1 in the slide although it only searches databases or encyclopedias that we have already set up to work with it so it doesn’t search *everything* and *everywhere*. However, I think this is mostly good for our students. They tend to need help narrowing down from broad Google searches to narrower and more reliable information sources and these partially curated One Search results are useful to them.

Google search already does all of the things in the list from the slide. I truly do have concerns about Google or any company maintaining so much personal information but it seems that Google will be an important part of the future and although their ultimate goal is to make money, so far they have done a wonderful service to the world in making increasing amounts of data and information available to people who want to find it. At this point I’m much more concerned about what governments do and will do with my information than I am with what Google does and will do with my information.

TEDTalk: Anil Gupta

2. Watch the TEDTalk video: “Anil Gupta: India’s hidden hotbeds of invention” at  and post your thoughts on your blog.

Fantastic. While I love hearing about major technological advances like the Large Hadron Collider, my favorite inventions are the ones like Anil Gupta shows us in this TEDTalk.

I, too, have found the honeybee an inspiration for some of the talks I have given (sermons or lessons on various topics) but I never thought of it the same way as Gupta. Accurate analogies from nature are always more likely to catch my attention and Gupta’s combination of the honeybee analogy with the inventions that bring immediate and real improvement to humanity is sure to hold my attention.

I’m not surprised at all that these inventions exist because people are generally creative and people throughout the world have shown the truth of the adage, “necessity is the mother of invention.” What is surprising, to me, is that Gupta found these inventions at all. I suspect that his willingness to walk throughout the country is a key to finding these wonderful creators.

Look at this. We saw it in Shodh Yatra. Every six months we walk in different parts of the country. I've walked about 4,000 kilometers in the last 12 years. So on the wayside we found these dung cakes, which are used as a fuel. Now, this lady, on the wall of the dung cake heap, has made a painting. That's the only space she could express her creativity. And she's so marvelous.

I have a friend from high school who is involved in something similar although at much higher technology levels. He blogs here about his life and work although I’m not sure where the line between life and work is for Vic. He lives in London as a jumping off point for traveling throughout Europe looking for interesting things that may be of some use to his employer.

Below is a picture that Vic posted on his Facebook profile showing where he’s visited looking for interesting projects. I believe the orange represents more time spent or more projects viewed.

I’m glad that Anil Gupta and Vic are able to get out in the world – in the countrysides and cities – to see what there is to see and report back to us about the great things people are coming up with… both high tech and low tech.

Here in Taiwan, there is a popular saying when people encounter what seems like an obstacle. In English it roughly translates as: We’ll think of a way. It just takes a short walk through any populated area to see the products inspired by those words such as a plumber who modified his motorcycle to attach a hand truck full carrying his plumbing supplies so he can transport it on the road and then disconnect and use the hand truck to get to the customer’s house.

Access, Information Inequality, and Different Ability

1. Watch the MediaSite video on “Access, Information Inequality, and Different Ability” and post your thoughts on your blog.

Different Ability

I agree completely with the sentiment that the term “different ability” has some advantages over “disability” especially as it shows that each person’s different abilities have value. I think that the AP style guide still uses “disabled” and I will use that term in the following comments.

I have had significant interaction with people who have disabilities but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person who is blind use a computer before. I was very impressed with that and it was clearly from a few years ago. I know that Microsoft has done some really great things for accessibility but it was fascinating to watch someone use it and teach others to use it.

I was impressed by the library (Coventry branch?) that emphasized access for people who are deaf. It was fun to hear about the various ways they catered to patrons who are deaf and those interested in learning sign language. The student in the class who worked there sounded proud (rightfully) of that emphasis.

In the school library where I work, we have good wheelchair access with an open layout and wide aisles. It is possible for those who use wheelchairs to use our tables and computers. I am not aware of any services we could offer to students who are blind or deaf, but I am certain we would have the support of the school system should such services become necessary.

Information Inequality

When Dr. Roland asked what all of the places with the highest illiteracy rate had in common, I immediately thought of 2 things: war and corruption.

There are those that would tell you that war helps build economies. No. Never has and never will. No.

Additionally, development workers have concluded that many nations simply can’t be improved until corruption is dealt with.

I know we would all like to see education improve and we see it as a key to reducing illiteracy as well as having many other positive benefits. Decades of donations made to impoverished nations has not substantially changed things as a whole although there are certainly some of the intended individuals who have been helped. I love hearing about stories such as John Wood’s Room to Read and others like it. It seems that people are learning (or more correctly re-learning) that smaller is often better when it comes to these kinds of projects. The more local a project is and the more involvement from those who will most benefit, the more efficient the spending and the more optimistic we can be about outcomes.

I’m reminded of what I learned about Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy in establishing libraries in the USA where one of his requirements for those receiving money was that they spend a certain percentage of it on materials of local interest. He found that it made people more committed to their new library and development workers and donors have found something similar to be true in building schools and libraries in the developing world today.

What Nothing Says

NOTE: This is also late but I want to post for completeness. Like the previous post, I will update as I have time.

1. Weinberger writes about context as both explicit and implicit, p. 150f: what are some examples of both explicit and implicit contextual messages found in libraries?

I’m having trouble with this. I suspect it is in part because my exposure to libraries in the USA in recent years is very limited. I can answer based on my own library and some I have been to in Taiwan. I think my trouble is more than this, though. I’ll have to read others’ posts to gain more insight.

Implicit

• the library taken as a whole
• whether or not help can be found easily
• the apparent level of technology skills to access materials
• more?

Explicit

• the content of each specific item in the library
• signage
• rules and usage agreements (e.g. what certain rooms are used for, how to get a library card, late return fees)
• scheduled library activities
• more?

2. In the section “Mapping the Implicit”, Weinberger quotes the GIS director at Rand-McNally that
“we’re targeting maps for specific audiences” (p. 158). Adapt the sentence to read for librarians as “we’re targeting information products for specific audiences”. Think about your past experience and education and how to combine it with an MLIS degree to create information products for specific audiences. What products would you create, what audiences would you target, what would be your niche?

I am impressed by the targeted information products that already exist and I am having a hard time coming up with specific ideas for this question. I’ll try to come back to this.

3. After reading the section “What Isn’t Said” with the four points about how the Web might overcome the volume of information to make useful connections, think about Kevin Kelly’s point about having to be transparent in order to benefit from The One. How has your position on transparency and information sharing changed over the past few weeks of this course?

I don’t think my position on transparency and information sharing has changed over the past few weeks of this course, but that I have become more aware of my already fluctuating position on transparency and information sharing.

I think information should be shared on a case by case basis and that we should choose carefully who we share with. A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend posted about their colonoscopy and it showed up on my wall. The post was something very close to this:

Just got back from a colonoscopy. Fun.

My reaction was varied.

Since I would not share that information on Facebook, I was a bit surprised that anyone would.

Why isn’t there more information? Surely they didn’t have a colonoscopy for fun.

• Do they have a disease?
• Was it preventative?
• Did they win a free colonoscopy in a drawing?
• Is Facebook going to direct new ads based on this information?
• What did they want from this post? Likes? Someone to ask about why which would end up in a Hallmark movie about the Facebook friend who became the best IRL friend after a cancer diagnosis.
• Does this person not know that you can set up contact lists on Facebook and share with only certain people. Perhaps this was a good post to share with ‘Family’ or ‘Friends I’ve talked with about colonoscopies before’.

Yes, my brain really works this way and, yes, I did think all these things (and more) and, yes, I specifically remember them. I wasn’t offended by the post. I wasn’t grossed out. I know about the first amendment. I just didn’t (and don’t) understand why that information was shared in that way to be read by those people (me).

However, I have given Google access to all of my personal email and 2 work email accounts – one because our organization uses Google apps and the other because I have chosen to access it through Gmail. Google reads *all* of my email. They also have access to nearly all of my digital photos, most of which have faces tagged. They know my location; rather, they know my phone’s location which is typically my pocket. Google actually suggested an address for “home” because I was there at nights. I’m bothered by this, but there is a trade-off. The more access I give Google, the more helpful Google’s products are to me.

In one of the lectures, Dr. Roland mentioned wishing for a mind-map feature in an OPAC (I think) that would remember all previous searches and some other information. Google is becoming something like this for me because I’m choosing to share.