Morgan Wilson: searching

gated information and the role of libraries

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:22:53 GMT

Recently I got access to digital cable – it’s not something that I pay for, but is a nice perk provided by my generous landlady. It made me realize that I am on the über-privileged side of the digital divide: hundreds of TV channels, broadband internet connection. I also have access to non-public material sites such as on Salon and AOL Then through my work I have Westlaw and Lexis passwords, and free interlibrary loans – within reason.

My point isn’t to brag, but I can say that I have access to a lot of stuff which is out of reach of less privileged people. Before I had access, I had no idea of the type of things that I was missing. I’m disturbed to see how effective technology has been in separating information from the haves and have-nots. Ten years ago in Australia, there was no pay-TV and barely a world-wide web (and what there was limited to educational and scientific purposes). The main sources of information were printed publications and the free broadcast media of radio and TV. I know printed magazines and journals have never been exactly cheap, but many of these were freely usable in public and academic libraries.

Is there any way of categorizing information as essential or non-essential information? I wonder if there are some types of information – particularly legal and governmental - which all people have a right to access and use in a free society. Especially when society says that ignorance is no excuse for not obeying the law and everyone has equal rights & duties in the political process, irrespective of their income. So does mean that everything else would be non-essential information – entertainment for which it is entirely fair that people pay for. I’m not sure if there’s a clear dividing line between what’s essential and what’s entertaining. For example, national (and especially local) news provide information without which it would be very difficult to participate in the political process, but they also contain entertainment sections. And if news is essential, then what about magazines or lifestyle programmes aimed at particular groups – women, men, different ethnic groups – these may contain more entertainment than news, but what news they cover might be the only way that their particular constituents access any news.

Another quandry is with the arts, sciences and other academic disciplines. If it’s in society’s interests that all people are able to make advances in the arts, sciences and other fields of learning, how is this possible if only elites have access to this material? Are we saying that only the elites – those with the means to pay for this material – have anything to contribute in these areas and that the poor deserve to shut out? Or do we think that great art can happen in a vacuum and that it is not necessary to know of what’s been tried before?

The point of all these unanswerable questions is that libraries are the buffer zones – or safety net, if you want a different metaphor – of the digital information divide. Fund public libraries adequately, and you won’t need to answer these questions about who is worthy enough to receive which information. Most importantly, libraries are no longer about books. They are just not about books, microfiche, videos, audio tapes, CDs, DVDs or online databases – important as all these things are. Libraries are repositories of information, in whatever form. In an ideal world (and I am allowed to be idealistic and naive sometimes), libraries would collect all useful information which has been broadcast (via TV, radio or the web) and is not otherwise available in fixed formats, such as tapes or discs produced by the broadcaster. </idealism>: Of course, this is not going to happen because of two big reasons. Firstly, libraries are currently too understaffed and underfunded to imagine adding this to their workload. Secondly, this would be against existing copyright laws.

looking forward to Moreover's forthcoming blog database

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 04:31:14 GMT

So THAT'S what they've been doing.... News service Moreover has been spending a lot of time lately concentrating on the corporate market, and its free news service has suffered as a result. Now comes word that Moreover plans to roll out a database of over 17,000 weblogs, indexing more than 1,000 entries each day. [Inter Alia]

4 motivations for blogging, with 2 digressions

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 04:46:20 GMT

I’ve been ruminating about this topic for several weeks and now I feel inspired to write about it.

So why do people blog? For some people, it fits in very well with their day job. This is partly the reason why I blog. As I’ve explained in some of the essays I’ve written about blogging, maintaining a blog is a good way of keeping up with the latest news and technology concerning my profession - being a law librarian. For some people, this goes further. Blogging is becoming a parallel way of publication, which is so important in the academic world. Of course, self-publication will never be as prestigious as peer-reviewed or paid publication. But does this distinction really matter when blogs are offering the most innovative and accessible (read cheap) content and form? I’m sorry, but if I only have x hours per week for professional reading, that time is better spent reading blogs than journals or trade magazines.

<Digression1>

Of course, I’m a Very Naughty Librarian for saying this. We always push getting the best of both print and online worlds. So why have I turned heretic in this way? I know that blogging is far from perfect. It can be a breeding ground for rumours, half-truths and bad scholarship (I’m guilty of this at times, so I’m allowed to say this). It can be very circular or self-referential. On other hand, established publications aren’t perfect either. They can be expensive, full of ads, and print only publications don’t have hyperlinks (and rarely do their online versions) – footnotes aren’t quite the same. I think that reading online materials with hyperlinks is a more active and engaging process than reading articles in print.

Most importantly, more often than not, I am simply not interested in the content which has been selected by publishers. Reading blogs, I am in charge of what I’m reading. I choose which blogs I put in my aggegator, which posts to skim over and which ones to read in detail. This is one of the benefits of information overload. I know that there will always be more things to read than I have time for. I can use this situation to my advantage by letting myself focus in what I’m really interested in. I’m not saying that publishers don’t add any value. They do by paying professionals to write and sometimes selecting interesting articles which I wouldn’t have read otherwise - Salon being a case in point for me, for which I’m very willing to pay. But other bloggers can do this too - and they point me to interesting articles in other publications which I would never read otherwise.

All that said, I still do read print journals and trade magazines - because I'm also a bookworm and feel that I should.

</Digression1>

Some blogs greatly compliment the blogger’s paid career. I know of instances of people being offered real jobs because of the quality of their web logs.

Another reason to blog is that it’s good for the ego. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way. For people who think that “ego” or “egotistical” are invariably bad things, think self-esteem instead. I think that most honest & self-aware people who aren't saints would be hard-pressed to deny that the ego boosts can help. It’s nice to read your blog being praised. It’s interesting to see the number of hits & referrers to your blog increase. Of course, I must mention the BlogShares (truly, life is too short to be fixated by such things). Of course, depending on their sensitivity, a blogger’s ego can be hurt by criticism, being delinked or receiving reduced readership. Some people have a thicker skin and are not bothered by this. Other people reduce the likelihood of negative reactions by not going out on a limb or expressing opinions which would be inflammatory to members of their particular blogging community.

<Digression2>

It’s very hard to define what a blogging community is. I don’t mean anything monolithic such as - “Trent Lott’s racist remarks caused such furor in the Blogging Community that the mainstream media could no longer overlook them.” There are many different blogging communities. They include the formal attempts to establish a blogging community - e.g. Salon blogs, the blawg web ring, various LiveJournal communities etc. But these formal constructions only help facilitate a blog community, they are not essential for a community. I would tentatively say that a blog community consists of those formal or informal relationships between bloggers who frequently read each other’s postings and occasionally point to or comment on them. I would guess that relationships are based on shared viewpoints and personalities.

The blogiverse is like the night sky. Stars all over the place, in every direction. Some are bright while others are very faint, some have different colours, and they arranged in constellations. Now, imagine a series of Venn diagrams overlaying these stars.

And so the image changes to light rain falling onto a pond. The water's surface is covered with interlinked and concentric circles. Some circles are larger than others, some circles intersect with others, some circles are wholly contained by others.

So each blog falls into a number of different communities, some of which may be large, other which might be small or narrow.

For example, if it is very important for me to be included in the mainstream law blog community or the library blog community, it is not wise to rant my particular blend of left-wing politics. Because I may alienate myself from the members of these broad communities who have opposing or neutral point of view, and I move to the fringes of the community. On the other hand, my rants may bring me closer to the centre of the smaller communities of lefty lawyer/librarian bloggers.

</Digression2>

So if you aspire towards the centre of a large mainstream blog community, you can’t be too controversial, particularly about issues which are outside the main focus of that community.

Before I finish about blogging and the ego, I must point out this discussion by Jonathon Delacour.

Another reason to blog is simply for self-expression. Blogging for self-expression is similar but different from blogging for the ego boost. It’s not hard to imagine situations where self-expression will get you into trouble and cause you to be criticized, delinked or removed from aggregators. The people who blog purely for self-expression are not interested in their readership or number of links, so long as they are saying what they want to say, in the way that they want to say it. Of course, ego can be important to even the most idealistic / artistic bloggers, because what is the purpose of self-expression if nobody is going to read it? But now I’m approaching into questions which have challenged philosophers and artists for centuries, and I don’t want to add another digression.

Finally, there are some people who blog for money. I suspect that this will become a trend, as blogging becomes more mainstream. Depending on the financial relationship, this could seriously undermine the ability for self-expression. On the other hand, being paid may confer extra legitimacy and visibility, which could help the ego. Finally, blogging for money could conceivably become a job – which returns to the first motivation I that mentioned.

I’m writing all this to understand my own motivations for blogging. I think that I’m motivated in part by my career, my ego and my need for self-expression – but not for money :) I wouldn’t be opposed in principle to blogging for money, so long as it didn’t interfere with my other needs, particularly self-expression. I’m not going to rank how important these three different motivations are for me, because it changes on any given day. I can say that the self-expression motivation is getting more important, but I doubt that the other two motivations are going to disappear.

google should have jumped on this years ago - because the horse is well out of the barn now

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 02:43:13 GMT

Google is Sending C&D Letters About Saying "To Google". Google apparently sent out a cease and desist letter for trademark violation to wordspy for using the verb, to Google. The lawyer for Google asks wordspy to, "help us to protect our brand by deleting the definition of "google" found at wordspy.com or revising it to take into account the trademark status of Google." Wordspy chose the later, with this addition: "(Note that Google[dot accent] is a trademark identifying the search technology and services of Google... [bIPlog]

my silly little obituary for bookmarks

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 02:10:04 GMT

When I first started browsing the web, I was infatuated with bookmarks. Bookmarks were always bookmarks then, never "favorites", because Netscape was the only show in town - unless you counted Mosaic. This was when Microsoft was still in denial about what the web was about.

It was so difficult to find anything on the web in those days. All the search engines seemed inadequate in major ways. So the trick was to dilligently bookmark anything you came across which could possibly be of use, because you never knew if you'd be able to find it again.

I was such a nerd (and still am) that a good set of bookmarks seemed almost like a little treasure. Sometimes to be shared, sometimes hoarded, always valued.

Things are different now. The only bookmarks that I care for are the ones that go along the top of the browser. I would only bookmark a small number of sites that I use a lot - which have URLs which are difficult to remember.

None of these would be other blogs, because I keep track of those in my news aggregator. I generally don't bother with blogs that don't have RSS feeds. It's just too much extra work. I know that I miss out on the some good stuff because of this, but there are only so many hours in a day.

There's nothing more annoying than accumulating so many bookmarks that it takes longer to find a site in your list of bookmarks than it would to look it up on a search engine.

One part of the problem is that I frequently use at least three different computers. My home computer, my main work computer and the reference desk computer. I know that there are services for storing your bookmarks on the web, but they seem kind of clunky.

Maintaining bookmarks is annoying. They get outdated so easily. It's the nature of the web. The whole idea/metaphor of web bookmarks is wrong. To compare a web page to a fixed page of a book that can be marked does not match what the web is really about. Imagine a tornado inside a library. Books and pieces of paper are flying everything. Sometimes new things enter the swirling maelstrom, sometimes things leave it, but things are always changing.

It is in the nature of URLs to change - except for the ones so stable that they could easily be remembered anyway.

I guess another reason why I no longer rely on bookmarks is because I blog. If I find something interesting on the web, I'll blog it. I know that the link will go out of date, but I trust to be able to find it again. Because of the symbiotic relationship between bloggers and Google, I know that my act of blogging a site will help keep it on Google's radar.

Legal Mac

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 06:02:30 GMT

Finding US Code sections quickly with your Macintosh - Larry Stanton of Legal Mac blog has created an AppleScript that allows a user to input the title and section of the United States Code, then, after clicking the "Display" button, the default browser opens to a Web page with the requested statute displayed. It is available for download. Great job, Larry! [Ernie the Attorney]

LLRX is not being updated, for the time being

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 02:49:42 GMT

LLRX Takes an Indefinite Break ... (11 Feb) LLRX co-editors Sabrina Pacifici and Cindy Chick announce that LLRX will take a break, but will remain available "without any updates at this point." The home page refers readers to beSpacific, Sabrina's law and technology news Weblog. I'm sorry to learn that LLRX will no longer publish new articles (at least in the immediate future). I also think that Sabrina and Cindy deserve a virtual round of applause for their invaluable contributions to the legal and library professions. [TVC Alert]

This is quite sad. LLRX is a great site for legal research & scholarship. Its new content will be sorely missed. I hope that this is only a temporary hiatus.

even more information about information overload!

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 01:11:52 GMT

Newsreaders & Information Overload.

Newsreaders Help Combat Information Overload. (23 Jan) J.D. Lasica suggests that using a newsreader (like Newzcrawler or AmphetaDesk) to scan information from "weblogs and niche news sites" helps to cut through the mounds of information. [TVC Alert]

Sounds like Mr. Lasica agrees with my Jan. 17 post on this topic and Genie Tyburski's recent Law Practice Managment article Surviving Information Overload.

[Internet Tools for Lawyers]

The other day I stumbled over this fascinating collection of links on information overload at Look.com. I wish that I had access to this collection while preparing for a Speechcraft presentation on the topic a couple of years ago. This also makes me curious to explore more of Look.com

the losing battle to debunk the full-text myth

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:43:08 GMT

Is more information always better?.

"We're throwing masses of full-text information at the students, and it's overwhelming them," says Steven J. Bell, library director at Philadelphia University, in an interview published by The Chronicle of Higher Education today. (The interview was a follow-up to an article by Mr. Bell in this month's issue of American Libraries.) His point rings true in many of my own experiences, both interviewing students and coping with my own research quests. I want to get a full copy of his article, as well as the article he mentions from College & Research Libraries News.

His words imply a larger challenge: Are we able to balance research that is helped along by human beings with research that is accelerated by automated search technology? Is automation winning the game? He mentions a "full-text fixation" among students who will only use databases (the Web included) that give them the full page or full article or full book. With full-text resources out there, why bother with citation databases? Why make the effort to walk to the stacks? Why take the time to ask a reference librarian to help find a subset of journals that cover a topic, when it's easier to get what looks like a pile of texts on that topic by plugging in a few keywords?

[Lisa Guernsey's Weblog]

For the next 2 weeks, I and the other reference librarians at my library, will busy be teaching the basics of using Westlaw to our first year students (we did the Lexis training in November). We'll be giving a demonstration of the full-text JLR database of law journals. We take pains to mention that the JLR database does not contain every law review article ever written - not even all the recent ones. We also try to empathize that full-text searching is the most difficult type of searching and that human-indexed databases such as the Index to Legal Periodicals and LegalTrac may give them more relevant results (hence, less information overload) from a broader pool of sources. But it's hard to interest them in this two-step process, especially when Westlaw offers free printing and spends millions on marketing themselves to law students.

using google or vivisimo for legal reference questions

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 13:05:16 GMT

Free Net Search Engines vs. Westlaw & Lexis.

Are free Internet search engines like Google ever better places for legal research than paid services like Westlaw and Lexis? More.

[Internet Tools for Lawyers]

It's curious to see how the generational differences can work here. One of my older colleagues, whom I greatly respect as a reference librarian, will usually turn to the library catalogue first. Alternatively, he will know of a great reference book off the top of his head. Thirdly he will use Lexis or Westlaw.

If I come across a more challenging question, I will often turn to Google first. It's a very quick way of giving me ideas for better search terms in the catalogue or Westlaw or Lexis. I find it particularly helpful for finding books when I'm missing a piece of crucial information about the title. There have been several instances when a law student has spent an hour searching in vain for something in Lexis or Westlaw (which would be horrifyingly expensive in "real world" Wexis billing), and then I find the document in a minute or two with Google or Vivisimo - my other favourite search engine.

I guess my point is that web search are a very helpful supplement to the more established research methods, but you would be most unwise to rely on them exclusively.

the ethics of googling

Tue, 28 Jan 2003 00:56:56 GMT

Debating the ethics of "Googling". The New York Times' Ethicist column discusses the pros and cons of "Googling" the man you just went on a date with. We've all done it -- haven't we? [Inter Alia]

interesting article on the ethical tight-rope google tries to walk

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 23:38:49 GMT

Google vs. Evil [kfsource]

hotbot

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 23:33:45 GMT

HotBot is baaaack. [kfsource]

AltaVista

Sun, 10 Nov 2002 21:34:14 GMT

- "In the current world of search engines, less is .... - "In the current world of search engines, less is more--and AltaVista is angling for both."

"The struggling company is trying to recapture its former glory as a search engine heavyweight with a newly redesigned Web site, featuring a sleek, spare look that takes a cue from current search champ Google. The new site is scheduled to launch Tuesday."

"Among other tweaks, AltaVista said, the new site will feature an ad-free home page; "fresher" search results, updated navigation for news publications and new tools for pinpointing relevant pages."

"Google has the concept of 'feeling lucky,' and we're introducing the concept of feeling confident," said AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett, referring to the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's home page, which automatically takes searchers to the first Web page turned up by their query and skips showing them the usual list of results" (from Cnet via Pandia)

LS Thoughts - It looks like the new interface is up already. I hope that Altavista can get back into the search game. I haven't even thought about this engine in awhile, let alone use it. [Library Stuff - Updated daily by Steven M. Cohen]

Something that I've always liked about AltaVista, even since Google, is that it has a NEAR proximity operator. Sometimes I'll use it because of that.