The Library of Congress recently issued a statement to announce the launch of an initiative at LC to "analyze the present and future environment, identify the components of the [bibliographic] framework to support our users, and plan for the evolution from our present framework to the future—not just for the Library of Congress, but for all institutions that depend on bibliographic data shared by the Library and its partners. [ ...] The Library now seeks to evaluate how its resources for the creation and exchange of metadata are currently being used and how they should be directed in an era of diminishing budgets and heightened expectations in the broader library community." The full announcement may be read at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-051311.html.
Library of Congress News and Announcements, 5/24/2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
How Google pagerank actually works
An interesting article in the New York Times a few months ago reveals some hints about how Google's parg ranking actually works. the article is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
The article discusses how, over the last holiday season, Penney's came up number one in searches for everything from dresses to luggage to area rugs. The Times got an expert, Doug Pierce, of Blue Fountain Media to look into the mystery, and "what he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating."
Essentially, Penney's, or somebody acting for them, got thousands of unrelated websites -- mostly set up for exactly this purpose -- to link, via phrases like "casual dresses" to Penney's website. If you get enough of these trivial links, it really does raise your page rank.
A very interesting article about just how search ranking works, how Google works to prevent people gaming the system, and how occasionally, they miss.
The article discusses how, over the last holiday season, Penney's came up number one in searches for everything from dresses to luggage to area rugs. The Times got an expert, Doug Pierce, of Blue Fountain Media to look into the mystery, and "what he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating."
Essentially, Penney's, or somebody acting for them, got thousands of unrelated websites -- mostly set up for exactly this purpose -- to link, via phrases like "casual dresses" to Penney's website. If you get enough of these trivial links, it really does raise your page rank.
A very interesting article about just how search ranking works, how Google works to prevent people gaming the system, and how occasionally, they miss.
Google filtering
Google is now personalizing searches, i.e., editing search results, which creates what one critic calls the "filter bubble." What this means is that the same search on Google by different people will yield different results, depending on who Google thinks is doing the searching -- and there is no way of knowing who Google thinks that is. This filtering is invisible and based on such complicated code that even Google developers could not explain search results.
One thing this means is that the old "page rank" system is no longer operative. This may have implications for Google Scholar and Google Books. For example, if I'm a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Google will prioritize links confirming my perspective and filter out links that conflict with it.
Google's filter bubble is discussed in a few places that I've seen. There is a 52-minute program at http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201105191000
It's discussed here and here on Rene Pickard's blog (the first of those links providing a guess at some of the 57 factors going in to Google's filtering; the second a link to a discussion by Eli Pariser on the filter bubble.)
Edited to add: Here's a list by Eli Pariser of 10 things you can do to "pop your filter bubble.:
University of Chicago opens new library with automated retrieval system
Last week, the University of Chicago opened the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, notable for its on-site, underground high-density storage system and the absence of browseable book stacks. Described by Inside Higher Ed as a "Batcave for the Ph.D. crowd," the storage facility has room to store 3.5 million volume equivalents. It represents a middle ground between off-site book storage and overcrowded stacks in campus libraries. Library users identify the resources they want by searching the online catalog. The loss of browseablilty heightens the importance of complete and accurate catalog records. Five robotic cranes are deployed to retrieve materials requested by users from among the 24,000 storage bins, a process that reportedly takes less than five minutes.
Read the complete Inside Higher Ed story, and watch a short informational video at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/18/chicago_library_solves_shelf_space_question_by_burrowing_underground_using_robots
Read the complete Inside Higher Ed story, and watch a short informational video at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/18/chicago_library_solves_shelf_space_question_by_burrowing_underground_using_robots
Friday, May 13, 2011
Some Comparisons between LOCKSS and Portico
Seadle, Michael. “Archiving in the networked world: by the numbers.” Library Hi Tech, 29 (1) 2011. At: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0737-8831&volume=29&issue=1&articleid=1912311&show=abstract
This paper examines the overlap of journals archived in both LOCKSS and in Portico, and the publishers included in the two archives. The findings show a significant overlap among the archiving systems. They also show that Portico has no prejudice against small publishers and that large publishers are as willing to choose the LOCKSS software as to choose Portico. LOCKSS does, however, archive many more small and arguably endangered publishers and may be the only economically viable choice for them.
This paper examines the overlap of journals archived in both LOCKSS and in Portico, and the publishers included in the two archives. The findings show a significant overlap among the archiving systems. They also show that Portico has no prejudice against small publishers and that large publishers are as willing to choose the LOCKSS software as to choose Portico. LOCKSS does, however, archive many more small and arguably endangered publishers and may be the only economically viable choice for them.
Monday, April 25, 2011
5 Myths About the 'Information Age'
Robert Darnton. "5 Myths About the 'Information Age'," The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle Review 57, Issue 33:B9.
Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged. Taken together, they constitute a font of proverbial nonwisdom. Five stand out:
1. "The book is dead."
2. "We have entered the information age.
3. "All information is now available online."
4. "Libraries are obsolete."
5. "The future is digital."
You may read the rest of the article at: http://chronicle.com/article/5-Myths-About-the-Information/127105/
From: The Chroncile of Higher Education, April 22, 2011.
Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged. Taken together, they constitute a font of proverbial nonwisdom. Five stand out:
1. "The book is dead."
2. "We have entered the information age.
3. "All information is now available online."
4. "Libraries are obsolete."
5. "The future is digital."
You may read the rest of the article at: http://chronicle.com/article/5-Myths-About-the-Information/127105/
From: The Chroncile of Higher Education, April 22, 2011.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
New Content and Functionality Added to the RDA Toolkit
A new table of contents and index were recently added to the RDA Toolkit. The new book-style table of contents makes it easier for users to get a high-level overview of the structure of RDA. The index is intended to supplement the Toolkit's full-text searching capability by including terms that are not actually found in the RDA text, such as General Material Designation. The concept of the GMD does not exist in RDA, but the index contains an entry that directs users to the RDA concepts of Carrier Type, Content Type, and Media Type. Printable PDFs of both the table of contents and the index are available for offline use, and both are available free of charge. A subscription to the RDA toolkit is not required to view these new additions to the Toolkit.
For more information, see the RDA Toolkit Blog at: http://www.rdatoolkit.org/blog/119.
RDA Toolkit email list, 4/20/2011
For more information, see the RDA Toolkit Blog at: http://www.rdatoolkit.org/blog/119.
RDA Toolkit email list, 4/20/2011
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