17 May 2006
Why not to kill Libraries yet?
There is a rather long posting with on going discussions - whether browsing the Library stacks should still continue in this web age. (stevenberlinjohnson.com: Can We Please Kill This Meme Now). Here is my opinion.
-- Browsing / Surfing is one way of acquiring knowledge and to satisfy the inner hunger for information. Call it infotainment – entertainment with information. One can get this type of entertainment either visiting a library or sit in front of desktop. Books / other published documents in a library does go a filtering and selection process – first in the publication process then in the selection process of the library. Hence reliability of the contained information is somewhat ensured. The same cannot be said about whatever goes on Internet. Persistency and referencing is more reliable in case of library collection – though referencing by links is much easier on web. However, it is also true that as time passes, Internet is evolving into a library.
-- Browsing / Surfing is one way of acquiring knowledge and to satisfy the inner hunger for information. Call it infotainment – entertainment with information. One can get this type of entertainment either visiting a library or sit in front of desktop. Books / other published documents in a library does go a filtering and selection process – first in the publication process then in the selection process of the library. Hence reliability of the contained information is somewhat ensured. The same cannot be said about whatever goes on Internet. Persistency and referencing is more reliable in case of library collection – though referencing by links is much easier on web. However, it is also true that as time passes, Internet is evolving into a library.
16 May 2006
Google Notebook Up
Google Notebook is now up. It works similar to what I expected. Does the work like clipmarks but in a much cool manner. Moreover, Google Search Engine has been leveraged in a good fashion.
Installation is very simple - you need a Google Account ( your gmail account will do ). In mine case - as soon as I logged in - it asked for downloading a Firefox extension. This was done in seconds. Next time when Firefox was opened, it had a small Notebook icon towards the right bottom corner.
Working with it is Simple - mark anything in your Firebox / Browser and click -> notebook icon -> Add Note. You are done. While searching with Google, it shows - "Note this" hypertext under each hit.
Installation is very simple - you need a Google Account ( your gmail account will do ). In mine case - as soon as I logged in - it asked for downloading a Firefox extension. This was done in seconds. Next time when Firefox was opened, it had a small Notebook icon towards the right bottom corner.
Working with it is Simple - mark anything in your Firebox / Browser and click -> notebook icon -> Add Note. You are done. While searching with Google, it shows - "Note this" hypertext under each hit.
Subject Headings Vs Tags
Infomancy Blog has a post comparing Subject Headings with Tags. It argues that while "Subject Headings" are technically correct but "Tags" are right in the sense they reflect how the end user approach a particular information item.
Open Access Advantage
Journal of Medical Internet Research - The Open Access Advantage
PLoS Biology provides robust evidence that open-access articles are more immediately recognized and cited than non-OA articles.
15 May 2006
12 May 2006
Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
Terry Kuny and Gary Cleveland in their article “The Digital Library: Myths and Challenges" IFLA journal 1998 24 (2)7347 had rejected Internet as Digital Library. They regarded it a myth to consider it as a digital library. As a bookstore cannot be called a Library in the same manner Internet providing access to huge information resources cannot considered as a Library. “Finding information is difficult, the quality of the information is quite variable, and reliable, professional assistance for the confused and lost is lacking”.
I have been keenly observing in past few years the emergence of a trend to organize the Internet (WEB) resources so that these are useful to the potential users. Yahoo was probably the first popular tool to hand pick and organize information resources into categories. Then came the voluntary efforts to create an Open Directory (Open Directory Project).
Yet another landmark I consider is the emergence of social tagging platforms like Del.icio.us for bookmaking and Flickr to share Photos. Interestingly Nature Publishing Group produced Open Source Software – Connotea and a free site to “help researchers and clinicians manage and share information”. It handles academic references far better than Del.icio.us. Now only days back Goggle launched Google Co-op. Here you can categorize the URLs in way you know better and people can subscribe to your categorization. This means that now you as a librarian can categorize and organization the web resources in a manner that could be useful for your patrons!! Well it is expected that they subscribe to your categories while searching. And this has started happening - Just noted that [US] National Library of Medicine is a major contributor.
So Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
I have been keenly observing in past few years the emergence of a trend to organize the Internet (WEB) resources so that these are useful to the potential users. Yahoo was probably the first popular tool to hand pick and organize information resources into categories. Then came the voluntary efforts to create an Open Directory (Open Directory Project).
Yet another landmark I consider is the emergence of social tagging platforms like Del.icio.us for bookmaking and Flickr to share Photos. Interestingly Nature Publishing Group produced Open Source Software – Connotea and a free site to “help researchers and clinicians manage and share information”. It handles academic references far better than Del.icio.us. Now only days back Goggle launched Google Co-op. Here you can categorize the URLs in way you know better and people can subscribe to your categorization. This means that now you as a librarian can categorize and organization the web resources in a manner that could be useful for your patrons!! Well it is expected that they subscribe to your categories while searching. And this has started happening - Just noted that [US] National Library of Medicine is a major contributor.
So Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
Libraries in Social Networking Software
Information Wants To Be Free Blog has a comprehensive post on using ( or not using) Social Networking Software like MySpace and Facebook in Libraries.
11 May 2006
Google Related Links
"Google Related Links use the power of Google to automatically bring fresh, dynamic and interesting content links to any website". - Google Related Links
Going Strong the Search Way
According to Official Google Blog Four products are being launched by Google.
- Google Co-op - You can help Google Improve search results in the topics you know best.
- Google Desktop 4 - Next version of Desktop Search Tool that can "Quickly search your computer"
- Google Notebook ( To be launched ). Can't say exactly but can guess - could be similar to http://clipmarks.com
- Google Trends
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