Semantic Web: A McCool Way of Explaining It

Yahoo's Rob McCool argues in Rethinking the Semantic Web, Part 1 that the Semantic Web will never happen. Why? Because the Semantic Web has three fundamental parts, and they just don't fit together based on current technologies. Here is what we have. The foundation is the set of data models and formats that provide semantics to applications that use them (RDF, RDF Schema, OWL). The second layer is composed of services - purely machine-accessible programs that answer Web requests and perform actions in response. At the top are the intelligent agents, or applications.

Reason? Knowledge representation is a technique with mathematical roots in the work of Edgar Codd, widely known as the one whose original paper using set theory and predicate calculus led to the relational database revolution in the 1980's. Knowledge representation uses the fundamental mathematics of Codd's theory to translate information, which humans represent with natural language, into sets of tables that use well-defined schema to defined schema to define what can be entered in the rows and columns.

The problem is that this creates a fundamental barrier, in terms of richness of representation as well as creation and maintenance, compared to the written language that people use. Logic, which forms the basis of OWL, suffers from an inability to represent exceptions to rules and the contexts in which they're valid.

Databases are deployed only by corporations whose information-management needs require them or by hobbyists who believe they can make some money from creating and sharing their databases. Because information theory removes nearly all context from information, both knowledge representation and relational databases represent only facts. Complex relationships, exceptions to rules, and ideas that resist simplistic classifications pose significant design challenges to information bases. Adding semantics only increases the burden exponentially.

Because it's a complex format and requires users to sacrifice expressively and pay enormous costs in translation and maintenance, McCool believes Semantic Web will not achieve widespread support. Never? Not until another Edgar Codd comes along our way. So we wait.

The Postmodern Librarian?

Are we in the postmodern era? Nicholas Joint's Digital Libraries and the Future of the Library Profession seems to think so. In it, he argues that unique contemporary cultural shifts are leading to a new form of librarianship that can be characterized as "postmodern" in nature, and that this form of professional specialism will be increasingly influential in the decades to come.

According to Joint, the idea of the postmodern digital library is clearly very different from the interim digital library. In the summer of 2006, a workshop at the eLit conference in Loughborough on the cultural impact of mobile communication technologies, there emerged the Five Theses of Loughborough. Here they are:

(1) There are no traditional information objects on the internet with determinate formats or determinate formats or determinate qualities: the only information object and information forat on the internet is "ephemera"

(2) The only map of the internet is the internet itself, it cannot be described

(3) A hypertext collection cannot be selectively collected because each information object is infinite and infinity cannot be contained

(4) The problem of digital preservation is like climate change; it is man-made and irreversible, and means that much digital data is ephemeral; but unlike climate change, it is not necessarily catastrophic

(5) Thus, there is no such thing as a traditional library in a postmodern world. Postmodern information sets are just as accessible as traditional libraries;: there are no formats, no descriptions, no hope of collection management, no realistic possibility of preservation. And they work fine.

New York City In a Semantic Web

Tim Krichel in The Semantic Web and an Introduction to Resource Description Framework makes a very astute analogy for understanding the technology behind the Semantic Web, particularly the nuances of XML and RDF, where the goal is to move away from the present Web - where pages are essentially constructed for use by human consumption - to a Web where more information can be understood and treated by machines. The analogy goes like this:

We fit each car in New York City with a device that lets a reverse geographical position system reads its movements. Suppose, in addition, that another machine can predict the weather or some other phenomenon that impacts traffic. Assume that a third kind of device has the public transport timetables. Then, data from a collaborative knowledge picture of these machines can be used to advise on the best means of transportation for reaching a certain destination within the next few hours.

The computer systems doing the calculations required for the traffic advisory are likely to be controlled by different bodies, such as the city authority or the national weather service. Therefore, there must be a way for software agents to process the information from the machine where it resides, to proceed with further processing of that information to a form in which a software agent of the final user can be used to query the dataset.

Genre Searching

At today's SLAIS colloquium, Dr. Luanne Freund gave a presentation on Genre Searching: A Pragmatic Approach to Information Retrieval. Freund argues for taking a pragmatics approach in genre searching and genre classification. But there are two perspectives of pragmatics: socio-pragmatic and cognitive-pragmatic. Using a case study, a high-tech firm, Freund and her colleagues built a unique search engine called X-Cite, which culls together documents from the corporate intranet (which include anything from FAQ's to specialize manuals) with tags. In ranking documents based on title, abstract, and keywords as part of the search engine, the algorithm uniquely cuts down on the ambiguity and guesswork of searching. Using a software engineering workplace domain as its starting point, Freund believes that genre searching has the potential to make a significant contribution to the effectiveness of workplace search systems, by incorporating genre weights into the ranking algorithm.

In genre analysis, three steps must be taken:

(1) Identify - The core genre repertoire of the work domain

(2) Develop - A standard taxonomy to represent it

(3) Develop - Operational definitions of the genre classes in the taxonomy, including identifying features in terms of form, function and content to facilitate manual and automatic genre classification.

Throughout the entire presentation, my mind kept returning to the question: is this not another specialized form of social searching? A tailorized search engine which narrows its search to a specific genre? Although the two are entirely different things, I keep thinking that creating your own search engine is certainly much easier.

Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) & Librarians

Miles and Perez-Aguera's SKOS: Simple Knowledge Organization for the Web introduces SKOS, a Semantic Web language for representing structured vocabularies, including thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading systems, and taxonomies -- tools that cataloguers and librarians use everyday in their line of work.

It's interesting that the very essence of librarianship and cataloging will play a vital role in the upcoming version of the Web. It's hard to fathom how this works: how can MARC records and the DDC have anything to do with the intelligent agents which form the layers of architecture of the Semantic Web and Web 3.0? The answer: metadata.

And even more importantly: the messiness and disorganization of the Web will require information professionals with the techniques and methods to reorganize everything coherently. Web 1.0 and 2.0 were about creating -- but the Semantic Web will be about orderliness and regulating. By controlled structured vocabulary, SKOS is built on the following features. Take a closer look at Miles & Perez-Aguera's article -- it's well worth a read.

(1) Thesauri - Broadly conforming to the ISO 2788:1986 guidelines such as the UK Archival Thesaurus (UKAT, 2004), the General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET), and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus

(2) Classification Schemes - Such the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), and the Bliss Classification (BC2)

(3) Subject Heading Systems - The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

New Librarians, New Possibilities?

Are newer, incoming librarians changing the profession? Maybe. But not yet. University Affairs has published an article called The New Librarians, which highlights some of the new ideas that newer librarians are bringing into academic libraries. Everyone's favourite University Librarian (at least for me), Jeff Trzeciak, who has his own blog, is featured in the piece, and in it, he describes how he has swiftly hired new Library 2.0-ready librarians as well as overturning the traditional style decor and culture of McMaster Library, with items such as a "café, diner-style booths, stand-up workstations, oversized ottomans, and even coffee tables with pillows on the floor will take their place, all equipped for online access. Interactive touch-screen monitors will line the wall."

University of Guelph Chief Librarian Michael Ridley, similarly sees a future where the university library serves as an “academic town square,” a place that "brings people and ideas together in an ever-bigger and more diffuse campus. Services in the future will include concerts, lectures, art shows – anything that trumpets the joy of learning."

Is this the future of libraries? Yes, it's a matter of time. That's where we're heading -- that's where we'll end up. It is a matter of time. Change is difficult, particularly in larger academic institutions where bureaucracy and politics play an essential role in all aspects of operations. There is great skepticism towards Jeff Trzeciak's drastic changes to McMaster Library -- he's either a pioneer if he succeeds, or an opportunist if he fails. A lot is riding on Jeff's shoulders.

Introducing Semantic Searching

Just as we had Google and Web 2.0 nearly figured out, the Semantic Web is just around the corner. Introducing hakia, one of the first truly Semantic Web search engines. As we had argued, the Semantic Web is a digital catalogue, and many of the key components is the understanding of ontologies and taxonomies. Built on Semantic Web technologies, hakia is a new "meaning-based" (semantic) search engine with the purpose of improving search relevancy and interactivity -- the potential benefits for end users are search efficiency, richness of information, and saving time. Here are the elements which makes hakia. Will this hakia team be the next Brin and Page? Why don't you try it?

(1) Ontological Semantics (OntoSem) - A formal and comprehensive linguistic theory of meaning in natural language. As such, it bears significantly on philosophy of language, mathematical logic, and cognitive science

(2) Query Detection and Extraction (QDEX) - A system invented to bypass the limitations of the inverted index approach when dealing with semantically rich data

(3) SemanticRank algorithm - Deploys a collection of methods to score and rank paragraphs that are retrieved from the QDEX system for a given query. The process includes query analysis, best sentence analysis, and other pertinent operations

(4) Dialogue - In order establish a human-like dialogue with the user, the dialogue algorithm's goal is to convert the search engine's role into a computerized assistant with advanced communication skills while utilizing the largest amount of information resources in the world.

(5) Search mission - Google mission was to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. hakia's mission is to search for better search.

A Defintion of the Semantic Web

Parker, Nitse, and Flowers' Libraries as Knowledge Management Centers makes a good point about special libraries. Libraries need to be at the forefront of technology, or else they'll be an endangered species. As libraries struggle with the fallout of the digital age, they must find a creative way to remain relevant to the twenty first century user who has the ability and means of finding vast amounts of information without even setting foot in a library. The authors go on to suggest that an understanding of the Semantic Web is necessary for those working in libraries. An excellent definition of the Semantic Web is made -- one of the best I've seen so far:

Today's web pages are designed for human use, and human interpretation is required to understand the content. Because the content is not machine-interpretable, any type of automation is difficult. The Semantic Web augments today's web to eliminate the need for human reasoning in determining the meaning of web-based data. The Semantic Web is based on the concept that documents can be annotated in such a way that their semantic content will be optimally accessible and comprehensible to automated software agents and other computerized tools that function without human guidance. Thus, the Semantic Web might have a more significant impact in integrating resources that are not in a traditional catalog system than in changing bibliographic databases.

Three Perspectives of the Semantic Web

Catherine Marshall and Frank Shipman has interesting insight in Which Semantic Web? In it, they argue that the plethora of interpretations of the Semantic Web can be traced back to three different perspectives. Here they are:

(1) A Universal Library - Readily accessed and used by humans in a variety of information use and contexts. This perspective arose as a reaction to the disorder of the Web, which was not ordered in categorization until search engines came along. Metadata, cataloguing, and schemas were seen as the answer.

(2) Computational Agents - Completing sophisticated activities on behalf of their human counterparts. Tim Berners-Lee envisioned an infrastructure for knowledge acquisition, representation, and utilization across diverse use contexts. This global knowledge base wil be used by personal agents to collect and reason about information, assisting people with tasks common to everyday life.

(3) Federated Data and Knowledge Base - In this vision, federated components are developed with some knowledge of another or at least with a shared anticipation of the type of applications that will use the data. In essence, this Web encompasses languages used for syntactically sharing data rather than having to write specialized converters for each pair of languages.

Knowledge Management 3.0

Michael Koenig and T. Kanti Srikantaiah proffer the idea that Knowledge Management is in its third phase. Here are the different stages:

Stage 1 - Internet of Intellectual Capital - this initial stage of KM was driven primarily by IT. In this stage, organizations realized that their stock in trade was information and knowledge -- yet the left hand rarely knew what the right hand did. When the Internet emerged, KM was about how to deploy the new technology to accomplish those goals.

Stage 2 - Human & Cultural dimensions - the hallmark phrase is communities of practice. KM during this stage was about knowledge creation as well as knowledge sharing and communication.

Stage 3 - Content & Retrievability - consists of structuring content and assigning descriptors (index terms). In content management and taxonomies, KM is about arrangement description, and structure of that content. Interestingly, taxonomies are perceived by the KM community as emanating from natural scientists, when in fact they are the domain of librarians and information scientists. To take this one step further, The Semantic Web is also built on taxonomies and ontologies. Anyone see a trend? Perhaps a convergence?

When is an Apple, an Apple?

In Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi proposes that the ultimate search engine is one that can tap into the input of every person here on Earth. Although none such search engines existed, he argues that Google is the closest we have to a “worldly” search engine because of its PageRank algorithm.

I argue that we can go one step further because with the advent of Web 2.0, social search is actually the closest that we have to gathering input from all of the world’s users. How? Why? Let me explain with an analogy.

It’s not a matter of how, but a matter of when. Web 2.0 is very much like an apple. An apple can be food, a paperweight, a target, or a weapon if needed. It can be whatever you want it to be when you want it to be. The same goes for social searching. It is not search engines.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking web service. But it can be a powerful search tool if used properly; essentially, it taps into the social preferences of other users. Same goes for Youtube: it’s a video sharing website, but what’s to say that it can’t be used for searching videos for relevant topics, what’s to say that you can’t search related videos based on videos bookmarked by others? Social search is not based on program; it is mindset, a metaphorical sweet fruit, if you will.

In many ways, social searching is not unlike what librarians did (and still do) in the print-based world where an elegant craft of creativity and perserverence was required to find the right materials and putting them into the hands of the patron; the only difference is that the search has become digital.

Youtube University

UC Berkeley has become the first university to formally offer videos of full course lectures via YouTube. Two hundred clips, representing eight full classes, have been uploaded so far. Here is "SIMS 141 - Search, Google, and Life: Sergey Brin - Google." Enjoy.

Of Ontologies + Taxonomies

In 2002 -- two years before Tim O'Reilly's famous coining of the term, "Web 2.0," Katherine Adams of the Los Angeles Public Library had already argued that librarians will be an essential piece to the Semantic Web equation. In The Semantic Web: Differentiating Between Taxonomies and Ontologies, Adams makes a few strong arguments that is strikingly ahead of their time. Long before wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds had come to prominence, (5 years ago!) Adams had the foresight to point out the importance of librarians in reply to Berners-Lee et al's vision. Here are Adams main points, all of which I find fascinating based on pre-Web 2.0 knowledge:

(1) Taxonomies: An Important Part of the Semantic Web - The new Web entails adding an extra layer of infrastructure to the current HTML Web - metadata in the form of vocabularies and the relationships that exist between selected terms will make this possible for machines to understand conceptual relationships as humans do.

(2) Defining Ontologies and Taxonomies - Ontologies and taxonomies are used synonymously -- Computer Scientists refer to hierarchies of structured vocabularies as "ontology" while librarians call them "taxonomy."

(3) Standardized Language and Conceptual Relationships - Both taxonomies and ontologies consist of a structured vocabulary that identifies a single key term to represent a concept that could be described using several words.

(4) Different Points of Emphasis - Computer Science is concerned with how software and associated machines interact with ontologies; librarians are concerned with how patrons retrieve information with the aid of taxonomies. However, they're essential different sides of the same coin.

(5) Topic Maps As New Web Infrastructure - Topic maps will ultimately point the way to the next stage of the Web's development. They represent a new international standard (ISO 13250). In fact, even the OCLC is looking to topic maps in its Dublin Core Initiative to organize the Web by subject.

Web 3.0 Librarian

My colleague Dean Giustini and I have collaborated on an article, The Semantic Web as a large, searchable catalogue: a librarian’s perspective. In it, we argue that librarians will play a prominent role in Web 3.0. The current Web is disjointed and disorganized, and searching is much like looking for a needle in the haystack.

It's not unlike the library before Melvil Dewey introduced the idea of organizing and cataloguing books in a classification system. In many ways, we see the parallels here 130 years later. It's not surprising at all to see the OCLC at the forefront in developing Semantic Web technologies. Many of the same techniques of bibliographic control apply to the possibilities of the Semantic Web. It was the computer scientists and computer engineers who had created Web 1.0 and 2.0, but it will ultimately be individuals from library science and information science who will play a prominent role in the evolution of organizing the messiness into a coherent whole for users. Are we saying that Web 2.0 is irrelevant? Of course not. Web 2.0 is an intermediary stage. Folksonomies, social tagging, wikis, blogs, podcasts, mashups, etc -- all of these things are essential basic building blocks to the Semantic Web.

Libraries and the Semantic Web

Interestingly, not much has been talked about in terms of librarianship and Semantic Web technologies. It's as if there's a gap that can never be bridged: the rustic gatekeeper of books and high-end cutting edge programmer-speak. Quite recently, Jane Greenberg, professor of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has pointed out in Advancing the Semantic Web via Library Functions that there are many similarities between the library and Semantic Web. Here are some:

(1) Each has developed as a response to an abundance of information

(2) Both have mission statements grounded in service, information access, and knowledge discovery

(3) Both have advanced as a result of international and national standards

(4) Both have grown due to a collaborative spirit

(5) Both have become a part of society's fabric (although not so much yet for the Semantic Web)

Four Ways to Look at the Web

The Semantic Web is far from the monolithic artificial intelligent machine which could seemingly process the whim of a user's thoughts. Cade Metz's Web 3.0: Tomorrow's Web, Today offers an excellent and concise glimpse into the different multitude of possibilities of this new Web. Although still in its hyper-conceptual stages, Metz envisions four directions which Web 3.0 could take:

(1) The Semantic Web - A Web where machines can read sites as easily as humans read them. You ask your machine to check your schedule against the schedules of all the dentists and doctors within a 10-mile radius—and it obeys.

(2) The 3D Web - A Web you can walk through. Without leaving your desk, you can go house hunting across town or take a tour of Europe. Or you can walk through a Second Life–style virtual world, surfing for data and interacting with others in 3D.

(3) The Media-Centric Web - A Web where you can find media using other media—not just keywords. You supply, say, a photo of your favorite painting and your search engines turn up hundreds of similar paintings.

(4) The Pervasive Web - A Web that's everywhere. On your PC. On your cell phone. On your clothes and jewelry. Spread throughout your home and office. Even your bedroom windows are online, checking the weather, so they know when to open and close

The Seminal on The Semantic

Before Tim O'Reilly, there was Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who often credited as the creator of the Internet. However, what many do not know is that Berners-Lee also preceded many so-called Web 2.0 experts when he had envisioned the Semantic Web (or as many refer to it synonymously as "Web 3.0"). While O'Reilly came along in 2004 to coin Web 2.0, Berners-Lee had long ago created the conceptual foundations in an article co-produced with James Hendler and Ora Lassila, titled The Semantic Web in Scientific American in 2001. Although librarians and information professionals don't need to know the specifics behind the coding technology behind the Semantic Web (that would be asking too much, for much of it is still in development), it is important to have a good grasp of the concepts and a strong understanding of the history and evolution of the Web. Thus, it is important to know that the Semantic Web will be defined by five concepts:

(1) Expressing Meaning - Bring structure to the meaningful content of Web pages, creating an environment where software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users. Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.

(2) Knowledge Representation - For Web 3.0 to function, computers must have access to structured collections of information and sets of inference rules that they can use to conduct automated reasoning: this is where XML and RDF comes in, but are they only preliminary languages?

(3) Ontologies - But for a program that wants to compare or combine information across two databases, it has to know what two terms are being used to mean the same thing. This means that the program must have a way to discover common meanings for whatever database it encounters. Hence, an ontology has a taxonomy and a set of inference rules.

(4) Agents - The real power of the Semantic Web will be the programs that actually collect Web content from diverse sources, process the information and exchange the results with other programs. Thus, whereas Web 2.0 is about applications, the Semantic Web will be about services.

(5) Evolution of Knowledge - The Semantic Web is not merely a tool for conducting individual tasks; rather, its ultimate goal is to advance the evolution of human knowledge as a whole. Whereas human endeavour is caught between the eternal struggle of small groups acting independently and the need to mesh with the greater community, the Semantic Web is a process of joining together subcultures when a wider common language is needed.

Web 3.0 & the Sem-antic Web

Ready or not, like it or not, Web 3.0 is around the corner. It's coming - so it's best to understand the technologies. Particularly for librarians, we need to understand the intricate technologies behind what the semantic web will look like, how it runs, and what to expect from its much anticipated (although still hyper-theoretical) features.

Ora Lassila and James Hendler, who co-authored along with Tim Berners-Lee, on the article which predicted what the semantic web would look like in 2001, argues in their most recent article, Embracing "Web 3.0" that the technologies that make it possible for the semantic web is slowly but surely maturing. In particular,

As RDF acceptance has grown, the need has become clear for a standard query language to be for RDF what SQL is for relational data. The SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL), now under standardization at the W3C, is designed to be that language.

But that doesn't mean that Web 2.0 technologies are obsolete. Rather, they are only a terminal stage of the evolution to Web 3.0. In particular, it is interesting that the authors note

(1) Folksonomies - tagging provides and organic, community-driven means of creating structure and classification vocabularies.

(2) Microformats - the use of HTML markup to decode structured data are a step toward "semantic data." Of course, although not in Semantic Web formats, microformatted data is easy to transform into something like RDF or OWL.

As you can see, we're moving along. Take a look at this: on the surface, Yahoo Food looks just like any Web service; underneath, it is made from SPARQL which really does "sparkle."

Six Kinds of (Social) Searching

Librarians need to be aware of social searching. It's important and it's here to stay. What makes social searching so integral for librarians' information retrieval skills is that it requires knowledge of Web 2.0 (mashups, wisdom of crowds, long tail, etc.) It doesn't mean that "traditional" search skills are obsolete. Far from it. Rather, social searching just adds another layer in the librarian's toolkit. Here are some of my favourites.

1. Social Q&A sites - Cha Cha, Live QnA, Yahoo! Answers, Answer Bag, Wondir

2. Shared bookmarks and web pages - Del.icio.us, Shadows, Yahoo's MyWeb, Furl, Diigo, Connotea

3. Collaborative directories - Open Directory Project, Prefound, Zimbio, Wikipedia

4. Taggregators - Technorati, Bloglines, Wikipedia

5. Personalized verticals - PogoFrog, Eurekster, Rollyo

6. Collaborative harvesters - iRazoo, Digg, Flickr, Youtube, Netscape, Reddit, Tailrank, popurls.com

Top 25 Definitions for Web 2.0

Summer has gone by so quickly. What happened to June? I've been culling readings from all over everywhere, aggregating the best definitions of Web 2.0. Notice there is a lot: twenty-five in all. I tried making sense of everything, even trying to arrange and shuffle for a catchy acronym (think ROY G. BIV). I challenge all librarians and other information professionals interested in Web 2.0 to do the same: find a catchy acronym and share it with us all. I will share my own in one month's time.

(1) Social Networks - The content of a site should comprise user-provided information that attracts members of an ever-expanding network. (example: Facebook)

(2) Wisdom of Crowds - Group judgments are surprisingly accurate, and the aggregation of input is facilitated by the ready availability of social networking sites. (example: Wikipedia)

(3) Loosely Coupled API's - Short for "Application Programming Interface," API provides a set of instructions (messages) that a programmer can use to communicate between applications, thus allowing programmers to incorporate one piece of software to directly manipulate (code) into another. (example: Google Maps)

(4) Mashups - They are combinations of APIs and data that result in new information resources and services. (example: Calgary Mapped)

(5) Permanent Betas - The idea is that no software is ever truly complete so long as the user community is still commenting upon it, and thus, improving it. (example: Google Labs)

(6) Software Gets Better the More People Use It - Because all social networking sites seek to capitalize on user input, the true value of each site is definted by the number of people it can bring together. (example: Windows Live Messenger)

(7) Folksonomies - It's a classification system created in a bottom-up fashion and with no central coordination. Entirely differing from the traditional classification schemes such as the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress Classifications, folksonomies allow any user to "social tag" whatever phrase they deem necessary for an object. (example: Flickr and Youtube)

(8) Individual Production and User Generated Content - Free social software tools such as blogs and wikis have lowered the barrier to entry, following the same footsteps as the 1980s self-publishing revolution sparked by the advent of the office laser printer and desktop publishing software. In the world of Web 2.0, with a few clicks of the mouse, a user can upload videos or photos from their digital cameras and into their own media space, tag it with keywords and make the content available for everyone in the world.

(9) Harness the Power of the Crowd - Harnessing not the "intellectual" power, but the power of the "wisdom of the crowds," "crowd-sourcing" and "folksonomies."

(10) Data on an Epic Scale - Google has a total database measured in hundreds of petabytes (a million, billion bytes) which is swelled each day by terabytes of new information. Much of this is collected indirectly from users and aggregated as a side effect of the ordinary use of major Internet services and applications such as Google, Amazon, and EBay. In a sense these services are 'learning' every time they are used by mining and sifting data for better services.

(11) Architecture of Participation - Through the use of the application or service, the service itself gets better. Simply argued, the more you use it - and the more other people use - the better it gets. Web 2.0 technologies are designed to take the user interactions and utilize them to improve itself. (e.g. Google search).

(12) Network Effects - It is general economic term often used to describe the increase in vaue to the existing users of a service in which there is some form of interaction with others, as more and more people to start to use it. As the Internet is, at heart, a telecommunications network, it is therefore subject to the network effect. In Web 2.0, new software services are being made available which, due to their social nature, rely a great deal on the network effect for their adoption. eBay is one example of how the application of this concept works so successfully.

(13) Openness - Web 2.0 places an emphasis on making use of the information in vast databases that the services help to populate. This means Web 2. 0 is about working with open standards, using open source software, making use of free data, re-using data and working in a spirit of open innovation.

(14) The Read/Write Web - A term given to describe the main differences between Old Media (newspaper, radio, and TV) and New Media (e.g. blogs, wikis, RSS feeds), the new Web is dynamic in that it allows consumers of the web to alter and add to the pages they visit - information flows in all directions.

(15) The Web as a Platform - Better known as "perpetual beta," the idea behind Web 2.0 services is that they need to be constantly updated. Thus, this includes experimenting with new features in a live environment to see how customers react.

(16) The Long Tail - The new Web lowers the barriers for publishing anything (including media) related to a specific interest because it empowers writers to connect directly with international audiences interested in extremely narrow topics, whereas originally it was difficult to publish a book related to a very specific interest because its audience would be too limited to justify the publisher's investment.

(17) Harnessing Collective Intelligence - Google, Amazon, and Wikipedia are good examples of how successful Web 2.0-centric companies use the collective intelligence of users in order to continually improve services based on user contributions. Google's PageRank examines how many links points to a page, and from what sites those links come in order to determine its relevancy instead of the evaluating the relevance of websites based solely on their content.

(18) Science of Networks - To truly understand Web 2.0, one must not only understand web networks, but also human and scientific networks. Ever heard of six degrees of separation and the small world phenomenon? Knowing how to open up a Facebook account isn't good enough; we must know what goes on behind the scene in the interconnectedness of networks - socially and scientifically.

(19) Core Datasets from User Contributions - Web 2.0 companies use to collect unique datasets is through user contributions. However, collecting is only half the picture; using the datasets is the key. These contributions are then organized into databases and analyzed to extract the collective intelligence hidden in the data. This extracted information is then used to extract collective knowledge that can be applied to the direct improvement of the website or web service.

(20) Lightweight Programming Models - The move toward database driven web services has been accompanied by new software development models that often lead to greater flexibility. In sharing and processing datasets between partners, this enables mashups and remixes of data. Google Maps is a common example as it allows people to combine its data and application with other geographic datasets and applications.

(21) The Wisdom of the Crowds - Not only has it blurred the boundary between amateur and professional status, in a connected world, ordinary people often have access to better information than officials do. As an example, the collective intelligence of the evacuees of the towers saved numerous lives in the face of disobeying authority which told them to stay put.

(22) Digital Natives - Because a generation (mostly the under 25's) have grown up surrounded by developing technologies, those fully at home in a digital environment aren't worried about information overload; rather, they crave it.

(23) Internet Economics - Small is the new big. Unlike the past when publishing was controlled by publishers, Web 2.0's read/write web has opened up markets to a far bigger range of supply and demand. The amateur who writes one book has access to the same shelf space as the professional author.

(24) "Wirelessness" - Digital natives are less attached to computers and are more interested in accessing information through mobile devices, when and where they need it. Hence, traditional client applications designed to run on a specific platform, will struggle if not disappear in the long run.

(25) Who Will Rule? - This will be the ultimate question (and prize). As Sharon Richardson argues, whoever rules "may not even exist yet."

Librarian 3.0

I was recently asked in a job interview how Web 3.0 would work for a law firm. It's made me think on the fly: how would the Web of the future work in such a scenario? We're barely even half-way into Web 2.0...I had to think back to an article that Michael V. Copeland of Business 2.0 Magazine had written entitled, What's next for the Internet to envision a glimpse of the "future."

The semantic Web in the Berners-Lee vision acts more like a series of connected databases, where all information resides in a structured form. Within that structure is a layer of description that adds meaning that the computer can understand.

Since we're on the topic of visions and dreams, here would be my answer: Imagine the lawyer, Mr. X, flipping open his laptop (which by then would be priced similarly to a cell phone), and typing in "2 o'clock meeting with Angela at Starbucks." All of a sudden, his online calendar would pop open and a series of clients names would appear, and the correct "Angela Smith" would be sent an email with details of the meeting agenda sent to the printer. Starbucks would receive an electronic notification with the usual order of Venti Chai Latte (two cups) and a newspaper -- the Globe and Mail (his favourite) to boot. Because Mr. X's car is in the shop because of a recent accident and a replacement car isn't ready yet, a taxi has been order automatically for Mr. X and will be ready for him upon arrival for 1:30 at the entrance. The ride is estimated for 15 minutes to his destination, but his preference has always been for early arrival.

Finally, it's the library's turn now. Mr. X. sends an email to the librarian, (after all, she is the one responsible for the library's more intricate databases), simply with the message "Wang V. Granville LLP" (both pseudonyms of course), and immediately, the librarian works her magic and types in the necessary key terms. All of the acts, statutes, regulations, as well as updated case files relating to the case are electronically retrieved and stored onto a file which is automatically sent to the lawyer's dossier. (The librarian's job is behind the scene - she is the one who carefully collates the materials and gives them tags which the semantic databases will translate into its own readable language).

The lawyer walks out of the firm nonchalantly and begins his afternoon with everything he needs, but taking only one-tenth of the time and effort he would need back in the days of Web 2.0. That, in my hypothetical world based on user history and preferences and interlocking databases, is how the future of Web 3.0 might look like.

The Paradox of Choice

As information professionals, we face a plethora of choice each and everyday of our working lives, from what brand of coffee to buy in the morning to the database we want to conduct for a search. So many choices, so little time to choose. Barry Schwartz, Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, reveals in The Paradox of Choice strategies that can refine our decision-making processes to more effective results. His book is worth a read. Here are some major points:

(1) Choose When to Choose - If choice makes you feel worse about what you've chosen, you really haven't gained anything from the opportunity to choose. By restricting our options, we will be able to choose less and feel better.

(2) Be a Chooser, Not a Picker - Choosers make the time to modify their goals; pickers do not. Good decisions take time and attention, and the only way we can find the needed time and attention is by choosing our spots.

(3) Satisfice More and Maximize Less - Maximizers suffer most in a culture that provides too many choices. Learn to accept "good enough" since it will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction. Results are subjective sometimes; yet, satisficers will almost always feel better about their decisions.

(4) Think About the Opportunity of Opportunity Costs - The more we think about opportunity costs, the less satisfaction we'll derive from whatever we choose.

(5) Make Your Decisions Nonreversible - The very option of being allowed to change our minds seems to increase the chances that we will change our minds. When we can change our minds about decisions, we are less satisfied with them.

(6) Practice and "Attitude of Gratitude" - Our evaluation of our choices is profoundly affected by what we compare them with, including comparisons with alternatives that exist only in our imaginations. The experience can be either disappointing or delightful. We can improve our subjective experience by consciously striving to be grateful more often for what is good about a choice and to be disappointed less by what is bad about it.

(7) Regret Less - The sting of regret (actual or potential) colours many decisions, and influences us to avoid making decision at all sometimes. Although it is often appropriate and instructive, when it becomes so pronounced that it poisons or even prevents decisions, we should make an effort to minimize it.

(8) Anticipate Adaptation - Learning to be satisfied as pleasures turn into mere comforts will reduce disappointment with adaption when it occurs.

(9) Control Expectations - The easiest route to increasing satisfaction with the results of decisions it to remove excessively high expectations about them.

(10) Curtail Social Comparison - We evaluate the quality of our experiences by comparing ourselves to others, so by comparing ourselves to others less, we will be satisfied more.

(11) Learn to Love Constraints - As the number of choices we face increases, freedom of choice eventually becomes a tyranny of choice. Choice within constraints, freedom within limits, is what enables us marvelous possibilities.

Long Tail, Searching, and Libraries

The Long Tail is the essence of Web 2.0. Understanding how the Long Tail works not only helps in examining how social software such as blogs and wikis impact users and libraries, but ultimately in evaluating how future products (i.e. not invented yet) can be used more creatively and maximized to its full potential. Chris Anderson's concept of the Long Tail analyzes how the media and entertainment industries can succeed not by pushing only mass market hits that are popular among many but by also mining the collective of interest among a few in less-popular books, songs, movies and more.

In other words, although thousands may want to buy a hit song, if you add up all those who want to buy lesser-known titles, they might generate as much or more revenue than the hits themselves. Working in a library or information centre, it is important to tap into both the "head" of interest and the "long tail" that follows behind. Here are the major concepts if applied to libraries:

Rule #1 - Move Inventory Way In . . . or Way Out - Take out physical products and replace them with "virtual inventory."

Rule # 2 - Let Customers Do the Work - Have user-submitted reviews, which are often well-informed, articulate, and most important, trusted by other users.

Rule #3 - One distribution Method Doesn't Fit All - Some want to go to stores, some want to shop online. Some want to research online, others buy in stores. Some want them now, some can wait. Let the customer choose.

Rule #4 - One Product Doesn't Fit All - Allow for different formats of the same thing. A CD album can be "microchunked" into music videos, remixes, all in a number of formats and sampling rates. One size fits one; many sizes fit many.

Rule #5 - One Price Doesn't Fit All - Although this doesn't apply to most libraries, it's important to keep in mind that different people are willing to pay different prices for any number of reasons, from how much money they have to how much time they have. Whatever the library charges should reflect room for flexibility.

Rule #6 - Share Information - More information is better only if it's presented in a way that helps order choice, not confuse it further. Thus, information about buying patterns, when transformed into recommendations can be a powerful marketing tool.

Rule #7 - Think "and" not "or" - In markets with infinite capacity (virtual ones), the right strategy is almost always to offer it all.

Rule #8 - Trust the Market To Do Your Job - Online markets are nothing if not highly efficient measures of wisdom of crowds. Collaborative filters, popularity rankings, and ratings are all tools that reach this goal: don't predict; measure and respond.

Rule #9 - Understand the Power of Free - A powerful feature of digital markets is that they put free within reach; since costs are zero, their prices can be, too. Services such as Sktype and Gmail attract users with a free service and convince some of them to update to a subscription-based premium that adds higher quality features. Libraries need to use digital economics to their advantage: perhaps use free as a starting point for profits?

Web 2.0-ness

Tim O'Reilly offers an intriguing hierarchy of Web 2.0-ness. In this hierarchy, the highest level is to embrace the network, to understand what creates network effects, and then to harness them in everything you do. It's not just about social software; it's much, much more conceptual. It looks something like this:

Level 3 - The application can only exist on the net and draws its eesentaial power from the network and the connections it makes possible between people or applications.

Level 2 - The application could exist offline, but it is uniquely advantaged by being online.

Level 1 - The application can and does exist successfully offline.

Level 0 - The application has primarily taken hold online, but it would work just as well offline.

A Definition of Web 3.0

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gives a fairly succinct definition of what exactly is Web 3.0.

Happy Long Weekend

It's BC Day here in British Columbia, Canada. Have restful, happy, and sunny long weekend everyone. Here's a fireside chat between Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Wales to keep us in good company.

The Constant Inconstancy...

Lance Ulanoff is not telling me anything new with his article in PC Magazine. I’ve been saying this for quite a while now. The internet technology of today is the wasteland of tomorrow. Which is nothing to cry over – change is a byproduct of Web 2.0.

Nothing is meant to be stable, everything is wobbly and incoherent. Here are the technologies that have changed so much over the past decade. Think of the changes to come! So many more passwords to remember!

(1) ICQ (90s) –> MSN Messenger

(2) Yahoo! (90s) –> Google

(3) Friendster (90s) -> Facebook/MySpace

(4) Geocities Personal Homepages (90s) -> Blogs

As librarians and information specialists, I think it’s unproductive to lament about the constant inconstancy. Rather, we should channel our energies at anticipating new technologies and tools and integrating them into the workplace. Be comfortable with change. Think of it like this. Just like collection management, books come and go. We weed by replacing and displacing. The same goes with internet technologies. If it is our jobs to keep up with the latest titles, then why can’t we do the same with the latest technologies?

I’d like to end off with a haiku of my own:

Hi Web 2.0
I admire your brevity
We will meet again

Academic Library 2.0

Ellyssa Kroski, Reference Librarian at Columbia University, has just come out with a fantastic article on using Web 2.0 for academic libraries. The Social Tools of Web 2.0: Opportunities for Academic Libraries explores the social tools of Web 2.0 and their potential applications for academic libraries by focusing on four main types:

(1) Content Collaboration (wikis and online office applications)

(2) Social Bookmarking (Connotea, Del.icio.us)

(3) Media Sharing (Youtube, Yahoo! Video)

(4) Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace)

Take a look! It's well worth the read.

Top 5 Must Read Books for the Information Professional

There are some books which I classify as being the "gold standards" for understanding the new Web. I believe all information professionals should take a look at these books and see how they fit into the "big" picture of the new way information is processed. Here are the top five.

(1) The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (by Chris Anderson)

(2) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams)

(3) The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (by Thomas Friedman)

(4) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (by Malcolm Gladwell)

(5) Everything is Miscellaneous (David Weinberger)

The Perfect Job

Not everyone gets his or her dream job right out of LIS school. For some, it might mean years of toil and abuse in the dungeons of part-time shift work, often endless disappointments and constant worrying about the next month, often jumping from contract to contract, with no light in sight... Then there are some who do quite well. Kiera Miller, good friend and fellow SLAIS colleague, is currently having a ball working as Librarian at the Edmonton Public Library. I wanted to interview Kiera so that she can offer those out there fresh out of school that getting that "dream job" is more than just a myth...

I'm loving my job, just love it! I have to make this fast since my lunch break is ending. Basically, I get to do a ton of interesting things, and stuff outside children's services. I'm on a Child Friendly Edmonton committee which includes people from all over the city, I'm working with others on a section of the business plan to improve our multicultural/new immigrant services, I'm finishing up putting together a wack load of dual-language kits for new immigrant families, working with the YMCA to help them get books for their bookclubs, part of the team to plan the hoopla that is the final Harry Potter, planning a professional development day in the winter with a few other librarians, and then a huge project my boss and myself developed called 'Kids Read! Edmonton' along the same lines as Canada Reads except for kids. It is a lot of fun, and a lot of work, everything from marketing, web design, author meetings, programs to plan, presentations to potential sponsors (like the Edmonton Oilers!), etc.

And then I have about two hours a day on desk, ongoing personalized booklists for kids and teens (they request them online), and I'm planning a sign language storytime for the fall. Oh, and then there's all the summer reading club programs to both coordinate and participate in. The children's librarians here do more project work than programming. I kinda have had to jump in for theprogramming part, ask to do more than what is actually required of me since I want and enjoy storytimes, craft programs, etc. Then there's always a tour to give to library students or classes. There's arranging author visits, and simply trying to rejuvenate some of the staff (hardest part).

Did you follow all that? I get to do a bit of everything. I feel like I get the best of all worlds: individual projects, time with the kids in the stacks, collection development, creative input, presentations, outreach, virtual readers advisory, some management, and even some spatial analysis and furniture selection. I have to make a list of what to accomplish each day or else I couldn't keep track of it all.

I think I was lucky that this position was brand new, and I have a great boss who is really encouraging, positive, wanted me, knows that I'm new and still learning but seems to have faith in me. We 'check in' just enough for me to feel alright. I feel less new although the less new I feel the more I feel I still need to learn. Patience, patience, just need more experience.

Congratulations Kiera! All your hard work during these two years has paid off. Big time! Keep up the good cheer and good work, and the sky's the limit for you in the upcoming years. You are an inspiration and a reminder to all that dreams can be achieved.

The End of the Information Age

This is what happens when technology breaks down....


Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Library as a Social (and Intimate) Space

Sometimes we forget (or too preoccupied with "real" library matters) to realize that the library is a social space. As much as librarians are the gatekeepers of silence and studying, the fact is, libraries have always been spaces of intimacy. Particularly in academic and public libraries, we often witness relationships igniting, mending, and ending, all within in the interiors of libraries. Tears of romance and tears of sorrow grace the spaces of libraries all over the world, regardless of size and specialty.

The Time Traveller's Wife, a book that I've read recently, is about a pair of lovers who meet in a library in Chicago. The main character, Henry DeTamble, is working at the Newberry Library while Clare Abshire is looking for The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer.

When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry in 1991, he has never seen her before, even though she has known him most of her life, for Clare's past is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood at the same time that he experiences life with the adult Clare in the present. This heartrending story is only a reflection of the many relationships that take place in the library.

Which leads me to my point: librarians should be very proud of the silent role they play in society. Not only as educators and information providers, but also as managers of social space. Libraries are very sensitive and special places - it's not all about gate counts and user surveys. Librarians have a very unique responsibility even though they are often not aware of it. They are not only guardians of books, but also of community and intimacy, both virtual and physical.

More Than Meets the Eyes

Watching the Transformers was a marvellous treat. Personally and professionally. As the movie was unfolding before my eyes, there were a few points running in my mind. Here they are:

(1) Generation X & Y - The audience was mainly people born during this generation, and it showed, too, as they buzzed with anticipation right up till the opening credits. They knew the cast, the names, the plot, the dialogue, the most finest of details. And director Michael Bay delivers flawlessly with a very exciting nostalgic action flick. What does this mean for libraries, especially academic and public ones? It means that they, too, need to adapt to the tastes of their audience, which has grown up. How does Transformers achieve this?

(2) Technology - The movie is updated version of the 80's series. Instead of continuing with an anachronistic setting, this movie adapts to current day necessities, such as MP3's, cellphones, eBay, DVD burners, and 2GB flashdrives. As libraries move forward in time, it too, needs to continually adapt to realities of their time, and engage their audience with social software, Web 2.0 technologies, and new ways of doing things. Libraries can't afford to stand idly by.

(3) The Long Tail - In this movie, the long tail plays an important role in the battle of good versus evil. Sam (aka Spike in the original series) holds an important key to the very survival of the universe. Unknowingly he is auctioning it off on eBay. Chris Anderson first coined this term in 2004, arguing that Web 2.0 has altered the traditional business model, for businesses with distribution power can sell a greater volume of items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes, which contradicts the long-held models of supply and demand economics. What does this mean for librarians and information specialists?

(4) Web 2.0 - Greater understanding of this new way of information delivery. No longer are "best-sellers" the way to go in collection management and user services. Greater forces are at work with the "new" Web and in order to be successful in this new paradigm and be leaders of this changing world, librarians should not only be continually aware, but also creative in maximizing these up-and-coming (some of them not even invented yet) technologies for their libraries.

The Postmodern Librarian

While much has been written about Web 2.0, not much has been mentioned about postmodernism in librarianship. Is there a connection? Mark Stover thinks so. In The Reference Librarian as Non-Expert: A Postmodern Approach to Expertise, Stover believes that:

the stance of the reference librarian as non-expert will move the profession of librarianship away from the technocrat/expert model and back towards its earlier mission of service and human-centred values.

In proposing that there is an analogy between the new postmodern theories of psychotherapy and the ways that librarians work with patrons seeking information, Stover argues that knowledge, culture, technology, and cognitive-behaviour all play a role in the new fabric of postmodern librarianship. Everything gets broken down and hierarchies are flattened. In my experience working in libraries, things are moving, albeit slowly. With globalization and Web 2.0, are the foundations being laid for this new way of managing libraries?

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

It has been more than a decade since the advent of the World Wide Web. When it first came out, librarians worried about how this new medium would affect their jobs, some even worried about the possible phasing out of librarians all together. With Web 2.0, there are similar worries about the roles of librarians; however, the anxiety is about how to catch up and adapt such technologies to the workplace.

But take a look at KPMG librarian Hope Bell's The Internet: A New Opportunity for Information Specialists written in 1997, and compare it to University of Saskatchewan librarian Darlene Fichter's Seven Strategies for Marketing in a Web 2.0 World written exactly ten years later. Although the Web has changed quite a bit, the importance of the librarian's role in teaching users how to use the technology has not. Let's take a look at just how things have not changed in 10 years.

(1) Learn about social media (2007) Vs. Get started - Get connected (1997)

(2) Create a Web 2.0 marketing plan (2007) Vs. Network with your organization (1997)

(3) Participate! Join the conversation (2007) Vs. Become an expert (1997)

(4) Be remarkable (2007) Vs. Position yourself as an expert (1997)

(5) Help your library content travel (2007) Vs. Educate and Train your users (1997)

(6) Monitor Engagement and Learn as you go (2007) Vs. Don't Stop (1997)

(7) Be part of the multimedia wave (2007) Vs. The Impact (1997)