Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Siva Vaidhyanathan and Critical Information Studies

Siva Vaidhyanathan, who is entertaining as he is informative, is a cultural historian and media scholar (a rare combination these days), and teaches Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia. His ideas and concepts are multidisciplinary -- Vaidhyanathan has even coined the field of studies, “Critical Information Studies” which synthesizes key aspects of both Cultural Studies and Political Economy by interrogating the “structures, functions, habits, norms, and practices” of particular aspects of information culture.

One of the preeminent historians of American copyright, Vaidhyanathan's arguments often examines how these issues go beyond simple arguments about digital “rights” to include consideration of the more subtle impacts of cost and access that have the potential for chilling effects on a “semiotic democracy” that is situated in “global flows of information.”

In many ways, Vaidhyanathan counters the utopian web which Henry Jenkins calls "participatory culture." Rather than accept utopian enthusiasms about "Web 2.0" uncritically, critical information studies exposes the potential vulnerabilities in democratic institutions posed by such issues as Digital Rights Management, tampering with electronic voting, and otherwise trusting private corporations with public information infrastructure. CIS looks at 'semiotic democracy' -- a big picture examination on just how digital and social media are affected by corporate producers.

CIS is an intellectual antidote to the the Web 2.0 social media phenomena, and offers the tools to analyze the Web more thoughtfully and carefully. But CIS is an exciting field, just as it is beginning to take shape and gain its own sense of identity. Afterward: Critical Information Studies - A Bibliographic Manifesto is required reading for those interested in CIS as it provides a detailed "taxonomy" of disparate disciplines which comprises the CIS. These disciplines include American Studies, Anthropology, Communication, Computer Science, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, Legal Studies, Library and Information Science, Literary Studies, Media Studies, Musicology, Political Science, and Sociology. Interestingly, since Critical Information Studies cuts across these and other more traditional academic domains, Vaidhyanathan describes this as being a "transfield."

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Problem of Information Overload 2.0

Renowned psychology Barry Schwartz famously coined the term "paradox of choice" which stems in the research in his book with the same title. In his findings, Schwartz integrates various psychological models for happiness showing how the problem of choice can be addressed by different strategies.

Web 2.0 has not made life any easier for us, even though the tools might seem as if they're saving us time and space. If anything, Web 2.0 has a byproduct: an overabundance of information - and with that - choice. As I've argued in an earlier post, I point out:
Information professionals 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.

Here are some of the social media services that I use: Twitter, CiteULike, and Del.icio.us all have their advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, I've found that social media has been a mixed blessing. Not only has information overload produced sometimes confusion as to prioritizing my resources (Youtube first, or Facebook later?), so many tools results in a saturation of user ID's and passwords. Ultimately, we can only have so many sticky notes to remedy our overload of passwords, particularly as services ask for different combinations of numbers, letters and capsizes.

The Semantic Web, as mysterious as it may seem to most, might be one opportunity to solve this password/ID overload. Whereas Web 2.0 is about searching, Web 3.0 is about finding. Imagine a web in which logging in to any browser can bring up personal settings that have been uniquely tailored and customized according to your needs and preferences. In this utopian web, the social mayhem can at least be organized.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Social Media & Affordance

In Week 2 of social media bootcamp, aka. LIBR 559M, affordance is a key theme in examining the use of social media. Affordance is an interesting concept in social media and Web 2.0. According to Wikipedia's entry, affordance is a "quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action." Different technologies can be viewed under this light -- just how much affordance does each have, and how can we use these same principles in examining social media? With new tools emerging so rapidly, it's a challenge to keep up, let alone using them effectively in our every day work as information professionals.

Let's take a look at telephones: Telephones allow the placing and receiving of calls, which in isolation are not affordances, but which substantively enable the affordances of communication and information exchange. First coined by perceptual psychologist, J. J. Gibson who used it as a core component of his ecological theory of human perception, affordance is now used in a range of fields, including but not limited to cognitive psychology, industrial design, human-computer interaction (HCI) and interface design, and artificial intelligence. The Learning Affordances Wiki discusses six key points about affordances, and each has the potential in helping explore the affordances of any social media technology.

1. Positive and Negative - Affordances can be useful or a hindrance

2. Fit for Context - Affordances have to be fit for purpose - be aware that it may not work everywhere.

3. Changing Contexts - Because affordances do not transfer to each context, the learner must create and develop new affordances, to develop the ability to match a particular affordance to the context.

4. Ontologies - Affordance is relational, an adaptation – its part of a complex adaptive ecology.

5. Perception - Affordances are inseparable from perception. We perceive affordances rather than objects.

6. Ethics and Power - Because affordances also a way of taking up a position, they also endorse, challenge, undermine, confirm particular discourses - it means taking up a position within (or against) a social ecology.

7. Mastery - As a professional, there must be an ability to discriminate between contexts, which means being embedded in one's micro-culture and community as well as one's individual identity.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Social Media Course at SLAIS

I'm currently taking a course on social media at the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS). I must admit: I'm deeply impressed. Much to my surprise, LIBR 559M avoids the Web 2.0 hoopla that was so popular with literature and workshops; instead, it examines social media (i.e. blogs, bookmarking, mashups, wikis, social networking sites), its concomitant trends (i.e. web 2.0, library 2.0) and how web 2.0 principles can be applied to the delivery of information services in the digital age. Some goals that LIBR 559M aims for are:
  • Demonstrate an understanding of using social media in information-based organizations
  • Apply social media to manage emerging challenges in information provision
  • Discuss social media as a set of tools to raise awareness and promote services
  • Identify the pros/cons of using social software
  • Reflect critically on use of social media; trends and tools
  • Position tools in a larger (macro) global and sociocultural context for collaborative learning and education in the digital age
I'm quite excited about this course. Even though this is only the first incarnation, I have good feelings about the content and where it's going. With the recent lull in Web 2.0, we've come to the realization that new ideas, new concepts, new designs are needed to reassess the impact of social software and media. This course is a good start as it challenges the existing courses on how social media can and should be taught.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

The Birth of the Digital Novel (Digi-novel)

Publishing is going to get a whole lot more interesting. Anthony Zuiker's new book, Level 26: Dark Origins is an interesting concept which combines three types of media: book, movie, and website. Zuiker, creator of the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", is releasing what is to become a new genre of literature, the "digi-novel" -- which amalgamates the three media -- and in doing so, challenging the boundaries of traditional book publishing. Anthony Zuiker believes the "digi-novel" will launch a "revolution in publishing for the YouTube generation."

Level 26: Dark Origins, to be published by Dutton Sept. 8, is the first in a series in which each book will be supplemented with 20 videos, or "cyber-bridges," featuring actors playing characters from the novel. The series, written with Duane Swierczynski, features a rogue investigator who hunts serial killers. In referring to to 25 levels used by law enforcement to classify serial killers, the digi-novel introduces readers — and viewers — to level 26.

This is an experiment. Perhaps too early to call as a 'revolution' for writing and publishing. But it certainly does cast libraries in a different light. It moves beyond the physical borders of shelf-space, and into the realms of the digital web, and beyond. How do we catalogue products and media that have no specific guidelines, not even in the AACR2 and RDA? As an experiment to better engage readers, this 384-page innovative digi-novel will be more than just a book on the shelf, as readers (viewers?) can watch the story on film and log in to unlock deeper levels of the experience. The experience has begun.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Fall of Wikipedia

How Wikipedia has fallen. In response to growing instances of false information being deliberately inserted, particularly into entries connected to living people, the Wikimedia Foundation will soon create an editorial approval process that appears to fly in the face of its open-access policy.

It's been argued that prominent figures such as Ted Kennedy, Tony Blair, and David Beckham have over the years been targets for vandalism on Wikipedia, and the new rules reflect the fact that as Wikipedia grows in importance, so does the weight of the mistakes it carries.

In my opinion, this move is a shame. The very principles of Web 2.0 and social media are being shattered by this need for this editing process. The beauty and freshness of Wikipedia is the fact that content could be self-corrected over time and blips would be self-regulated by users, often specialists themselves. It's a strength that content is revised up-to-the-minute; and with errors will come revision. The equilibrium of correction will eventually override the temporary glitches that inevitably occurs with real-time mass-produced content. That's why Wikipedia has become the de-facto place for quick information fact-checking. Why do we need a board then? Wouldn't that defeat the original purpose of a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"? Is it merely a public relations farce? We'll see.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Archives and Culture

The information profession often lacks a cultural approach in its methodological inquiries. Victorial Lemieux is perhaps an exception. A new and rising star scholar, Lemieux has won several awards for her scholarly and professional work, including the 2001 W. Kaye Lamb Prize (awarded to the author of the article that most advances archival thinking and scholarship in Canada) for “Let the Ghosts Speak: An Empirical Exploration of the ‘Nature’ of the Record.”

Using empirical data from a case study of record-keeping practices in indigenous Jamaican commercial banks that collapsed to explore the “nature” of the record, Lemieux continues a thread of debate appearing in previous issues of Archivaria which questions the definition of a record, whether the meaning of a record is fixed at the point of creation or evolves over time, and who authors the record. In the end, Lemieux argues that there is no single valid conceptualization of the record; instead, there are many valid conceptualizations arising from particular social contexts, and, further, the meaning in records is engendered over time by all those involved in the processes of incription, transmission, and contextualization, including record-keepers.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Top Twenty Summer Must Reads

The summer time is for reading and reflection. If you have some time, please do some thinking about some of the reading that gives your mind more thoughts for discussion, more ideas for action. In my opinion, there's a few titles worth mentioning as must-reads for information professionals. They are non-fiction titles which reflect on different areas of interest, a wide range of ideas.

20. Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture - An outstanding look at the coffee culture in North America, and reveals the Starbucks' history of addiction and success

19. Status Anxiety - A rising star philosopher who can translate his ideas to a mass audience, de Botton reveals what makes us all anxious.

18. Groundswell - An essential title for all businesses who use social media.

17. Good to Great - I don't need to say too much about this book. It's already a classic now.

16. Stealing Myspace - Not enough is research into MySpace's history. This book does the job.

15. Planet Google - With so many books on Google, Stross' seems to be the best

15. Mc Job - Outstanding resource what management techniques work, and what don't

14. Grown Up Digital - Insightful look into how the digital generation live their lives according to the Web

13. Reinventing Knowledge - Fascinating historical examination of how libraries and knowledge have been reshaped over human existence

12. Six Degrees - Mathematician Watt's look at how closely interwoven are our lives and coincidences.

11. Linked - An examination at how links and connections actually play a vital role in human society, especially in this digital age

10. Long Tail - This book forces us to think about the way we supply & demand economics in the digital era

9. Wikinomics - Insightfully examines how wiki's and collective intelligence has reshaped how business is conducted

8. Everything Is Miscellaneous - An intelligent philosophical inquiry into how the digital age has refashioned the hierarchical taxonomic world

7. Tipping Point - Gladwell's look at how small things can produce large dividends

6. Paradox of Choice - Too much of anything is bad for you, and too much choice is no different.

5. The World Is Flat - A journalistic examination into how geography no longer matters in the digital era

4. Here Comes Everybody - Shirky looks at how social media has changed the way we live our lives

3. Paradox of Time - Looks at how time is a finite resource, and strategies on how to make the most use of our time.

2. Free -
Chris Anderson's new book redesigns the way we think about open access & source and how business models must adapt to it

1. Remix - Perhaps the best book that Lawrence Lessig has produced to date, a funny, evocative, and charming examination into how 'free' remixing should be evaluated


Thursday, August 13, 2009

Technology & access
o Library 2.0 / Web 2.0 – impact on access
and organization of library resources,
support and promotion
o Digitization of materials – sustainability,
preservation, dissemination, funding,
management, participation
• User expectations & customer service
o Social networking / social software tools –
methods, impact on information seeking,
improvements to services
• Content & collections
o E-books – user demand for electronic vs.
print books
o E-materials / E-journals – licensing models,
sustainability, long-term access,
preservation
• Economics and budgeting
o Open Access – criteria for investment of
library acquisitions funds in open access
projects, libraries’ support role, long-term
impact, collaboration with scholarly
societies
o Impact of consortial purchasing - access
infrastructures and collections
development
• Assessment, impact and value
o Scholarly communication - the academic
library’s role in knowledge dissemination
o Performance indicators - monitoring and
measuring strategic success
• Library roles, partnerships, operations,
leadership and management
o Evolving roles of academic librarians and
libraries – current and future requirements
to support teaching, learning, and research
in the digital environment
o Data collection and curation – role for
libraries; e-science strategy
• Publishing and scholarly communication
o Publishing - Library roles as publishers or
creators of content
o Institutional Repositories - management,
funding, responsibility, skills, capacity, best
practices, faculty engagement, impact on
library services
• Librarian skills, education and competencies
o Change management – adaptability
o Management education - for new LIS
graduates and practitioners
• Intellectual Freedom and copyright
o Copyright - practices around handling
copyright issues at Canadian universities
• Space
o Library space – what are our users doing in
our facilities, what kind of spaces do they
really need and want?

Saturday, August 08, 2009

The Celebration of Light



The HSBC Celebration of Light is an annual pyro-musical fireworks competition that takes place over Vancouver's English Bay. Every summer around this time, the city of Vancouver blossoms with the colours of summer at night. Enjoy.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Secret to Success



In re-examining society's ideas of success and failure, Alaine de Botton is in the same mould as public intellectuals as Malcolm Gladwell. de Botton examines a very common concept and exposes a multitude of philosophical and societal nuances. de Botton's inquiries are simple: Is success always earned? Is failure? In examining this from philosophical and historical trajectories, often humorous and humble, de Botton reveals four very simple truths to our society's basic unhappiness which are important for us all to remember during times of stress and convolutions of life:

1) Insecurity - The majority of consumers are at one point or another insecure about a certain element of their lifestyles. Hence, consumer goods are used to nullify uncertainty and a way to contain the void.

2) Envy - Deep down, we all rate people we come across according to their status - and that often is tied to their profession. What we cannot have, we want. This wasn't always the case in human history. Deep down, we all want to become the next Bill Gates based on an idea or a stroke of brilliance; but when reality sets in, we are unsettled at the thought of being 'common'.

3) Meritocracy - There is no such thing as a purely meritocratic society. It is impossible to achieve what we are based on what we can do. Numerous factors (often based on pure luck) are involved as to how we get to where we are.

4) Success On Our Own Terms - Much of how we measure success is based on societal perceptions and values. Many strive to join a profession not based on want, but usually on prestige. Success is purely subjective; we must base success on what we set it out to be.

Monday, July 20, 2009

The 'Amplified Conference'

At the recent Mobile Libraries (m-Libraries) Conference 2009 in Vancouver, B.C. I witnessed a vivid transformation of the conference experience, one that blends both physical and digital together into a rumination of ideas and exploration beyond the physical imaginations of a conference.

Interestingly enough, one of the keynote speakers, Lorcan Dempsey, had first written about this phenomena on his blog, and subsequently, the terminology has taken off on its own. But more spectacularly, as an organizer for this conference, I had not consciously formulated any particular strategies for an 'amplified' conference as I had not known about Dempsey's concept only a few days prior to the m-Libraries' commencement. But as the conference proceeded, the more and more I noticed how Dempsey's principles of the amplified conference so seamlessly natural this new emergence social media and digitally-inclusive technologies was enriching the very fabric of all that was happening around (and beyond me):
  • Amplification of the audiences' voice: Audience members through the use of such social media technologies (such as Twitter) can create online discourse during the sessions in real-time
  • Amplification of the speaker's talk: Widespread and inexpensive video and audio-conferencing technologies
  • Amplification across time: With low-cost technologies, presentations are often made available after the event, with use of podcasting or videocasting technologies
  • Amplification of the speaker's slides: With social media lightweight technologies, (such as Slideshare) entire presentations can simply be uploaded, shared, and embedded on other Web sites and commented upon
  • Amplification of feedback to the speaker: Micro-blogging technologies (such as Twitter) are being used not only as for discourse and knowledge exchange among conference participants
  • Amplification of collective memory: With the widespread availability of inexpensive digital cameras, photographs are often uploaded to popular photographic sharing services
  • Amplification of the learning: With the Web resources and social media technologies, following links to resources and discourse about the points made by a speaker during a talk propagates the learning which takes place at an event.
  • Amplification of the historical conference record: The ‘official’ digital resources such as slides, video and audio recordings which have been made by the conference organizers

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Economics of Time in the "Time Paradox"

Sometimes in life we lose those that we most cherish, and regret forever that what we cannot hold onto anymore something we once had. In this age of the information revolution, we forget that time is scarcity. Renowned Stanford psychologists Phil Zimbardo and John Boyd's The Time Paradox is a cumulation of thirty years of research, and is a must read for those who have questions about our existence and what our purpose is on earth.

Our time here is finite, and is perhaps the most precious commodity we have. The authors argue that time is psychological though; although we may live in the twenty-first century, our bodies were designed for life 2000 years ago. We are living and breathing anachronisms racing through an information-possessed world of social networking sites, globalization, cell phones, iPods, and hyper-2.0 technologies.

In spite of the many valuations we assign time, and in spite of the fact that time is our most valuable commodity, it is striking to note how little thought we give to how we spend it. The authors raise the question: Why do we often spend our money more wisely than our time? Relationships are very much time-dependent on three stages: past, present, and future. When you meet someone new, you share neither a common past or future. You are stuck at the present, which you hope will turn out to be a good place. The warm feeling of holding hands together for the first time, kissing on the beach, your first phone call . . . blossoming of love and staying up until four A.M. talking together about nothing.

Time passes; the initial passon fades; and the past and future reassert themselves. It is not that you or your partner changes. It's that together you have created a past and a future, which require having new attitudes toward time. If one person is biased toward the future and the other toward the present, it may be difficult to make simple joint decisions. Deciding what to eat for dinner to how to spend extra money to how to spend free time become tempting arguments where none had existed before.

Boyd and Zimbardo discover from their research of couples that what people want from relationships differ depending on their time perspectives. Couples with mismatched time perspectives will be prone to miscommunication and misunderstanding. They may truly love each other but live in separate worlds, like lovers who speak different languages. Couples with conflicting time perspectives may not undestand why they have difficulty in communicating. There may be no apparent reason why they cannot hear each other. While one speaks in the present perspective, the other speaks in the future. Their conversation is incomprehensible not because they are dense, uncaring, or unloving, but because they speak different time perspectives.

If two people attempt to meet in the past or the future, they are likely to be lost in a fog. When they argue, they are tempted to leave the bridge of the present and become lost in the past or abandon the present for the fog of the past. How do we bridge the gap in the languages of time? You start with the present. As Shakespeare puts it, we are the clocks on which time tells itself.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Farewell Michael, Thank You for the Memories

Under the scorching, unforgiving summer heat in Los Angeles, July 7, 2009 will forever be etched in the minds of many as a day of sadness, remembrance, and sincerity as the world mourned the loss of its cultural icon, Michael Jackson.

I am certain that as we watched with emotion, that we were also experiencing a form of communal sharing of joy and grief in honour of King of Pop. Although the memorial had global coverage, none could surpass that of CNN's remarkable round-the-clock-and-round-the-world features, integrating its superb use of Web 2.0 social media technologies as our hearts followed in rhythm to the marching songs and tributes of Jackson's life.

For much of the day, CNN and Facebook presented live coverage of Michael Jackson: The Memorial that had begun at 9am. For CNN, the last time CNN.com and Facebook partnered for a live event was for the Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States. In all, this memorial service had broadcast around 6 full hours.

For the synchronicity of emotions and heartfelt words, the power of live social streaming is hands down a powerful technology that brings us together that not even television can provide. As one observer from TechCrunch notes,
Facebook serves as a proxy for a virtual living room that can hold hundreds of people. I find these comments much more interesting than random Twitters from people I don’t know
As we gathered around our screens, we witnessed a turning of the page in culture and media, a stage of our evolution in which Marshall MacLuhan had coined as the "global village," in which electronic interdependence:
when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base."

R.I.P Michael J.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Digital Equlibrium for Librarians

There's no doubt about it: Twitter is here to stay as a social networking powerhouse. Despite what has happened, voices cannot be silenced. Although the head of Iran's judiciary has called for a crackdown on television channels and websites "deemed to be have been critical of government," it will be extremely interesting to see just how much information will be clamped down. As much as the government is interfering with satellite channels, and blocking websites covering the demonstrations, online social networking tools are allegedly emerging as the unlikely heroes, with bloggers quick to upload pictures and video clips of the demonstrations.

In essence this is really a showdown between twentieth century political mechanisms versus twenty-first century technology: the result could mean epic global implications. Thomas Friedman has called this this digital gathering place a "virtual mosque," a place that protesters "gather, mobilize, plan, inform and energize their supporters, outside the grip of the state." (The New York Times even reported that Moussavi’s fan group on Facebook alone has grown to more than 50,000 members.) But Friedman ultimately believes in a hawkish ending to this affair. As he argues: Guns trump cellphones.
Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet. The Sunni Awakening in Iraq succeeded because the moderates there were armed. I doubt Ahmadinejad will go peacefully.
This will be an issue that will be important for all to follow, not just politicians.