HKLA 50th Anniversary Conference: Part 5

Hmm, I saved this as a Draft and forgot to publish it. Here's a belated part-5 from attending the Hong Kong Library Association 50th Anniversary Conference, Nov 2008.

[Continued from Part 4]

"Analysis of social tagging and book cataloging: a case study". Yi-Chen CHEN. Department of Library & Information Science, National Taiwan University.



Her premise for the study: little research has been done to examine how social tagging has been applied to books.

So she looked at items tagged in librarything.com

Research questions:

• How can tags be organised to different function types?
• What kind of tags are used?
• How can it help the library?

Study involved a random sample of "most often tagged" Fiction & Non-fiction records in librarything.com

Some findings

• For Fiction titles, users tend to tag with "Bibliographic Information" (i.e. author, title, publisher)
• For Non-Fiction titles, the tags tend to be "subjects"

When she did a comparison of the user-created tags and the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), she found:

• 90% of tags were not reflected in LCSH (i.e. 90% of the tags were unique)
• The overlap (between the user-tags and LCSH) was less than 12% overall
• Tags tend to give more "genre" information, especially for Fiction works
• In tagging, users tend to describe more character names from the books
• Tags often had simpler and informal usage on person names, geographical names

My rambling thinking-aloud
I think when "social tagging" or "folksonomy" is mentioned, there will be some librarians who will inevitably pooh-pooh the former and start extolling the virtues of Authority Control exercised by librarians (i.e. LCSH).

That sort of argument -- of which is "better" -- is is irrelevant. It's like asking, "Is it better to search by author or by subject"?

The answer depends on what you prefer, and what you hope to find.

I noted that the areas of overlap between "social tags" and LCSH is only 12%, i.e. there tends to be different set of results retrieved, depending on whether you use tags or LCSH.

That suggests to me that it's really about different ways to find a book, according to users' preferences.

There are pros and cons: those who aren't familiar with LCSH can go by social tags. It is informal (i.e. not constrained by rules) and hence more easily remembered by those not familiar with LCSH. But there tends to be more misses in finding records, since the nature of social tagging there isn't any effective means of standardising the terms used (unlike LCSH).

I know some libraries are developing a sort of "hybrid systems" that marries -- or tries to bridge -- a structured and more consistent system like LCSHs, and a more user-oriented system like social tagging.

We'll see.

NLB archives Singapore blogs

As reported in The Straits Times, "Local blogs being added to S'pore's historical archives" (7 Jan '08) by Keith Lin:

The National Library Board (NLB) is adding blogs to Singapore's historical archives as part of its efforts to retain a comprehensive record of online content.

In all, the library aims to archive some 100 blogs by the end of the year.

Eleven have been selected so far, ranging from offerings such as Air-Conditioned Nation (cherian.blogspot.com) by media academic Cherian George, to the satirical Mr Brown (www.mr brown.com).

Mr Raju Buddharaju, the library's director of digital resources and services, described blogs as an 'invaluable' source of news and social commentary for the present and future generations of Singaporeans.

'Content from blogs often offers views which would otherwise not be accessible from mainstream media,' he said.

Even so, the library is selective when it comes to deciding which blogs to archive.

Only those produced by individuals who are recognised experts in their respective fields of knowledge, famous personalities or award-winning blogs will be considered, Mr Raju said.

The library will take digital snapshots of the selected blogs at least once a year and post their contents on its web archive - available at www.nlb.gov.sg. Access is open and free to the public.

...

Said Dr George, who has three blogs looking at various aspects of Singapore media and politics in the archives: 'This is not about the authorities giving legitimacy to individual blogs.

'It is part of a welcome movement in Singapore to recognise the value of multiple perspectives in telling the Singapore story.'

Link to the free ST article, here.



Back in Oct '06, when the Web Archive Singapore project was announced, it drew the attention of well-known Singaporean blogger mrbrown, who created a special podcast episode on the topic.

So it's official mrbrown!

And you probably can sleep a little easier, knowing that snapshots of your blog will be available for posterity. : )

Incidentally I spotted Jean's post, where she wrote:

At first read, it seems like elitism at its best again. Then again, we shouldn’t be so petty about it, right?

She was responding to the web selection guideline of "choosing individuals who are recognised as experts in their fields, famous personalities or are award winning".

Just like for physical libraries, it's impossible to acquire everything there is. Inevitably there will be some criteria imposed on the What, When and Who to archive.

But just like the case of physical libraries, if you have something (i.e. a blog) that you highly recommend, make a suggestion! I'm sure NLB would give it due consideration.

BTW I don't speak for NLB. Some people have emailed me to enquire about the project. I'm more than happy to redirect your emails, though it's faster to enquire at NLB direct.

You can also read the FAQs about the Web Archive Singapore.
[related post: How to access the NLB Web Archive Singapore (WAS)]

BooksInMyPhone.com

Interesting... a commenter at the preceding blog post (thanks, Avagee!) alerted me to this site: www.booksinmyphone.com



The site provides eBooks that can be installed and read from your mobile phone.

It's an excellent alternative for people who want to access eBooks on the go, but find products like the E-ink eBook reader expensive.

Browsing through their website, their About and FAQ pages, I have the impression that their ebook content are likely to be from Project Gutenberg.

They explain that if your phone can play Java games, then you should be able to install the ebooks (see "Technical Requirements" at the FAQ page).

The downloads were free (but I stopped short of installing on my phone).

There are instructions on installing the ebooks (either via your mobile phone direct, or to your computer for subsequent transfer).

If you're wondering about Copyright, look at their sidebar on the left. I quote:

The books offered here are either licensed under Creative Commons or out of copyright in the USA and many other countries including Australia, Canada, and the UK. Most of the books are out of copyright world wide, please check the copyright laws that may apply to your country prior to download. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are not breaching the copyright laws that may apply to you. This is part of our Terms and Conditions of Use. By using this website or downloading a book, you are indicating that you acknowledge and accept our Terms and Conditions of Use and the license under which the book is offered (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License).

Apart from the copyright disclaimer/ advice, the site verifies the user's eligibility to download the content, based on the user's I.P. address.

For instance, when I clicked on the download link to Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina", the download wasn't made available to me:

Our systems see your location as: Singapore. We believe this work is in copyright in your location and so do not provide a download link.

If I think the system has made a mistake, then I was advised to email them (made sense!)

I like how they've provided the book synopsis. It increases the chance of the user finding a suitable book and making a download.

Of course, you get what you pay for in terms of content. Meaning, you won't find Harry Potter here (for that, go borrow/ reserve from your nearest public library!)

But if you're looking for "classics", then you might want to check out the site. I noticed works from Jules Vernes, Lewis Carroll, Miguel de Cervantes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and H. G. Wells.

I also spotted some futurists and SciFi authors that I like, and whose works are offered under the Creative Commons license. Like James Patrick Kelly, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and Lawrence Lessig.

Hmm... Now I'm interested!

But before I attempt to install, I'll check with some of my knowledgeable and trusted friends whether doing so carries any risk, e.g. inadvertently loading a computer virus onto my handphone.

Can't take security for granted. After all, it's my phone, so better safe than sorry.

Perhaps the folks at BooksInMyPhone.com might want to address that in their FAQ, i.e. "What about the risk of computer viruses".

Also, it would give me greater confidence if they reveal more about who they are, like some names at their About Us page.

Better yet, if they can partner with a public library in their community and have the library endorse them.

Electronic ink ebook reader

Preetam shares his first impressions of the Bookeen's Cybook Gen 3 eBook reader that uses Electronic Ink technology.

["Cybook Box". Photo credit: Preetam Rai]


["Cybook in Bright Sunlight". Photo credit: Preetam Rai]

Read his full post here.

Which reminded me of my earlier blog post (Jun 2005) about the Seiko Epson's flexible E-paper.

From my brief search in Google, the last mention about the Seiko Epson prototype seemed to be from InfoWorld.com on 12 June 2006. Maybe another year before we see it being offered commercially?

On the other hand, non-flexible electronic ink products were widely available. I found this recent Gizmag.com article (Oct 2007) about Fujitsu's electronic paper products. I'm sure there's more than a few companies out there offering similar products.

***

Aside:

A few days ago, I saw my colleague reading a book, about the fall of societies and civilisations in human history's recent past (can't remember the title, sorry).

We both agreed that while digital technology was great, whole generations of information, knowledge and know-how might be wiped out the day society collapses. We might be busted back to the level of printed information.

I joked that if our human society was wiped out by a comet today and rediscovered eons later, future archaeologists might wrongly assume that we've only progressed to the state of paper-technology. Chances might be higher that they could retrieve our recorded information on physical materials like paper, than from digital devices.

They might refer to our eras as "BP" and "AP" -- "Before Print" and "After Print".

SPH And NLB Sign Agreement For Digitisation Of The Straits Times Archives - Digitised Archives Available To The Public From The Second Half Of 2008

This was announced today at the SPH and NLB websites (excerpt):

SINGAPORE, 31 July 2007 – The National Library Board (NLB) and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) today signed an agreement to digitise The Straits Times (ST) archives dating as far back as 1845. The digitised archival content will be made available to the public at NLB libraries for individual research and reference purposes from the second half of 2008.

... In collaborating with the National Library, all available printed copies of The Straits Times will be digitised and made easily accessible to the public within NLB's network of libraries in Singapore.

Access and use of the digitised news content will be restricted to non-commercial uses in line with NLB's function in overseeing the National Library and public libraries. The National Library may also re-package the content to develop information products and services for personal and non-commercial reference work and research.

I wonder how database vendors, who currently index and store Straits Times articles (at a price, I'm sure), will react to this. Anyway, this will definitely be a boon for Singaporeans, especially students and teachers. And librarians.

I can't wait. :)