Libraries/Info Sci

Thoughts and selected news updates on the Library Science/Information Science field(s)

There are 262 posts filed in Libraries/Info Sci (this is page 11 of 27).

Extraneous data

I have a an odd fascination with pointless data that will never be of real use to me in daily life. Here’s a few links in that spirit:

Enter in a tracking number from any service – UPS, USPS, FedEX, or DHL – to PackageMapping.com and this site does a whole suite of processing on the tracking information. You can view the raw timestamps just like on each carrier’s official site, as well as view a map of progress, an RSS feed or email notifications, a grand total transit time, and a calculated average speed of your delivery. My recent order from Barnes & Noble made it here in 48 hours and 45 minutes, with an average speed of 61.52mph. A lot of these features (especially the RSS feed) really should be provided by the shippers themselves. But until they do, this works nicely.

I recently received a “bag of crap” from woot.com. Periodically they sell a random pile of items for $1 under that name. My package included a Thermohawk 200 no touch thermometer. It measures the infrared radiation coming off an object, instead of the more traditional air or interior temperature. So, for example, my microwaved pizza was 118 degrees. My laptop’s screen is running at 86 degrees. By and large it seems pretty accurate compared to my more traditional thermometer, but I’m a bit concerned that my forehead measures as 91.5F… Of course, I have no practical use for the thing, but for $1? Not too shabby.

360voice.com has a fun gimmick – it monitors the progress of your Xbox Live gamer profile, and automatically updates a blog as if it was written by your console. You can see what my Xbox thinks of me here.

That’s all for now!

Search engines’ top ten lists – What do they really mean?

As December comes to a close, the web once again gets swarmed with “year’s best” or “most popular” lists. I’ll probably be writing my own annual wrapup post in the near future. Today and yesterday I spent some time looking at Google and Yahoo’s top ten search terms for the year:

Google’s “Top Searches in 2006” (source):

  1. bebo
  2. myspace
  3. world cup
  4. metacafe
  5. radioblog
  6. wikipedia
  7. video
  8. rebelde
  9. mininova
  10. wiki

Yahoo’s “Top 10 Overall Searches” (source):

  1. Britney Spears
  2. WWE
  3. Shakira
  4. Jessica Simpson
  5. Paris Hilton
  6. American Idol
  7. Beyonce Knowles
  8. Chris Brown
  9. Pamela Anderson
  10. Lindsay Lohan

Now, something obviously doesn’t add up here. There’s no way Google’s and Yahoo’s user bases can be that different.

I started looking into just how each search engine calculates and chooses their top results. Google somewhat vaguely states that “To compile these year-end lists and graphs, we reviewed a variety of the most popular search terms that people typed into Google.”

Looking for more specifics, I ran across this interview with a Google VP. It turns out that the top ten is not based on simple popularity. Instead, it is based on ranking the quickest gainers in popularity. This explains why Bebo is ranked higher than Myspace. As a newcomer relative to Myspace, Bebo had more room to grow. If searches for Bebo went from nothing to a huge level this year, that’s a larger change than Myspace going from an already huge to slightly more huge level. And if searches for pornography and other net vices have leveled off, they won’t make the list either no matter how huge their numbers are. The only terms censored from Google’s list are their own product names.

This computer-generated list contrasts sharply with Yahoo’s policy of heavily editing and paring down their list. Based on reading the FAQ about Yahoo’s ‘Buzz’ rankings, the ranking process seems to follow Google’s pretty closely – the list is based on the largest increase, not simple numbers of searches. What’s more revealing is the list of what’s left out: “Company names (such as Yahoo!), utilities and formats (email, MP3), and general terms (movies, downloads, football)…” This alone explains most of the differences between the two companies’ lists – seven of Google’s ten qualify as company names.

Also, “The editors’ goal is to list subjects that are interesting to the broadest possible audience.” It’s hard to be sure, but I’d imagine the real world interpretation of that statement means the focus is on the entertainment world and the listed celebrities.

So what’s really the most-used search term of the year? Of the two lists, I think Google comes closer to answering the question. But there’s a third option: While I couldn’t dig this deeply into AOL’s search rankings, as they provide no background to the selection process, their top ten list rings a little more true to me. ‘Weather’ is number one, and the rest of the list is mostly generic terms like ‘games’ or ‘lyrics’. Not everyone is a power user, after all. But again, how this list was chosen is a mystery. Ultimately, without access to annual raw data the ‘real’ number one term probably can’t be known.

And there are probably a million ways of defining how the ‘real’ one should be calculated anyway. These lists are still useful in trend spotting, just take them with a grain of salt.

Time Person of the Year: You!

Time magazine has decided that each of us is worthy of the Person of the Year award – thanks to the rise of user generated content on the web (and I am of course putting this on my resume :-)).

Read the full article here. I think the ending bit is particularly illuminating:

Sure, it’s a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

But that’s what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. […] This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It’s a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who’s out there looking back at them. Go on. Tell us you’re not just a little bit curious.

Symposium Wrapup

I’ve been pretty quiet here as of late, but am in the process of making a ton of posts over at the UAH Symposium blog. Our “E-Info Global” symposium wrapped up on Friday, and early indications are that it went very well! I know I personally enjoyed listening to every speaker, and had some great conversations with other attendees during the breaks. By the end of today I hope to have the rest of the speaker summaries posted.

It was fascinating to see this symposium come together from behind the scenes. I now have a much deeper appreciation for those who plan conferences!

We’re thinking about doing it again next year, so keep an eye out!

To LITA!

I leave in the morning for LITA Forum in Nashville! I’m looking forward to the conference, and will be blogging events as usual. I’m not sure of the status of internet access at the hotel, so posts may not appear until I’m back. But I’ll be blogging both here and over at the official LITA blog.

This is turning out to be an extremely busy couple of weeks for me, so sadly customizing the site’s new theme is going to have to wait. But I have a feeling most people who read this are doing it through an RSS reader of some kind anyway, so it’s not like you even notice 😛

Is there an agreed on tag for this conference? I’ll be going with LITAforum06 unless another one seems to be prevalent. And as usual, pictures will show up in my flickr account.

IE7 – Test Now!

Internet Explorer 7’s release could be sprung on us any day now. As part of creating browser tools at work, I’ve had it installed for a few weeks now and overall like what I see. There’s tabbed browsing, nice handling of RSS feeds, etc. I have a few complaints about changes to the interface (in particular the decision to hide the traditional File, Edit, etc menus). But I’m not writing a full review.

I mostly wanted to post as a reminder to test your sites in IE7 prior to the official release. Most sites display correctly, but much to my dismay I’ve discovered that my own does not. It looks fine in Firefox and IE6, but not IE7 for some reason. The css formatting of my header doesn’t seem to be applied correctly. Thankfully I have a bit of time to fix things before IE7 gets pushed to all XP users. But I have a feeling some web designers might be caught off guard. Download it here.

(I’m also annoyed that now I’ll have to develop web sites and test for three browsers for the forseeable future – Firefox, IE6 and IE7)

UAH library browser tools

This has been my pet project for the last few weeks:

Browser tools!

As the name implies, I pulled together a number of browser-based search options for our resources. So far we’ve got: Firefox search bar plugins (for that search box in the upper right corner) for the catalog and Academic Search Premier, IE7 search bar plugins for the same two resources, and a full fledged Firefox toolbar with a number of campus-related links and search options.

It isn’t quite live to the public yet – I want to increase the list of search bar plugins available, and I’m still toying with a couple of options for an IE toolbar.

They probably won’t be much good to anyone not affiliated with UAH, as everything gets routed through our proxy, but I’m just proud of the results and wanted to share 🙂

Here’s some stuff I learned in the process:

  1. Firefox toolbars are really easy to hand code – it’s just XML and javascript, and mostly takes a bit of trial and error. This tutorial was very helpful.
  2. IE toolbars are unfortunately much more complicated – the programming involved is beyond my level of expertise, at least for something to be done in my spare time at work. I’m looking at toolbar generators like www.conduit.com instead, which a lot of other libraries have used.
  3. Firefox search bar plugins are pretty simple to look at once created, but if the url for a database or catalog is complicated, creating it is a bit of a headache your first time.
  4. IE7’s search bar plugins conform to the Opensearch standard, and are ridiculously easy to code. Each one is a simple XML file – the part that took me the longest was figuring out that XML doesn’t like raw ampersands in the content.
  5. I’ve starded using these tools in my day to day work, and the number of clicks and page loads I’ve cut down on is amazing.

Mostly, I just hope someone else finds them useful. I learned a lot in the process of creating these tools, and look forward to expanding our list.

Amazon and Google book searches increase sales

Here’s an interesting Reuters article (found via Slashdot) on the effects of Google and Amazon’s efforts to scan and post books online (either as excerpts or full text).

Of course I’m no expert on the legal implications, but I’m glad to see some confirmation at such an official level of what I’ve felt to be true. I’ve bought books (or at least gotten them from the library) a number of times after reading either Amazon samples or chapters posted on authors’ websites. Back in the heyday of the original Napster, I bought albums after sampling a band’s songs for free on more than one occasion. After Harvey Danger posted their most recent album online for free, I went out and bought a couple of their older ones.

But the article is especially interesting given all the early complaints publishers had about Google’s book scanning project.

Disney and Customer Service

plutoDisney World was an amazing trip from start to finish. I hadn’t been since I was five, so the experience was almost as if I’d never been there before at all. I took far too many pictures and posted them here.

FYI, mid-September is a great time to go if you can handle the Florida humidity. There were no crowds at all, and most rides had less than a five minute wait. We never waited more than twenty minutes. Another helpful hint: The $40/day per person meal plan is a steal. It includes a counter service lunch, sit down dinner, and snack every day. We routinely spent far more than that on dinner alone, although admittedly that’s partially because we ate at expensive places knowing it was all paid for. Just make reservations well in advance and you’ll be set.

Part of what made the experience so great is Disney’s unequaled customer service. Our baggage was magically whisked to and from the airport without ever having to be involved personally, for example. But the best part: everybody knows everything. Cast members (don’t call them ’employees’) we talked to at the hotel knew all about the parks, and vice versa. They all knew what rides were closed, and were very helpful and polite when I lost my cell phone. (It never did turn up, but hooray for insurance!) I don’t think we were even told “I don’t know that, but here’s who does.”

Of course, Disney has a tad more resources for staff training and equipment than most libraries do. But wouldn’t it be nice to avoid directing yet another user across the library to the circ desk or some other service location, often to wait in yet another line? It isn’t practical for every employee to be cross-trained in so many diverse areas. But what about merging reference, circulation, and any other service point into one location? The concept wouldn’t work very well for large libraries with multiple reference locations around the building, but it has more merit in smaller branches. My local public library has just such a concept.

Maybe this isn’t even a new idea, and most smaller locations work this way already. I don’t have a lot of firsthand experience with them – any insight?

Our new library website!

UAH’s new library web site is live!

http://www.uah.edu/library/

We’re also blogging!

http://libsys.uah.edu/php-scripts/libraryblog/

This is the culmination of many months of work, and I’m quite happy with the results. I should mention that we’d still be slogging away if it weren’t for Daniel, our amazing student worker from the communication arts (graphic design) department. But a lot of people had input, it was a real team effort.

The site didn’t get a complete overhaul – our link structure is probably 99% the same as it was. Secondary pages on the site are untouched except for a nice new banner at the top which will let us highlight upcoming events, and will be redone more completely as time goes on. But our new front page design, in addition to looking more modern, is flexible in both design and content. Our old design was functional, but adding or removing anything from the page tended to make the design explode. Very hard and frustrating to work with. And with the addition of dropdown menus, we’ve been able to bring a lot of deeper pages’ links to the surface without destroying the menu items people are familiar with from the old design.