Sunday, September 30, 2007

Farewell to Dewey

While browsing through LIS News I've noticed a number of recent posts discussing the decisions of some smaller suburban library branches doing away with the Dewey Decimal Classification system for an organizational scheme aligned to corporate book sellers like Barnes and Noble and Borders. This organizational scheme used by B&N and others is called BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications), and if you've ever stepped inside the confines of a commercial bookstore you've noticed that items are broadly organized by general subject categories like "History" or "True Crime." Of course, the adoption of a cataloging scheme that physically aligns itself so closely to book stores has produced an ample amount of discourse about abandoning the DDC.

The beauty of the DDC is that the decimal # assigned to a work can tell you where it can be found on a physical shelf and the subject of the work (if you know what the numbers mean). Personally, I have found that locating items in libraries that are classified under DDC or Library of Congress classification is easier than finding an item within a bookstore. Then again, I have worked in a physical library for a number of years and have become quite comfortable with this system. However, for the casual library patron, a system that tags a book by its general subject category may be easier to navigate and provide a more user-friendly system for locating items of interest. It has also been mentioned that BISAC organization may be a better system for subject browsing in a system's OPAC than Dewey as well.

I don't believe the DDC system should be eradicated by any means, but individual libraries should have the freedom to tailor a practice to meet the demands of their patrons. If circulation is higher with the BISAC system in place than with Dewey, as it was with a suburban Phoenix branch library, then why wouldn't the library choose to permanently break from "tradition"?

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Observations on Hot Text

After reading the chapter excerpts from Lisa and Jonathan Price's book Hot Text, one "moral" was resoundingly clear: the construction of textual information on the web differs considerably than the creation of traditional print text. Though this statement sounds obvious, the Price readings made me consider my own differences in approaching online textual material vs. traditional print material and how these differences in approach will influence my website design decisions.

In the chapter, What Will the Web Do to My Text?, the authors bring to light a number of key differences between textual mediums that affect our overall relationships to textual information. Hot text differs from traditional print in a number of ways. Due to less resolution, hot text is generally less pleasing to the human eye than print text, so users tend to have less patience when reading online information than when reading print. I can personally attest to this fact; though I typically try to conserve paper when possible, the thought of reading a lengthy academic article online isn't an option for me. Also, when we navigate through the contents of a web page, we don't necessarily follow the text or links in a linear manner as we often do with books and other types of print material. As the authors note, the audience on the Web is made up of "users," not readers. Therefore, anyone authoring Web-based text must strive to arrange the information in a manner that can be easily navigated or the "user" will probably lose patience and look elsewhere for the information he or she seeks.

To combat this somewhat impersonal relationship users have to hot text, Web authorship must rely on gaining attention to his or her material. Personally, if I am perusing a site and cannot quickly validate that the site holds the type of information I am looking for, I will often impatiently look for another resource. For those posting online text, interface plays an important role by providing signals to the reader about what type of information can be found on the page. For instance, when looking at a website I will typically scroll down the page to view the menus, headings, and boldface links to help determine whether or not my information need may be sated. Therefore, when designing my own website I will need to determine what information a visitor to my site is expecting to see and have the necessary links to this content clearly represented.

Similarly, adhering to a particular genre can also help communicate what your site is trying to accomplish. Writing in a familiar pattern tells the user what type of information can be found on a particular site and the general purpose the author has in providing this information. When constructing my own site, I need to determine what it is exactly that I want to communicate to my audience and adhere to a textual persona that will communicate this message effectively.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Wikipedia, too liberal?

As this week's class readings and discussions have been centered around Wikipedia and questioning authority, I was reminded of an NPR All Things Considered segment I listened to a number of months ago. Since Wikipedia's inception, the accuracy of its content has been a concern of educators, librarians, and anyone who relies on the collaboratively assembled information found within its pages. Until listening to the aforementioned NPR segment however, I had yet to hear the view that much of the information found on Wikipedia has a liberal slant. The radio piece was about a relatively new alternative online encyclopedia called Conservapedia. Can a massive collaborative pool of information authored by miscellaneous volunteers have a deliberate slant one way or the other? Of course, depending on who authors an individual piece, an article may present one side more than another, but Wikipedia as a whole? When it comes down to it, I would argue that any piece of information, though sometimes subtle, reflects the beliefs and ideologies of the individual author. Do I personally think that Wikipedia has a political agenda? Not that I've directly observed. From an information studies perspective it is interesting to read the sometimes highly disparate views between articles listed in Wikipedia and Conservapedia, and if you haven't done so already, it is definitely worth your time!