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Month: June 2008

Wikipedia Angst Still Alive and Well

Published by Iris on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

I was reading The Sheck Spot this morning and thinking “Yes! My thoughts almost exactly!” when I remembered the surprising and recurring sub-theme at the Midwest Library Technology Conference:* Wikipedia angst. Wikipedia was mentioned in the first keynote and then became the dominant discussion theme during the question period. Then it resurfaced as a discussion topic during the question period after the second keynote. And it wasn’t that the discussion about Wikipedia was bad or inappropriate, it’s just that I was surprised at how little I’d expected that, of all things, to be the recurring theme after talks centered around how to leverage the power of millions of social web participants, how to develop systems that learn from and supplement user behavior, and the future trends in technology.

Part of my surprise stems from my own views on the tool, which go something like this: a) Students will use it and telling them not to won’t help because b) it’s not all bad, and students know that so they’ll disregard other things I say if I say that. What they don’t know is c) how it fits into the wider world of reference sources and d) how reference sources can and should be used appropriately in scholarly work. And inasmuch as e) reference sources are best used to point you to other sources, f) Wikipedia is becoming a better and better source as more links to authoritative sources end up in its citation lists. Sure, there’s always the caveat that g) vandalism and flat out stupidity still exist there. But if you’re using Wikipedia as a reference source, with the idea that it should point you to more authoritative sources, then these things won’t have a huge effect on your learning anyway.

Another part of my surprise probably exists because of the company I keep. Libloggers seem to have gotten bored with writing about Wikipedia some time ago, which isn’t to say that there isn’t still good stuff to write about it. It just fell out of vogue as a blog topic. So in an environment where I don’t hear much about the tool every day, it’s easy to think that people in general don’t talk about it, which just isn’t true. Libloggers are only a sliver of the profession, and it’s a sliver that gets bored with some topics very easily.

So while I was a little surprised at the force of Wikipedia Angst in evidence at the conference, I’m still unclear about whether I’m uncomfortable with that theme for good reason. Is it glib to say that we should just get over it already? Is it dismissive to wonder if this discussion is a little behind the times? Have I just decided that this is one of the many things I can’t change and must therefore work with, and has this caused me to effectively throw up my hands and decide not to worry about it? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that if the majority is worried or fearful, it behooves me to take that seriously and see whether my lack of worry is, in fact, founded. And on this issue, I still haven’t decided.

* And yes, I realize I haven’t written that conference up, which is a shame because I learned really cool things. I hope to get to it sometime… I really do.

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New Phone!

Published by Iris on Monday, June 9th, 2008

I arrived this morning to find a brand new phone on my desk at work. Or rather, I found a new phone manual on my desk, wondered why somebody would leave me a manual, paged through it for a bit, and then realized that the phone sitting there was not my old phone, but a new one, complete with caller ID, conference calling, and the ability to go hands free!

Finally, I’ll be able to tell if my in-coming calls are likely to be questions, random calls from people not affiliated with the college, my co-workers, or (horror of horrors) a vendor. Finally, I’ll be able to pull more than one person in on my calls. Finally, I’ll be able to participate in those webinars that make you call in and participate online without choosing between full participation and a spasm in my neck.

This kicked me out of my Monday Mood for the rest of the day. Well… this and the first sunshine in weeks, and a glorious walk with co-workers to lunch, and the fact that it’s the last day of finals here. All in all, I guess it was a pretty good day.

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Growing via Comments

Published by Iris on Saturday, June 7th, 2008

I’ve been having the most interesting exchange with Mark in the comments on my last post. I love it how a seemingly simple discussion about jargon can push me to interrogate my mission and place within the educational system in ways I’d never articulated before. Have I mentioned recently how much I love the fact that we can have this type of discussion so easily these days? Well, I do.

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Scholars Index Their Own Literature

Published by Iris on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

This year I’ve been shamelessly cribbing off one of my co-workers who’s mantra is “scholars index their own literature.” At first, I didn’t know what she meant, but the more I work with the idea, the more I absolutely love it, especially for the “softer” areas of study where traditional indexing falls short (yes, I’m thinking of the MLA International Bibliography, here).

Here’s the idea, indexers can give a general sense of the primary topics of a given article. Scholars, however, make use of other scholars’ work as it relates to their own work. The web of citations that builds as each area cites relevant works is often a much richer, much more crafted set of interrelations than any result set is. (Incidentally, this is where dissertations are a great help, since part of a dissertator’s project is to map his field and place himself within that field… jackpot for those looking for a starting place in the web of interconnections.)

The problem is that tracing this web of interrelations also takes a whole lot longer than plunking keywords into a bibliographic database and clicking “Search.” Still… if there’s time, and especially if direct searching isn’t working, this is one of those other options that can, sometimes, pay off.

Now I just need to figure out how to explain this succinctly to freshmen. “Scholars index their own literature” doesn’t make much sense when “index” and “literature” are jargon within the scholarly community.

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