On Blackboard and Blogs

I'm going to be honest: I don't love Blackboard (Bb). Certainly, it fills a niche, and I agree that something like it should be used. But I'm just not sure Bb is the be-all, end-all solution for every problem, in every class, in every university. Honestly, course webpages are, in many ways, an improvement. Let me break it down:

Bb Pros:

• It's a great place for storing course-related files and assignments, that students and professors can access 24/7 (mostly).


• It is customizable, within certain parameters.


• It is 508 compliant.


• It is massively improved since 1999.


• The professor does not need to learn HTML or gain access to web design software (or a TA who knows HTML) to build a course page.

Bb Cons

• The discussion boards are painfully slow, at least from off campus.


• There is no way to set content to "push" instead of "pull." More plainly, it is a waste of the student's time to have to go to each and every course's (sometimes multiple) discussion board(s), read all the new posts (which, I reiterate, do not load all that quickly), comment where they choose to, rinse, and repeat. And to check it constantly. Whether there is new data or not. Because catching up on it, if you get behind, is a nightmare. RSS is not new technology; fixing this should be trivial.


• I'm harping, now, but, for that matter, how difficult would it be to implement e-mail functionality in the discussion boards? We'd have a better discussion with Google Groups than we do with Bb, and it would be equally easy for our instructors to watch--easier, I imagine, since they must get the same headaches as we do, using the boards.


• The organization of each course's Bb page is completely different from that of each other course. In one of my courses, I click the tiny "Communications" link at the bottom of the page to get to the Discussion Board. In another, I click the "Discussion Board" button on the sidebar. In one other, that button goes to course-wide questions, so to get to the Discussion Board I'm usually interested in, I click "Groups," in the side bar, click my group number, and then click "Discussion Board." When we're put in groups for projects, as I understand it, there will be other Discussion Boards opened up to us. It's a little confusing, when I'm going class-to-class, keeping it all straight. Honestly, I'm pretty worried that I'm going to ignore one Discussion Board altogether and lose 10% of my grade, or something, for "not participating."


• Presumably, the university paid money for this clunky monstrosity. I wonder whether it was more or less than site-wide license of HTML creation software (spoiler: that link goes to a list of free products) and a web site for each faculty member (this is already in place, although storage space usage would go up; then again, if we dumped Bb, that would free up some server space, I bet!).
  

In short, I'm thoroughly convinced that the old-school[ish] way of dealing with course administrivia--making a webpage for the course, with the syllabus, assignments, and so on all there--is in most ways equal, if not superior. (Robots.txt it and password protect it, if you want to keep outsiders out of it. It worked great for many of my classes, undergrad, so I know the technology is there. 508 compliance isn't hard; just don't make the site stupid fancy and colorful, or use frames, and that will more or less cover it.) And I really feel that we are not well served, using Bb as a discussion platform: a Google Group for each sub-group of the class would lead to--I am certain--better communication between the students than pull-only discussion boards.

I really, really like what we're doing in 2670, where each student has to keep a blog and post the feed link to the Discussion Boards. We're doing all of our "virtual" discussion of the readings that way. (As I understand it, we'll also discuss in class.) I put all of the feeds in a folder in Google Reader, and I see the updates that other students and the professor make as soon as I sit down at my computer. It's fantastic. I wish all my classes would do something like this, really. I'll do my part and post my writing assignments here, as well as in Blackboard (I'm aware that it'll turn up a hit if they're using automated anti-plagiarism software--you wouldn't believe how quickly Google indexes my blog posts--but I trust my professors to investigate and realize that this blog belongs to me). This is a little nerve-wracking, honestly, because I don't have a lot of faith in my writing skills. (Brevity, for one thing, seems to be completely beyond me. I know.) It took me three years to get up the guts to let CMU post the full text of my Master's thesis; I still haven't had the wherewithal to go look at it. But I assume that I'll have some ideas worth sharing, once in a while (I mean, most people do), so I'd like to start putting my thoughts out there, even the naive ones that mean I just haven't learned enough, yet. This blog will grow with me, and hopefully my writing ability will grow with it.

First Week of Classes, Complete!

Now that I've been to all of my classes once--and work a few times--I have some thoughts to post.

First off, let me just say, for the sake of any engineers who come to this blog wanting to find out about switching into Library Science, it is wonderful to know, for every class I go to, that the lecture will consist of concepts and ideas, instead of equations and derivations. It was always a toss-up, in E School, which it would be. No such problem, here; there are facts and figures, of course, but far more time is spent discussing goals and ideas. And looking at my various syllabi, I don't feel that sense of overwhelming dread that always pervaded my engineering education. (I know it wasn't just me! But I also get the sense that it wasn't everyone...) I am actually looking forward to a few of these readings and papers, which is just totally unprecedented in my education to date. (Just some of them. Some of the deadlines, at least, are a tiny bit dread-inducing; seriously, 50% of my grade in one class is due on November 24. I'm a student, still, not a machine.)

I also want to reiterate how overjoyed I am that midterms and exams aren't emphasized in this program. I have one midterm, total, between my four classes. I always felt that one of the biggest failings of my engineering education--and I'm self-aware enough to realize it was a failing of my own, at least as much as of the programs I was in--was the tendency to cram for exams and forget most of it immediately thereafter. For those of you outside of engineering, it's worth mentioning that that's kind of how E School is set up, in a lot of places: you're learning more than two/four years' worth of information in two/four years (grad/undergrad), and as such, everything is just too crammed together. You don't have time to study properly and do your homework, so you do your homework as best you can, usually with friends' and TAs' help (which is allowed, no problem), and when the exam comes, you pretty much drop all your other classes for a day and cram for that one test. There's project work, but it nearly always feels more like an add-on to the homework and tests than anything, or it did to me, at least. (The one class where that wasn't the case left me with scars that still make me cringe when I hear the term "group work.") ... I claim that setup is not conducive to long-term retention; I've long felt that engineering school should last five years, not four, and the focus should be shifted, somewhat, to help students retain material. I'm sure people have heard me say, since graduating, that I "have forgotten more than I ever really learned." It's hyperbolic, but not nearly as far off as I'm sure employers hiring young engineers would like.

I digress, a bit, but my point is that I think the hands-on approach--reading the relevant literature and writing about it and making business plans and writing papers and creating posters and so on--is so much more beneficial than the "take notes in lecture, read the course work, do some problem sets, and cram for exams" approach.

Anyway, as for my specific classes, they all seem like they'll be good. There are crazy amounts of reading--I posted my book list earlier this evening, and now that I think about it, I missed a couple of books--but it all seems pretty relevant and interesting.

I'm not kidding myself: it's going to be rough going, getting all of my school work and internship work done this semester. I'm not going to have gobs of free time to do with as I please. I won't be traveling anywhere to speak of. (I'm going to take a little time out to play Rock Band, though, yes.) Class, work, reading, and sleep, in some order, will be the bulk of my life. But I'm more OK with that than I had expected to be. I'm really pretty psyched about this whole thing.

[2670] Week 1 Reading Responses

For this week, I'm commenting informally and responding to things as I read them. Not "First I will read the article, and then I will post my fully processed thoughts," but "Hey, that sentence seems worth commenting on. Here's what I think." I see some benefit to both approaches, and I hope to try both throughout the semester. For that matter, when I get Understanding Digital Libraries (Lesk), I may do that with Chapter 1. (Yes, this will be posted without thoughts on Chapter 1. If I have thoughts worth posting, I'll come back and edit this post, though.)

If this seems far too informal, please feel free to drop me a note (coral dot hess at gmail dot com), and I'll cut it out and keep my posts more to the point.

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I take issue with the author of Digital Libraries and the Problem of Purpose's attitude about what a public library is. It seems like he waves away precisely the roles I would say the library fills, "an all-purpose information center, ... a community center, ... a center for adult education, [and] ... the guardian of free speech," to make a claim I take real issue with: "... public libraries finally began to come to terms with their more limited but realistic purpose: to be suppliers of books to the middle class and a symbol of culture in the community." (He was, in turn, citing a private communication, something that perhaps wasn't intended to be cited or taken as speaking for every public library, to such a large audience.) I don't think that's a fair description, at all. Libraries are far more than a symbol; in many places, they very much serve as the anchors and educators of their communities. To refer to them as "symbol[s] of culture" is, I think, the tiniest bit condescending. Further, I read something mildly disparaging in the use of the term "middle class," as though a library ought only to cater to some other group, instead. And, if it were the case that the middle class were the only users of the library, I could see where he might be coming from. It's my experience, though, that public libraries serve a more diverse set of economic groups than "the middle class."

His over-arching point, that we should think a bit about what digital libraries are and should be--what we should try to make them--I have no issue with. He's probably right. My suggested approach to dealing with digital libraries, "Grow all collections, including digital ones, based on user needs/demands and technological innovation, organically--but also intelligently," is no doubt naive. Or at least lacking in detail. I understand that. And I'm looking forward to refining that viewpoint throughout the semester and the next few (many?) years.

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I love that Automated Digital Libraries discusses the Internet Archive, or Wayback Machine.

"Disintermediation" is an interesting term; I think it has an unnecessarily negative sound to it, as though it is the librarian's right to serve as the gateway between a patron and the information they seek. That doesn't seem right to me. I, for one, am not offended by patrons who can find information without a librarian's help, although I am always happy to step in and help when I can.

I'm going to have to think a bit about the observation that most of the successful automated digital library projects--at least, the ones he deems worth mention--were made outside of and separate from established libraries. That interests and concerns me. But I wonder how much it really should concern me...

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In Dewey Meets Turing, I found the following quote intriguing: "librarians who involved themselves in the Initiative understood that information technologies were indeed important to ensure libraries' continued impact on scholarly work." If this article has it right, the concern was that libraries would be left out in the cold, so to speak. "We have to upgrade and innovate, or else we will be left behind and no longer have an impact," it seems to say. There is, perhaps, some worry about job security implied. I guess it stood out so much to me, because the previous article discussed automated digital libraries, with no need for librarians. So we build digital libraries to secure the jobs that will be replaced by very large computers? (I know I'm oversimplifying, but that's what went through my head as I read it.)

I'm only about 2/3 of the way through, as I make this comment, but I wonder: am I reading too much into this article, or is it kind of painting CS types as heroes and LIS types as traditionalists? I've got some background in CS, and I can't find any one comment I disagree with. It's just a tonal thing, possibly imaginary.

"The notion of collections is spontaneously re-emerging in the form of what computer scientists have named information 'hubs.'" Really? I'm having trouble thinking of an example of a "hub." (And, I confess, not having an ACM account or the patience to go through Pitt's or CMU's VPN, I didn't read the article linked to the word "hub.") Do any readers have an example? I feel like there's probably some obvious thing, but all that's coming to mind is Wikipedia--something that certainly is not curated in any meaningful way.

I like the authors' hopeful tone.

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From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure, I think, missed out on a real opportunity. s/Infrastructure/Grid/, and you get a far better-sounding title. (I kid.)

I have to admit, this "sniping" between CS people and LIS people keeps coming up, and even though it makes perfect sense, I am a little surprised to learn about it. I can easily see how it comes about, now that I have occasion to think about it; I just hadn't thought about it before, I suppose.

Note to self: check out http://memory.loc.gov.

This seemed important enough to call out: "Griffiths (1998) confronts the question of 'why the web is not a library.' Her rea-
sons include incompleteness of content, lack of standards and validation, minimal cataloging, and ineffective information retrieval. To this I add that the World Wide Web is not an institution and is not organized on behalf of a specifiable user community." Indeed. This is a very good answer.

I admit, this whole reading (Chapter 2, for those following along at home) was a bit of a blur for me. It is focused pretty much entirely on definitions and semantics, something I have really limited interest in. I do realize the importance of the discussion (as the author himself says, "Words do matter, however, and they will influence the success of our ventures"). But I'm going to have to look over this reading again, at a later date, if I really want to absorb it all.

Still, I feel like the whole point is captured very well in this summary (copied from the book): "From a research perspective, digital libraries are content collected and organized on behalf of user communities. From a library-practice perspective, digital libraries are institutions or organizations that provide information services in digital forms. Definitions are formulated to serve specific purposes. The research community's definitions serve to identify and focus attention on research problems and to expand the community of interest around those problems. The library community's definitions focus on practical challenges involved in transforming library institutions and services. Databases available on the Internet, on proprietary services, and on CD-ROMs fall into a gray area."

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Before I get too far into Setting the Foundations of Digital Libraries, I have to admit, I have a warm spot in my heart for Manifestos. Or, at least, I smile when I read the word, for no good reason I can name.

I like that this paper presents the different ideologies not as CS vs. LIS, but as having "shifted" from one to the other.

Ha: "this terminological imprecision has produced a plethora of heterogeneous entities..." (They're absolutely right, of course. But you've gotta love that phrasing.)

I like that they are trying to structure the conversation about digital libraries and standardize the terms that are used. I don't feel as though their diagrams convey all that much extra information, to be honest, and their text could more or less stand alone.

I think internalizing all of their terminology and using it consistently would be a good idea. (Dr. He, it's been over a year since this paper came out--and longer since the Manifesto--does it seem as though the DL community at large is using this terminology? Do American and European papers differ, much, in their adherence to this vocabulary?) That would take me, at least, some time. But having structured language is important and worthwhile.

[2670] Muddiest Point

In lecture, Dr. He mentioned that we should post the "Muddiest Point" from each of [at least ten of] his lectures. With 14 or so weeks of class, there is room for us not to post it each week.

The first lecture seemed very accessible, and I found very little to ask questions about. That's pretty fantastic, except it makes me worry that maybe not everyone will be able to come up with a Muddiest Point for 10 out of 14 lectures (give or take). Maybe some subset of us will find everything as understandable as Lecture 1, in which case... what should we do? Should we maybe come up with a question related to, but not really covered in, that lecture? Or should we perhaps just point out what we thought was the most important topic covered in that lecture? Or do we just not post a Muddiest Point at all, that week?

(Is this too meta to count as a Muddiest Point? I admit, I'm probably worrying unnecessarily about this. Surely, we'll wander into the weeds and find confusion, soon enough. :))

A real, honest-to-goodness use for this blog

A word of warning: scattered in amongst my other posts will be some assignment-fulfilling text--responses to assigned readings and requests for clarifications of lecture material in my Digital Libraries course, LIS 2670. I'll try to provide enough context that my normal readers aren't lost and can find something interesting in it, but I thought maybe you'd appreciate knowing it's going to happen. To make those posts easy to recognize (and easy for the professor and other students to filter), I'll add the tag "2670," in addition to any other relevant tags/labels.

My first day of classes went pretty well. I think both will be challenging and enjoyable. I like that there's not a big focus on midterms and exams; it seems like they're more interested in giving us hands-on experience than they are in assessing how well we cram, which makes me feel like I'll probably internalize it all better than I did in engineering school.

More warning: it's going to be best to just avoid me in mid-to-late November, when all of my projects come due, most likely on the same week. But, hey, it may free me up for Thanksgiving.

Amusement of the day: the color scheme of the classrooms very nearly matches the color scheme of my homepage...

First Day of School

I used to love the first day of school, as a kid. Not really the second day or onward, mind, but the first was always pretty fun. There I was, with some brand new school gear, meeting up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen since the end of school last year--and hadn't yet remembered that I didn't much like--with everyone's energy levels pretty high, the teachers both optimistic and in no big hurry, and knowing autumn and Halloween were coming up. It was a good time.

Somehow, though, I think my professors this week will jump right in (which is for the best). And I don't have a lot of cool new school supplies--I didn't even buy myself pens--though I do kind of like my backpack. And it's 80+ degrees. Also, I'd been looking forward to taking notes on my laptop, but I found out during orientation that we have desks a little bit like the one in the photo--only without the cool rockstar quote. (Link goes to the page where I found it.) Barely enough space for a notebook and coffee, let alone a 17" laptop, which might fit, but there's a real danger of it being knocked off, the first time anyone nearby moves. So I'm not entirely sure what to do about that. I'll take my laptop, but I don't have very high hopes of being able to use it. Maybe I should get one of those pens Target sells, that record what you write with auto-OCR? (Sorry to be so negative about this. I'm grumpy and feeling let down, as far as the desk situation goes. Knowing it's a technology-heavy program, what I pay in tuition, and that there are 200+ other people paying the same amount, just among the library graduate students, I expect more tech-friendly facilities.)

On the bright side, my schedule is pretty doable, with Monday being the one "bad" day (two classes right in a row). I'll post a combination of work and class schedule when I know it.

For now, assuming I'm not working that evening, I'm thinking of going to this. (Thursday evenings are still in flux.)

Anyway, I'd better start getting ready to go!

Know thyself. And choose your career accordingly.

As I slide another set of books by Phil McGraw and Laura Schlessinger over the demagnetizer for yet another patron in search of guidance, I can't help but grit my teeth. There's nothing of value in those books, nothing that will make this person happy. I believe these so-called "experts" are ruining America, just as they've each personally ruined multiple families in their own social spheres, and part of me--let's call it my conscience--really wants to take these books away and send my patron back to the stacks, to find something better, and then to remove these books from our collection.

But of course I don't do that; it would be wrong. If a person wants to read bad advice, it is their right to do so, and it is my job to provide them with the means. If they want to check out trashy romance novels, inaccurate histories, poorly-written local newspapers, right-wing propaganda, left-wing propaganda, movie novelizations, Scientology DVDs, or anything else I have the power to provide, it is my job to provide it. My patrons are guardians of their own intellects, and that is a right I wouldn't dream of begrudging them; certainly, I would not want that right taken from me. To be honest, as horrible as I, personally, find some of it to be, at the end of the day, I am proud and happy to provide these things. I know I am serving the greater good, even when I dispense materials I find objectionable. I know my opinion, however deeply researched, however well founded, or however strongly felt, is not more important than my patrons' right to information.

Let's pretend, though, just for a second, that I didn't believe as strongly as I do in intellectual freedom. Let's say I believed that some materials really shouldn't be circulated, and as such, I refused to provide them to patrons who asked for them. How long, precisely, do you think I would last as a library employee? Or, more to the point, how long should I last?

It's not a useful question: of course, if I felt that way, I wouldn't have taken a library job; everyone knows that giving out all manner of materials is a part of the job description of a librarian, so I would have known it wasn't the job for me. Even if I were, as a layperson, to fail to fully grasp what my job might entail, one can assume that library school, or the first month of a job in a library, would sufficiently acquaint me with the field, and with the various ethical standards thereof, that I'd quickly become aware of the "down sides," if you will, of my job description. If I learned that my own moral/ethical stance was incompatible with my chosen profession, I would choose a more appropriate profession. Any reasonable person would.

So why is the Bush Administration advocating allowing people in one particular field, whose consciences may sometimes run counter to their job requirements, to shirk their duties? Are we to assume that someone could finish pharmacy school and not realize that pharmacists are expected to provide contraceptives, along with any number of other medications? That an ER staff member might go through training and yet, at some point, be surprised at being expected to provide pregnancy prevention medication to a rape victim? That medical insurance providers may not realize they are expected to provide insurance for, you know, any medical issue, including prevention of pregnancy? How could this have escaped these people's notice until now?

As the WSJ does a fine job of pointing out, the proposed policy is simply about making access to contraceptives more difficult--a goal I don't begin to understand--not about protecting workers' rights. Just as I know I must sometimes grit my teeth and give out materials I find objectionable to patrons who want access to them, so too do medical workers--even those who hate contraceptives--realize that they have a duty to provide the care their patients need them to provide.

In the library I give out many useful materials that I know others disagree with; similarly, in a pharmacy or a hospital or even an insurance company, one is able to help people by providing treatments that, yes, others might object to--blood transfusions, vaccines, insulin grown in pigs--because people who disagreed with those treatments were not allowed to make that call for the rest of society, no matter how strongly they felt it was wrong. We have a right to take care of our bodies and our health as we see fit, just as we have a right to read what we see fit. Refusing a whole class of service, or service to a whole class of people--patrons or patients--means one can no longer claim to serve the greater good; it means they are trying to impose their will on others and, in so doing, failing to live up to the standards of their field.

If someone's conscience can't handle giving out one particular type of treatment--if they don't believe in helping people with all of the tools at their disposal--they need to get out of the medical industry. If they haven't the courage to get out of their profession, but still cannot live up to its standards, I find it hard to be sympathetic when their employer performs their own duty--protecting clients, patients, or patrons--by removing the wrongdoer.

I'll add, further, that any law--or "rules change" or whatever--that protects wrongdoers at the expense of society is wrong. Plain and simple. I have signed MoveOn.org and Planned Parenthood's joint petition to Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, and I hope you will do the same. (Links go to both copies of the petition. I signed PP's.)

Ends and beginnings

I've changed around my class schedule. I think it's pretty solid, though I may still want to change sections for one class. 

LIS 2000: Understanding Information

LIS 2001: Organizing Information
LIS 2670: Digital Libraries 
LIS 2700: Managing Libraries (the real name is longer)

You'll notice there are only four classes there. I mean, that's a pretty heavy load for grad classes, anyway, but I had resolved to take five, so that I wouldn't be stuck taking four during the summer. (I hate summer classes. A semester seems a little short, for some topics, but trying to finish a class during the summer is just insane. I already know one of my summer classes will take up a few weekends, for instance; it says so on the course schedule.) I found, as I was trying to schedule things out, that the only way I could possibly take five classes was to force myself to attend nine hours of class, in a row, and I know myself and my attention span better than that. I'm worried about six hours, honestly. (I'm buying a coffee pot and cleaning out my thermos.) Or I could take a class I didn't want as much, which seems like a waste, in its own way. So, I lamented, it will just have to be four classes, this semester, and I'll make up for it in the spring.  Ah, well; it'll be an easier transition, this way, and having the extra time to do everything well, the semester before PhD applications are due, isn't the worst thing in the world...

Having my schedule decided, having my Pitt digital ID and login information reportedly on its way to me, having met several of my new coworkers at CMU, having watched one very cool coworker leave Brentwood already, and having seen the post made to the internal blog at Brentwood, saying I'm leaving, I'm kind of in a different mindset, now. I no longer feel entirely like I'm part of the Brentwood staff; I'm sad to be leaving them--in, you know, two weeks--and I'm excited about starting my new job and my studies. (It's very funny that I only just got my status changed to "Staff" yesterday, in Millenium. :)) Again, I find myself just feeling kind of liminal and floaty. 

This post was originally just going to be about how much I like the Brentwood folks and will miss working with them and also how excited I am to work with the folks at CMU, who also seem pretty excellent. I just kind of wandered off into logistics, though, instead. But I can't understate what a good experience I've had, or how excited I am about working with the folks at CMU (which I expect to be a better education, in a lot of ways, than my classes themselves). It's a pretty fantastic time to be me. 

Back to scheduling, for a second: not to seem like a dork--which you know I am--or like someone with a bad set of priorities--which you know I am not--but I did check with everyone to make sure my bi-weekly Exalted game could be moved to Wednesdays, instead of Tuesdays, if needed. Obviously, school and work come first, but I'd like to be able to fit that into my schedule, if at all possible. It's good to have regularly scheduled "play" time, you know? It keeps a person sane ... ish. And Josh is a very good ST. And I think I finally have my character set up so she'll be fun to play, within that group. So I'm extra pleased that everything seems to be falling into place, with respect to scheduling.