I’ve just finished up a round of lectures for INFO525, our ‘Intro to Technology‘ course in the Information Studies Programme. Our programme has a significant distance component – which for this paper means that each lecture is given three times:

• on campus for students studying here at Kelburn (Monday afternoon),
• online via audio conferencing for students all over New Zealand (Monday evening),
• and via telephone to a group of students who meet at Auckland City Library (Thursday evening).

It’s the second time I’ve taught for this paper, but teaching in the course this time around really got me thinking about how really different the three lectures are to teach – each with their own advantages and challenges.

On Campus, Wellington:
I have more ‘interruption-style’ interactions with students because students can read my body language and see I’m open to conversation with them. This is great because all our students have their own experiences to share, and the majority of them work in the profession already; there’s lots of good practical examples to be gained. Of course, this can also mean we get through less planned lecture content, and sometimes we end up having rather off-topic discussions. In other areas, like playing videos, running my slides, and just ‘being’ in the room – I feel I have much more control. I can, for example, cut a video clip short, or mute it and talk over it. I can use a presenter gadget to control my slides, meaning I can walk around the room, or sit wherever I like. I feel like more of my ‘personality’ comes through in these lectures than in any of the other formats.

Online, Nationwide:
I remember as an online student feeling quite scared to talk on the mic. I think this comes from not being able to see everyone else, and because it’s hard to work out when and how it is appropriate to interject – especially with a lecturer like me who talks a mile a minute! As a teacher, you can feel like you’re talking into a big ‘black hole’ if a long time goes by without any interactiong with the students. At the same time, we usually have quite an interesting ‘side-channel’ running the whole time. Students make comments in the chat channel, and these are mainly directed at each other. Really good comments come up, but they can sometimes be distracting to the class, and often it’s hard to get the commenter to elaborate on what they said. Sometimes I sense a barrier between the chat space and the ‘voice space’ – as though the chat channel is a space for students to talk, and the microphone is just for lecturers. For someone to take an interesting comment out of the chat channel and say something about it using their mic, it feels like I have to ‘pull them out’ of this conversation.

By Telephone, Auckland:
This is the toughest class to visualise for me. In the online class we’ve a shared understanding of the virtual ‘space’ of the online conferencing application – and there’s a list of us down the left hand side of the screen – we’re all in the class together. With the Auckland class, I must imagine the students sitting in their room, clustered around the polycom unit – my disembodied voice speaking to them. I think the students find it easier because they can see and communicate easily with each other. At the same time this can be a bit disruptive if they start talking amongst themselves and I can’t work out who is saying what. Having someone else to run slides and videos is both really useful, and slightly nerve wracking – is everyone on the right slide? How are they seeing the video?  The Auckland class definitely has a different feel: by the time I reach the Auckland class I find I’m more relaxed, and everyone gets to benefit from the fact that I’ve done the talk twice before this – I know which points I really want to emphasise, and which I can move quickly past. Talking on the phone, with just a print out of my slides and notes in front of me, contributes to the relaxed vibe. The class feels more like a meeting than a lecture.

The big question I might ask myself in response to what I’m noticing here is really concerning how I can convey the same basic lecture content over the course of each 1.5 hour class, but alter the way I do this to enhance the best bits and control the problems created in each format.

At this stage, I’ll continue to have slides structuring the flow of the lecture, key themes to cover, case studies to illustrate, and me talking for a large amount of the time. These common elements will stay in my lectures, but there are probably ways I can change each class – particularly in terms of the kinds of class participation that I could encourage. It would be even better if, based on the regular format of On-campus-then-online-then-Auckland, I could make each lecture build on its predecessor.

For example:

• I might hold free-flowing discussion about developing a key definition of a concept in the first on-campus class, and have the notes from this up on a slide, or in a google document by the evening class.
• In the evening class I could ask students to vote up and down the best definitions as we talk about the ideas the on-campus class came up with (this being a low-key, sustained kind of interaction that isn’t as show-stopping and nerve wracking as requiring a student to speak on the mic).
• In the next few days before the Auckland class the definitions could be released online through Blackboard. The Auckland class could have another form of participation that wraps things up for the week, perhaps asking them to prepare and bring a summary to class to read out. (Taking advantage of their co-presence and the small size of the group, and encouraging concrete responses).

Just a slice of where my thinking is going about this at the moment.

Have you experienced anything like this, where you’ve had to convey the same basic content in a number of different ways? Did you notice differences about each environment and audience? What were the strengths and weaknesses, and how did these change your approach?

Doug Easterly, the course coordinator, invited me to say a few words to the students who are just beginning group projects in which they will work together to create their own original flash videogame title.

Doug told the students that he hopes to see projects that reflect an understanding of some of the deeper theory explored by game designers, as well as showing a grasp of the technical skills needed for flash game development. He hopes that some of the resources held at our library will enable them to further explore and critique their design ideas.

For my part, I showed the students Ernest Adam’s “50 Books For Everyone In The Game Industry” list from the IGDA wiki (see the more detailed article here), claiming that most of these recommended titles could be found in the University Library already, either at A&D, or at another branch. I’ve checked in more detail this evening, and I’m pleased to say that we actually have 32 out of the 50 titles, with 8 more on order. I encouraged the students to stop by and visit me in the library, and handed out my business card with links to the 50 Books list, my LibraryThing catalog (which is very DMDN heavy), and my contact details.

After this, I sat down at the back of the class and looked on as the students presented and discussed their second game design project of the course, and Doug and Kah Chan (the course tutor) gave feedback and critiques of their work. I got to see all of the projects (partly because I left my moleskine notebook up at the front of the room, and was too embarrassed to go up and get it again – a good excuse to stay on) and was blown away by the range of interesting creative perspectives these students were applying to their work. Their project was to experiment with the creation of different game environments – most students seemed to use this as an opportunity to continue to use characters they had created with their first project.

A few of the game environments stood out for me in particular:

One student, Melanie, created an endearing environment for what Kah called a “Square Wheel” character – a little creature whose mission was it is to make red angry blocks turn into blue happy blocks by rolling and bumping into them. While it was quite a simple graphical style, I really liked this environment because the general ‘purpose’ or ‘vocation’ of the game was immediately accessible and something that I could get on board with: This happy thing wants to make other things happy- Let’s go!

The game seemed to effortlessly envoke a catchy happy atmosphere, and I could almost imagine it being played to a katamari-eqsue soundtrack. I gave the game to Michelle to play this evening, and she happily cleared all the angry blocks, but seemed quite disappointed when nothing happened at the end.

Another student, Silard, created a great game environment that used an interesting olde tyme film effect (complete with vaudville style piano track). The style of the game – the way it was animated from drawings on paper, and the way the character was animated – also reminded me of “And Yet It Moves” (winner of the 07 Indepenant Games Festival student showcase). Silard’s character travelled through the environment, which evolved around him from black and white sketches to brighter colours and straight line pen drawings as he went.

Tom, who came to visit us at the library at the beginning of the break, talked about how he’d incorporated his interest in the Art Deco style into his game evironments. Of course I have nothing but praise for Tom’s work, as he’d gotten some of his reference material on Art Deco from the library! Tom spoke about how he was inspired by the famous Tim Schaffer game, Grim Fandango which also has an Art Deco feel to it. Unfortunately though, anyone who doesn’t hear this from him is probably going to think he’s been inspired instead by Ken Levine’s Bioshock, instead, which – released just this month – prominently features Art Deco architecture. Bioshock is certainly not a bad game to be associated with, though! Doug pointed out how Tom’s use of Art Deco patterns helped to somewhat differentiate between the different spaces in which his character appeared, and encouraged students to think about how their characters would appear against various backgrounds.

The student’s final projects, a complete flash game (including packaging!), will be due on the October 10. I really hope they do well, and I’m looking forward to playing their games.

Over the next few weeks I am going to be conducting interviews. A short and sweet breakdown of the project is as follows:

The interviews are:

• confidential
• individual
• one hour in length
• via VOIP or IM

Your answers:

• describe your experiences
• share your thoughts and opinions
• compare and critique the space

The research aims:

• to explore strengths and weaknesses of virtual world environments for libraries
• to pinpoint key challenges for libraries in virtual worlds
• to define best practices for virtual world library design

You can read official documentation about the project: There is an Information Sheet and a full Question Schedule that would-be participants should definitely read. You can leave a comment below this post, or on the project page on my website. Alternatively, you can email or IM me any time at timothy.greig@gmail.com. You might also like to meet me in Second Life. My avatar is named Aramis Maginot.

If you feel that you can’t participate in the formal interviews, but would like to add your comments anyway – regardless of the size of the contribution, you will be helping me to engage with and think about this exciting topic!

1. What challenges faced by traditional online library services/interfaces are able to be overcome by Virtual World Library environments?
2. What new challenges (or old ones) face the development of Libraries in Virtual Worlds?
3. How might these challenges be overcome? Can the design strategies used in Massively Multiplayer Online Games be a useful guide?

When talking about “Virtual World Libraries”, I am referring to initiatives such as the Info Island Libraries now being run in Second Life, spearheaded by the Alliance Library System. I’m planning that my research will involve interviews with a few the users of these libraries, to learn about their experiences of the online library environment. Here’s an excerpt from the proposal introduction:

Virtual World environments provide libraries with an opportunity to overcome many of the challenges faced by traditional online library interfaces, add some of the benefits of physical environments in a virtual space, and draw on some of the engaging features of online video game systems. This research project aims to unpack and explore these three areas, using a qualitative methodological approach. This will involve a case study of libraries being developed in Second Life, a popular Virtual World. This project aims to produce a set of guidelines for the future design of libraries in virtual worlds, building on the feedback of research participants in concert with video game design principles.

My full proposal is available for download in pdf format. My proposal was assessed by my supervisor for the project, Brenda Chawner. She gave me an A-. I’ve included a snapshot of her marking report on flickr (you should be able to read it if you view it in its original size). In summary, I’ve identified two main themes in her comments that I need to work on:

1. I need to emphasise other studies in the area of online/virtual library services and interfaces (which might include research into virtual reference services, online bibliographic instruction documentation, and so on) that show what the outstanding problems have been for these initiatives. The literature review in my final project will need to include both emperical research that shows what challenges have been discovered by researchers, and also assess the methodologies used by these researchers to obtain these findings. This should provide me with a road forward into my own research analysis. I would prefer to find this existing research data in the area of library studies, but may need to explore other disciplines, too.
2. Brenda would like to see a clearer connection between what my research questions are, and the ways I’m going to obtain answers to these questions from my research. Hopefully this will be helped by identifying those related studies mentioned in #1, which help me make sure that I am using research methods that have returned useful results in the past. Additionally, Brenda suggested that I be more specific about the population that will be included in my research. Hopefully this has become more clear as part of the process of submitting my Human Ethics Committee application – I’m in the middle of this at the moment.

I will hopefully be able to start recruiting participants quite soon, I am just waiting for one or two more things for my HEC application. So, if you’re a Second Life Citizen or Librarian interested in participating in the research, don’t go too far away!

The INFO580 project is a compulsory part of our LIM training. It’s an opportunity for students to explore a topic of interest to us that relates to library and information management, and to apply the theories and principles we’ve learned over our past year or so of study in a research setting.

I submitted the Topic Approval Form for my project last Sunday, outlining my proposed topic of research:

[My] project seeks to develop a framework for the ways in which game design and e-learning theories might inform the future design and development of library interfaces within virtual world environments by considering an example of an emerging online library, the Second Life Library, and the experiences of users and virtual librarians using the service.

I’m hoping to produce something really worthwhile with this project, something that can be of use to those working to build virtual world libraries in the future. My next task is to produce a full formal proposal for my topic (due May 7th) – a clearer, longer version of my original TAF. I imagine that my supervisor, Brenda Chawner, and I will be working out the exact details of the project over the next week or so, and then my days will be filled with the likes of annotated bibliographies, tightly worded topic statements, clearly defined objectives, and human ethics proposals!

Here’s a closer look at my proposal – slightly edited for the sake of this blog post:

Problem Statement (& significance):

Contemporary libraries are faced with new needs and expectations from users regarding online library services. This impacts upon four traditional concerns of libraries: “Acquisition”, “Preservation”, “Access” and “Community” (Graubard & LeClerc, 1998). Libraries now serve a distanced and broader user base. This places new demands on the kinds of materials libraries are expected to provide, as well as way that this information should be available to library users. For example, the increased availability of digital copies of texts mean that users are less concerned about where resources are held, and more interested in their availability in full text via the internet (Lombardi, 2000).

Library users also seek the increased aggregation of library collections and services (Marcum, 2003). There is a desire for ‘just-in-time’ (that is, on demand) information and assistance and an increase in interactivity at the interface level. Users want to be able to intuitively use library services and only receive assistance and education at the time that it is needed. They do not expect to need to spend time going through library tutorials in order to learn. This places increased focus on the design of library interfaces to intuitively teach users what they need to know to find what they need.

The internet is providing individuals with instant access to information on an unprecedented level. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly crucial for information seekers to be equipped with the knowledge and training required to successfully determine the contextual relevance of the information they retrieve from the World Wide Web. Libraries are being required to provide the same (or greater) levels of support and borrower education, but increasingly in scenarios mediated by technologies of distance.

There is a growing academic awareness of the effectiveness of virtual interactive environments, specifically virtual worlds and multiplayer online gaming environments, in encouraging learning, developing intuitive interfaces, and facilitating interactive community. LIM commentators have begun to look to virtual world environments as one possibility for enhancing online library and information services. John Kirriemuir (2005), for example, points out a number of ways that digital information services and online games are similar.

Comparing the data processing functions of games and digital libraries Kirriemuir suggests that digital libraries might learn from the techniques that online games use to handle vast amounts of changing data. Also, digital libraries and online games both often provide their users with an exploration metaphor. Users of digital libraries and online games alike are both on a ‘knowledge quest’ (a term coined by Walt Scacchi, cited in Doshi, 2006) of some kind.

Ameet Doshi (2006) also sees games as a way to build communities and increased engagement in libraries. Games are an opportunity to “engage students in an environment that is relevant to their world view” (p. 16), and in a way that encourages increased interaction between librarians and patrons. Doshi also suggests that libraries could attempt to make their own games to interact with students, and create valuable partnerships with computer science or engineering departments at the same time. This could help interested students from those departments develop their own portfolios, to aid their future employment prospects.

An international group of librarians is currently working together to provide library services within the virtual world of Second Life. They have recently created a library within the virtual world, which was officially launched in October 2006. Residents of Second Life can visit the library (there are, in fact, several branch libraries that make up the library), view virtual resources and read virtual books. With the help of other Second Life groups the library also hosts various events and educational speaking engagements that Second Life residents can attend.

A clear lack of literature that specifically examines libraries in virtual worlds means that libraries seeking to design a virtual world presence have a limited foundation from which to begin. As more libraries begin to seek to provide services within virtual worlds they will be increasingly looking at modelling their online interfaces on techniques already in use in virtual worlds and online games.

There are presently no formal studies that speak to the benefits of online game environments for libraries. There are also no studies that consider which elements of virtual interactive environments might be most useful for the design of online spaces for library users. There is a need for research and guidelines to be developed to support the development of information services like the Second Life Library. Research of this nature could serve to educate virtual library designers, and encourage new innovations in this new area. This research project would both fill a gap in LIM research literature, and would perhaps also serve to directly aid the growth and development of the newly established Second Life Library.

Objectives:

The outcome of this research project will be the exploration of questions in two general areas. Firstly, regarding the challenges for libraries designing virtual world libraries, and secondly, concerning the application of design theories to solve these issues. By the end of the project, it is my goal to have to produce a document that outlines a number of important “best practices” for would-be virtual world library developers.
Examples of questions that are expected to arise from the two areas are listed below:

What are likely to be the key challenges for libraries in designing a virtual world library?

• What are the issues facing contemporary online libraries?
• What are likely to be the key challenges for libraries in designing a virtual world library?
• What expectations are users likely to have of virtual world environments?
• How have librarian designers at the Second Life Library negotiated these issues?
• Are there any new issues that have emerged that are specific to virtual world libraries?

Are game design and e-learning theories relevant to this design process?

• What design theories (if any) are being used by Second Life Library designers?
• What material have Second Life librarians consulted regarding the development of their virtual world services?
• Is there anything used in the design of Second Life Library that could be useful for game design?
• Can examples from Second Life library potentially be extrapolated into other virtual worlds?
• Can conclusions be drawn about particular design theories that would be relevant in general design for virtual world libraries?

Short Bibliography

• Barab, S. A., Kling, R. & Gray, J. H. (eds.) (2004). Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Doshi, Ameet. (2006) How Gaming Could Improve Information Literacy. Computers in Libraries 26(5) 14-17.
• Gee, J. P. (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Graubard, S. R., & LeClerc P. (1998). Books, Bricks & Bytes: Libraries in the Twenty-First Century. New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A.: Transaction.
• Kirriemuir, J. (2005). Parallel Worlds: Online Games and Digital Information Services. D-Lib Magazine 11(12). Retrieved on August 14 from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december05/kirriemuir/12kirriemuir.html.
• Koster, R. (2007). A Somewhat Strict Defnition. Retrived on February 25, 2007 from http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/book/3c.shtml
• Lombardi, J. V. (2000). Academic Libraries in a Digital Age. D-Lib Magazine 6(10). Retrieved August 10, 2006, from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/lombardi/10lombardi.html.
• Marcum, D. B. (2003). Research Questions for the Digital Era Library. Library Trends 51(4) 636-651.
• Steinkuehler, C. A. (2005 & also forthcoming). Cognition and literacy in massively multiplayer online games. In D. Leu, J. Coiro, C. Lankshear, & K. Knobel (Eds.), Handbook of Research on New Literacies. Mahwah NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved October 16, 2006, from http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/papers/SteinkuehlerNEWLIT2005.pdf
• Steinkuehler, C. A. (forthcoming). Cognition and literacy in massively multiplayer online games. In D. Leu, J. Coiro, C. Lankshear, & K. Knobel (Eds.), Handbook of Research on New Literacies. Mahwah NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved February 25, 2007, from http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/papers/SteinkuehlerNEWLIT2005.pdf
• Salen, K & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: game design fundamentals. Cambridge: MIT Press.

I think at this stage I feel more confident about the significance and purpose of my project than I do about the path to its completion. Hopefully this will become clearer over the next few weeks. I would really appreciate any tips or suggestions from anyone who is interested in my project (especially if you know of other work that has been done in this area). You are most welcome to leave your thoughts and comments below!

Creating a collection as a digital library allows for the possibility of providing access to the collection on the Internet. Additionally, with the right system implemented, there is the potential for gamers from other countries to submit their own audio narratives electronically to administrators to be included in the digital library.

More can be read about the genesis of the project on the initial project page which I created to discuss the project, people and terminology involved. You can also take a look at images of the project and of Greenstone on a flickr set I’ve created.
I worked on this project with a fellow MLIS Student, Rebecca Hale, as an assignment for our course on Digital Library Systems. Our assignment was to build a small demo collection (8-12 library objects) using Greenstone. This post is a slightly altered version of the short de-breif report I submitted as part of the course assessment.

Initial Questions

We began our project by examining the above-mentioned motivations for creating the digital library, as this would affect the way we would go about creating the objects for the project. I imagined our main clientèle to be a mix of game studies researchers and other interested parties wanting to explore the change in attitudes towards gaming over time, and interested in the analysis of players’ own articulations of their engagement with video game texts. For many social science and humanities researchers, how audiences make sense of and describe media texts is just as important as what the authors of those texts had in mind when they created them. As we were creating the interviews ourselves we spent some time deciding on questions to ask the individuals we would interview to ensure that they responded with useful content for the project.We also needed to decide what kind of files we should create. We knew that we wanted to record audio, but we also felt that it would be useful to the library user if we also included a transcript of the interviews. I also believed that it should be possible for the library user to read the transcript and listen to the audio at the same time.

After some experimentation with Greenstone, I discovered that it was possible to embed an mp3 file in an html page. I discovered that Greenstone only provided plugins for the mp3 format. We decided that we should include two files for each object in the database. An mp3 audio file, and an html transcript file which included an embedded link to the related mp3. In this way the user could choose whether or not they wished to listen to just the audio file, or see the transcript as they listened to the audio recording.

While Greenstone required us to use mp3 format for our audio files, this would most likely have been our choice at any case, as mp3 is a universally accepted format, especially in an online environment. As mp3 is so widely used, it is almost certain that it will be possible to convert from mp3 format into any future format that becomes popular.

Recording the audio files:

For my own interviews, I recorded straight onto a computer wherever I was interviewing. Initially, I used an podcasting website called Odeo, and used their flash-based online recording tool to save and store my interviews. This did work, and perhaps produced the best audio quality out of all of the interviews, however I found it a bit unreliable, and had to repeat one of my interviews because it was not saved to the site correctly. Later on, I decided to use a portable version of the well-known podcasting application Audacity, which I carried around on a USB pen drive, allowing me to carry my software with me, and store my recording on a portable medium.

Preparing the interviews:

I used Audacity again to crop any extra blank track from the beginning and end of the recordings. I also adjusted the volume in some cases. When Rebbecca’s audio files arrived they were in .wav format, because she used a different recording method to me, so I converted them to mp3. I named all the files in the same way using the first four letters of a Narrator’s name followed by the first four letters of the game they were talking about. I signified audio files with a capital “A” at the end of the file name.

As we were finalizing the audio files for the collection, we also worked on digitizing our respective interviews. Once the interviews had been digitized, I transformed the text files into simple html documents for inclusion in the collection. It tried to use as little mark-up as possible in order to leave the text in plain, readable ASCII format. This should mean that the transcripts can be easily converted from html into other formats, if necessary. I used the same naming convention with the transcript files, however I signified transcripts with a capital “T” at the end of the file name.

At the beginning of each html transcript I included the html code to embed the mp3 audio file at the top of the html page. I would have preferred to have used a more sophisticated audio player interface, perhaps something built in flash – however I found I did not have the time to create my own, and open source flash players I found on the web would not work correctly with Greenstone. Additionally, Greenstone’s default settings of blocking associated files in html documents would have meant that for each transcript page any related JavaScript code for a player interface would have needed to have been included in full in the head of the file. This would have made the html document excessively cluttered and messy. I do think that, if I had just spent more time exploring the way that Greenstone operates, I could have cracked this issue. As it stands, I felt it was best to stick with the much cruder, yet simple, embed tag to create the effect at this stage. The most important drawback of making this choice is the fact that the user is forced to run the library in Internet Explorer if they wish to hear the entirety of the audio files. Additionally, as I understand it, the embed tag is not standards compliant code. If I were taking this library further, I would want to resolve this outstanding issue.

Creating the library:

Our decision to make each library object consist of two complimentary files greatly influenced the way the collection was structured. I assigned each library object a folder of its own and placed the two components of the object within that folder. In this way, in applying the metadata, I was able to take advantage of the inheriting feature of Greenstone which allowed files further down a hierarchy of folders to inherit metadata values from parent and grandparent folders.Using the main ‘library’ folder as my starting point, I was able to easily assign collection-wide metadata values such as dc.rights and dc.publisher to all of the files in the library. I was able to assign much of the metadata values at the folder level for each library object. I was only necessary to input metadata at the individual file level for values such as dc.format and dc.relation and this made it much faster to apply metadata to the collection.

This hierarchical approach to organizing the files also had useful repercussions when designing the user interface. In the “title list” view, Greenstone was able to easily display a list of all the objects in the collection based on their folders, and then provide an expanded view of the particular files within each of those objects.

I changed some of the metadata that had been provided to me by Rebecca in order to make full use of the Greenstone’s ability to organize metadata terms hierarchically as well. This was especially useful when providing descriptive metadata about video game genres mentioned in the interviews.

Once more, this proved useful in the design of the digital library interface, because it allowed me to create a keyword hierarchy that sorted the files by keywords used to describe them. I was able to create both a full alphabetical list of all the metadata used, but also a hierarchical list that allows users to browse the keywords by their relation to one another.

I also used the applied metadata to partition the collection so that users could search by a particular game genre as well as by a particular field. I believe this will be very useful as the collection gets larger and contains discussions of a greater number of games that might fit into these genre groupings. It is interesting to note that, with our current sample, you can often return results when searching for something that does not fit into the genre category you have selected (for example select ‘Genre: Versus Fighting’ and search ‘Full Text’ for “Sonic” – which is actually a Platformer game). This is because we asked Narrators to briefly talk about games they played in addition to their game of choice, resulting in them mentioning a number of titles early on in their transcript.

I would be interested in exploring ways that the metadata could indicate which descriptive keywords referred to games that the narrator was talking about in detail, and which were just passing references to other titles played at one time. Alternatively, perhaps it would have been better not to ask Narrators to reflect in this way at the beginning of their talk at all. A savvy user can still find library objects that deal mainly with a certain game if they search by Title, due to the fact that the naming convention of each library object includes the name of the game that the person is speaking the most about. It would have also been useful to include the exact date that each game was published as part of the descriptive hierarchy of terms associated with it.

Concluding thoughts:

While I think our project produced a well-described and navigable library, I nonetheless feel that I must have only scratched the surface of Greenstone’s potential as a Digital Library Management System. For example, in this digital library there needs to be more flexibility for the user to browse between library objects based on subject keywords and other metadata terms. Presently, the user must always enter from the top – via search or browsing – and then return to the top level once more if they do not find what they are looking for or wish to start a new search. I experimented with implementing several techniques I have seen in other digital libraries and library catalogues, but was unable to produce a satisfactory result. I feel somewhat hampered by my lack of programming knowledge, but at the same time feel that – had I simply been building this as an html or php website (with more freedom as to where I could put links and site elements) I could have done much more to create the effects I would want to implement.

I think we could have done better in the metadata to describe more exact dates of games and dates mentioned by Narrators. I didn’t discover Greenstone’s ability to create hierarchies of metadata terms till quite late in the project – after Rebbecca had finished defining the metadata – and I think that knowing about this earlier on could have enabled us to make the descriptive metadata a bit clearer.

Nonetheless, I am quite pleased with our project – and would like to think about continuing it as some kind of online project. I think, however, that this would might require some kind of human ethics approval for it to exist beyond simply as a student project.

My current strategy for the assignment is to divide the essay into three main sections, which I’m going to post about over the next few days:

• The first third of my essay will address the need to create a collection development policy document as a foundational step for the management process. This section will consider the benefit of such a collection development policy and outline, in particular, the elements especially relevant to this scenario that ought to be included in the policy for a genetic engineering collection.
• The second section of the essay will consider in more detail the process selecting and acquiring a collection that will be useful and relevant to the needs of the Institute.
• The third and final part of the essay will consider the continuing maintenance and growth of the new collection. This will take into account plans for de-selection (weeding) of the collection as well as future-proofing the collection to face any financial, technological and subject focus challenges.

This first post covers my ideas for the first section. Subsequent posts will hopefully follow pretty soon, outlining the second and third.

Gorman and Kennedy (1992) outline three key areas where a clearly written collection development policy aids the work of managing a collection.

The collection development policy is a planning document that presents a clear idea of the goals, purpose and scope of the collection. It identifies the collection’s primary stakeholders and clients and is used as a tool for benchmarking the return-on-investment that the collection brings to these groups.

The collection development policy is also an

internal communication tool. It ensures that a clear message is conveyed about the direction of the collection and can be employed by collection administration staff to reduce biases or inconsistencies in the collection. The policy is a normative guideline for staff to refer to when making decisions. It helps to reduce the need for the same selection questions to be agonised over unnecessarily.

Lastly, the collection development policy is an external communication tool. It gives the institution a concrete yet mobile object to point to that represents the position that the collection occupies in relation to other collections and bodies. The clear figuring of the planned benefits of the collection allows the policy document to be used to attract funding and to convey the worth and significance of the collection (Carrigan, 1995, p.98).

In the case of the HWNZIGE (Heinz-Watties NZ Institute for Genetic Engineering), I feel it would be especially important that this policy address several key questions and specifically outline -

A clear description of the target clientele for the collection:
It is assumed that the primary client group will be made up of researchers based at the institute, however it is important to consider what other groups may want to use the collection and whether the institute wishes to make provision for this. Both on a national and global scale, this might include government officials, research students from universities, and members of the public. The collection development process should be based on an understanding of what kinds of returns will be considered of most benefit to its key stakeholders.

An emphasis on developing a balanced collection:
Genetic Engineering is a contentious issue that many groups in society feel quite strongly about. The government and private business partners forming the institute will have an interest and an obligation to be aware of the broadest possible range of arguments on the topic. The policy document should underscore the need for the acquisition process to reflect this and should protect the collection from possible censorship.

The driving forces behind the collection’s development:
This will be especially important in the early stages while the collection does not yet have a ‘shape’ of its own. The policy document should outline where recommendations for new content will come from, particularly defining the extent to which research staff engage with the collection administrators. The goal should be to bring about a useful balance between immediate researcher information needs and wider issues of maintaining a holistic, useful, collection.

Potential partners and collaborators:
The policy should situate the collection within the national and international environment, visualising how relevant resources held by other organisations might supplement or contribute to the goals of the institute.

Finally, the collection development policy must be flexible enough to be responsive to changes in the institute over time. There is a danger, mentioned often in literature arguing that collection development policies are not necessary, that inflexible policies will cease to be relevant to the day to day needs of library staff, and so cease to be consulted. The policy should be subject to frequent review, and should be designed with future trends and environmental issues facing the institution in mind.These are my thoughts for this section assembled so far. If any vital points come to mind that I might have missed, don’t hesitate to point them out – I’d appreciate the input.
]]> http://timothygreig.com/info524-essay/feed/ 0 http://timothygreig.com/next-gen-libraries/ http://timothygreig.com/next-gen-libraries/#comments Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:57:11 +0000 Timothy Greig http://www.timothygreig.com/archives/50 This year’s LIANZA conference was an excellent opportunity for me, as someone hoping to work in the library and information management field, to gain an interesting glimpse into the future of this profession.

The focus of the conference on “Next Generation Libraries” made it the source of many ideas about challenges and changes that librarians are likely to face in the future in how they do their jobs.




There was no shortage of suggestions about how librarians can make an impact in today’s interconnected, online environment. In particular, several things stood out to me…

Librarians need to be having conversations with their patrons in human voices. Libraries have always been valued for their ability to match individuals with personalized services to fit their needs. At the conference we were challenged to bring this personalization and professional information skills into the online environment to serve a growing number of users who ‘live’ online.

We can do this by being available in our users’ trusted spaces. That is: using popular communication technologies such as instant messaging, cell phones, virtual worlds and social software applications to meet them and discover what they need – in much the same way that we have used service desks, telephones, and book buses in the past.

Perhaps more so than ever before, it is essential for users to be learning information literacy skills that are responsive to the new media formats with which they come into contact in their everyday lives. The increasing visibility of “grass-roots” or amateur media production seen through blogging, podcasting and other creative practices means that contemporary media consumers must also have a keen understanding of processes of media production.

Librarians have the opportunity to continue to play a key role in the education of users to make responsible judgments about the information they come into contact with, now by addressing online resources and emerging spaces for the collective generation of knowledge. We can help users add context to the surfeit of content that can be found online.

Other highlights of the conference, for me, included:

• managing to get Brenda Chawner to blog about the Second Life Library opening on the conference blog,
• interacting with Michael Stephens on my flickr account over photographs I took of his talk,
• getting advice from the nice web developers at Katipo on how to fix some errors on my website,
• listening to the heated debate between the keynote speakers in the final panel discussion.

Thanks to the UC Library and LIANZA Aoraki, I have had several opportunities to speak regarding my thoughts and experiences since attending the conference. In particular, I’ve related my view of the presentation given by Michael Stephens on the “Top Ten Technologies for 2006″, but I have also found that this experience provided an excellent opportunity for me to think about my experiences and build on them with ideas of my own.

You can view an annotated slideshow that summarizes the content of my evolving presentation on flickr.

]]> http://timothygreig.com/next-gen-libraries/feed/ 2 http://timothygreig.com/lianzacon06/ http://timothygreig.com/lianzacon06/#comments Fri, 06 Oct 2006 11:58:54 +0000 Timothy Greig http://www.timothygreig.com/?p=34 Early Monday morning I’ll be flying up to Wellington to attend my first professional conference! This year’s LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa) Conference is titled “Next Generation Libraries – He Huarahi Whakamua” – and it looks like it should be really interesting! According to LIANZA, the conference is all about “Mash-ups, tag clouds, ontologies, BitTorrent, Flickr, YouTube, e-learning, Gen Y”… I wonder if “Video Games” and “Virtual Worlds” could be tacked onto this list?

I’m especially looking forward to hearing from Stephen Abram, the Vice President of Innovation for SirsiDynix (cool job title!), and from Michael Stephens (in audio only, he’s using SIM conferencing tools to chat with us during a session hosted by one of VUW’s hippest lecturers, Brenda Chawner). Stephen and Michael have both been pretty vocal regarding the potential of social software in libraries (Michael having recently published a sizable report on the topic) and it will be particularly interesting to see how New Zealand librarians respond to their ideas.

I’ve compiled two quick lists to cover “Interesting things I’m bringing with me to lianzacon06″ and “Treasures I hope to take away from lianzacon06″. It might provide an idea of what kind of experience I’m hoping to have…

Interesting things I’m bringing with me to lianzacon06:

• one Sony Cybershot digital camera – for taking conference photos for transfer to my PSP,
• one PlayStation Portable – for uploading photos to flickr via Wellington’s wifi hotspots, listening to podcasts, and playing games.
• two pairs of glasses – my brand new ‘Rhythm and Blues‘ pair, and my backup D&Gs,
• two suit jackets – the first I’ve ever owned, brown pinstripe and navy blue,
• three unfinished assignments – for working on frantically in my spare moments, ‘The LIANZA Electronic Publishing Proposal’, ‘Personal Research Grant Application’, and ‘The Consultant’s Report’
• plenty of questions – for conference presenters at sessions I’m attending; still working on getting these together!

Treasures I hope to take away from lianzacon06:

• new friendships with interesting LIM people from around New Zealand, especially library bloggers!
• answers to my questions about Instant Messaging possibilities for our library,
• more ammunition to promote the ‘social software in libraries’ agenda,
• an inspirational idea about video games and libraries,
• a flickr account full of cool photos,
• a lanyard for my keys from a friendly vendor exhibition, (man I wish Google was attending!)
• conference brochures for Jenny’s ephemera collection.

The conference is amazingly expensive (not that I have anything to really compare it to!), and I can only afford to go because of the generosity of the late Cliff Collins. Collins was Librarian to Canterbury College and later the University of Canterbury from 1934 to 1971. Every year, his estate provides a grant (of about $1000) to a library student who’s a graduate of the UoC. This year, that’s me! – and so I chose to use the money to get me to the conference.

All-in-all, I’m really looking forward to it!

]]> http://timothygreig.com/lianzacon06/feed/ 0 http://timothygreig.com/library-20-usability/ http://timothygreig.com/library-20-usability/#comments Tue, 16 May 2006 03:00:11 +0000 Timothy Greig http://www.timothygreig.com/index.php/?p=28 The third and final area that I identified that potentially sums up ideas contained in the tag ‘Library 2.0′ is Usability.

Useful Participation

Michael Stephens suggests in his ALA Techsource blog post discussing ‘Library and Librarian 2.0′ that “The [2.0] library invites participation”. As a consequence of technological flexibility brought about by Web2.0 technologies, libraries are able to design resources that encourage increased user participation both in the creation of information resources and in the promotion and identification of these resources to others. Building systems that allow participatory engagement with library resources on the part of users can increase the usability and findability of these resources.

Though it is mentioned in one of the other reviews, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Tags social bookmarking system is an excellent example of a way that libraries can harness users participatory involvement in digital content to add value to existing resources. Penn Tags extends its reach beyond library resources and out on to the wider web, and at the same time allows user metadata to be shared and distributed via RSS feeds. This kind of malleable resource is something that library patrons are increasingly eager to engage with. Ken Chad and Paul Miller observe in their whitepaper “Do libraries matter? The Rise of Library 2.0 ” that:

There is a real expectation amongst younger web users that demands they have a right to use, modify, and pass on content with which they come into contact.

Particularly important to usability in a Web2.0 environment is the concept of “mashups”, Chad and Miller write:

There’s a saying that the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Web 2.0 applications buy into this idea completely. Individual components are made available to all application builders to ‘mix and match’ and create new value-added applications. In fact, a moderately skilled individual can combine (‘mash-up’) these different components to quickly and easily create quite sophisitcated applications.

Many applications exist on the internet that allow users to easily create their own mashups by combining modifications the various APIs to make custom web pages of frequently used web resources. An excellent example of this is Netvibes, which I use as my homepage. It brings together on one nicely presented page my Gmail account , University Staff Account, my Writely Documents, my Del.ico.us bookmarks, Google search tools, as well as supporting Notetaking, To-Do lists, and custom RSS feeds. This last option would mean that, if I had a Penn Tags account, I could incorporate perhaps several RSS feeds from this library resources into my Netvibes homepage, and view updates when certain Tags I was interested in received new bookmarks, without needing to visit the library home page. Providing these kinds of facilities not only increases the visibility of library services to users, but it also helps to make these services more useful in users every day lives.


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