Author: rdlankes

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Conversants: Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Introducing Conversants. Conversants (ISSN: 1940-5022) is a limited-run, open-access journal about participatory networks. Part of a joint project on Participatory Librarianship (http://ptbed.org) between the Information Institute of Syracuse and the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), the journal is a forum for the exchange of ideas relating to conversation-based theories as well as their applications in knowledge environments. Articles and essays are solicited not only to increase our understanding of participatory approaches to virtual and physical settings, but also to challenge the scholarly and practice communities. The emphasis of the journal is on durable concepts that transcend any particular technology or suite of functions.

While treatments related to all types of settings are welcome, a special emphasis is placed on the library domain and the role librarians play as facilitators of conversations. Submissions might include:

• Empirical articles analyzing user contributions to web resources;
• Thought pieces concerning the library as conversation;
• Podcasts of presentations concerning Library 2.0; and
• Discussions of curricular initiatives to incorporate new web technologies into information science education.

All submissions will be reviewed by the editors of the journal and then, in keeping with the central tenets of participatory networks, made available for ongoing public review via CommentPress. Authors are encouraged to follow these conversations, and can incorporate these comments into revised drafts.

Unlike most journals, pieces are published as they are accepted to encourage timely discussions of current trends and events. Selected pieces will be edited into a volume exploring participatory librarianship.

Please e-mail submissions to conversants@iis.syr.edu in Word, HTML, RTF or ASCII text format.

The editorial board of Conversants comprises:

Editors
• R. David Lankes, Associate Professor Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies
• Joseph Janes, Associate Professor University of Washington’s Information School
• Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District Library
Associate Editors
• Todd Marshall, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies
• David Pimentel, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies

If you are interested in joining the board, please contact David Lankes rdlankes@iis.syr.edu

More information is available on the project website at http://ptbed.org/conversants.php

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Latest (Last?) VRD Book Now Available

Hot off the presses and now available the proceedings of the last VRD conference Virtual Reference Service: From Competencies to Assessment. Also included are the results of the Digital Reference Education Initiative (DREI) project that include full competencies for virtual reference librarians developed by the virtual reference community.
Here’s a link on Amazon:

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Marshall Bibliography Added

Todd Marshall has compiled a brief bibliography on Conversation Theory and Participatory Networks (from a scholarly perspective). It is listed below and has been added to the “Readings” page of the site. If you see things missing or want to add, please let me know.
Participatory Networks Bibliography (12/3/2007)

Bechtel, Joan M. (1986). Conversation, A New Paradigm for Librarianship? College & Research Libraries 47 (3). pp. 219-224.
Bernard, Scott. (1980). The Cybernetics of Gordon Pask. International Cybernetics Newsletter (17). pp. 327-336.

Fisher, Kathleen M. (2001). Overview of Knowledge Mapping. In: Mapping Biology Knowledge. Springer, pp. 5-23.

Ford, Nigel. (2004). Modeling cognitive processes in information seeking: From Popper to Pask. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 55 (9). pp. 769-782.
Ford, Nigel. (2005). “Conversational” information systems: Extending educational informatics support for the web-based learner. Journal of Documentation 61 (3). pp. 362-384.
Glanville, Ranulph. (1993). Pask: a Slight Primer. Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 213-218.
Lankes, R. D., Silverstein, J. L., Nicholson, S., & Marshall, T. (2007). Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation. Information Research, 12 (4) paper colis05 (http://InformationR.net/ir/12-4/colis05.html).
Lankes, R. David and Silverstein, Joanne L. and Nicholson, Scott. (2007). Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation. Technical Report. Information Institute of Syracuse, Syracuse, NY.
Laurillard, Diana. (1999). A Conversational Framework for Individual Learning Applied to the `Learning Organisation’ and the `Learning Society’. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 16 (2). pp. 113-122.
McKeen, James and Guimaraes, Tor and Wetherbe, James (1994). The relationship between user participation and user satisfaction: An investigation of four contingency factors. MIS Quarterly 18 (4). pp. 427-451.
Pask, Gordon. (1975). Conversation, Cognition and Learning: A Cybernetic Theory and Methodology. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Pask, Gordon. (1996). Heinz von Foerster’s Self Organization, the Progenitor of Conversation and Interaction Theories. Systems Research 13 (3). pp. 349-362.
Patel, A. and Kinshuk, and Russell, D. (2002). Implementing Cognitive Apprenticeship and Conversation Theory in Interactive Web-Based Learning Systems. In: Sixth Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics. International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, pp. 523-528.
Pimentel, D. M. (2007). Exploring classification as conversation. In Tennis, Joseph T., Eds. Proceedings North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization 2007 1, pp. 1-8, Toronto, Ontario. (http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1893/)
Scott, Bernard. (1993). Working with Gordon: Developing and Applying Conversation Theory (1968- 1978). Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 167-182.
Scott, Bernard. (2001). Cybernetics and the Social Sciences. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 18 (5). pp. 411-420.
Thomas, Laurie and Harri-Augstein, Sheila. (1993). Gordon Pask at Brunel: A Continuing Conversation about Conversations. Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 183-192.
Wenger, Etienne. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, New York.

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Draft Report from LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

Today someone asked me about how the new LC report (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/draft-report.html) meshed with participatory library concepts. Much of this is very compatible: user create materials, wider cooperation, distribution of tasks, etc.

However, a central tenant of participatory is the focus on conversation and how artifacts only make sense in the context of someone’ use. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, but this approach to bibliographic control is in making descriptions of artifacts more standard and more efficient. So it is participatory in process, but not result. What would help is a recognition (perhaps as part of the cohesive philosophy of bibliographic control discussed) that any artifact, and thus it’s description, gains meaning and utility in the context of communities and conversations. Further that these conversations and context often exist BETWEEN records and items.

My question for the committee would be how could bibliographic control incorporate contexts between items or be applied to conversations and non-document like objects? What are your thoughts?

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What a Girl Should Know who Wants to be a Librarian

Thank God for the New York Times making their archives available on the web. While doing some research I ran across this little gem from 1912:

“THERE is a certain type of girl who seems born to be a librarian. She is ambitious, but not specially creative; fond of books, but with no marked aptitude for writing; intelligent and well educated, but not inclined to take up the work of a teacher, with its heavy demands and its cramping limitations, or to go into an office where literary tastes are usually at a discount.”

A worthwhile read:

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Kindle and NowNow

OK, I got the Kindle (I’m an eBook freak, sue me). There are plenty of places to read the reviews, and the potential criticisms, so I won’t retread that ground. Rather, a clarification and a funny story.

The clarification first. I’ve read on several posts about the Kindle charging for free material, and restricting everything to a proprietary format that is DRM’d. Yes, the books you buy through the Kindle/Amazon store are proprietary and DRM’d. Yes, if you e-mail a document directly to the Kindle it costs 10 cents. However, if you have a computer with a USB port (Mac or Windows), putting your own content on the Kindle is easy and free. Amazon really messed this up in their marketing, but in the manual it shows you how to put a txt file directly on the Kindle, or how to convert a Word or html file for free. Instead of e-mailing it directly, you can email it to an alternate address, and they send you back the converted file all ready to copy over USB…free. Have a speech you want on the Kindle? Free. Itinerary? Free. Project Gutenberg texts? You guessed it.

OK, now the story. I turn it on and browse around, and find a menu “Experimental.” In there are services Amazon is playing with and one is called “Ask Kindle NowNow” that reads:

Ask us any question you want. Real people will research your question on the Web and send up to three answers to your Kindle, usually within in ten minutes.”

How am I not going to try this? So I ask “what is meant by participatory networks?” Sure enough a couple of minutes later, sent right to the Kindle, an answer. I’m reading through it and get really excited that they are talking about social networks, then Web 2.0, then Library 2.0! Wow, I say, Amazon knows about libraries! I keep reading and something starts sounding awfully familiar here. Sure enough the whole answer was a direct quote from the tech brief I co-authored for ALA. There at the end is a URL that points me right to the brief. So at least I was cited and can be happy that someone in NowNow land found my stuff, I just wish there was a bit of a preamble.

A little while later I got two more answers. The second one pointed to a CoLIS paper I did, and the third pointed to an item Todd Marshall posted on http://participatorynetworks.com/ . Looks like I have to do some more looking into NowNow (just found http://www.nownow.com/ ). Also interesting in light of the recent DigRef discussion on commercial grade services and eRef.

Click “Read More” for the full responses.
Continue reading “Kindle and NowNow”

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IR, VR and Conversation Theory

Keisuke Inoue, doctoral student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, explains his current research in applying participatory concepts to information retrieval and virtual reference.