November 25's Muddiest Point

In terms of networks – or social networks – I’m still a little unsure about the terminology. I understand that “edges” connect “nodes” but what exactly are “edges” and “nodes”? How do “edges” connect “nodes”? What do such linking represent?

Week 13 Readings

Articles

Hamer, J. (2008, Sept. 24). “My Turn: Protecting privacy rights in libraries.” Library News.
http://greatlibrarynews.blogspot.com/2008/09/myturn-protecting-privacy-rights-in.html.

             Much of what J. Hamer (2008) covers involves crucial issues in privacy and security of library records. I agree with Hamer’s position on the matter overall. While clearing up and adding the librarian perspective on a Vermont law intending to protect the privacy of library records, Hamer states that the Vermont Library Association personally advocated for privacy protection for all patrons of all ages, concerned with how comfortable a child should be if they wish to research sensitive issues (Hamer, 2008, para. 3). Such a concern is logical; a child needs guidance, but information should not be limited to them based on what a parents considers “suitable” since such a stance remains subjective. Additionally, in the case of the Brooke Bennett investigation and “impeding” the search by requiring a court order to investigate information on the public computers (Hamer, 2008, para. 4), I agree that a court order should have been presented rather than have the police assume they can take whatever information they want. However, I wonder if there could be a substitute for the court order that could be used in an emergency – depending on the community, the case, and the court, there may be corruption or delays in gaining a court order that should have been acquired right away. Otherwise, though, the policy is in place to protect individuals’ safety and privacy. Most of the information acquired from the library would most likely be check-out histories, addresses, and phone numbers – the former not security-related, the latter two possibly a cause of alarm if a person has not recorded such information publicly already, but overall such information should be protected since a person’s privacy is integral and a matter of trust. If no one can live their lives without someone – whether from the government or not – acting like a “big brother” and investigating their records, no matter how useless the information is, then that person can’t live freely as an individual.

 

Shrivastava, M. (2013, July 8). “MIT’s ‘Immersion’ Project Reveals The Importance of Metadata.” Techchronic.http://techchronic.blogspot.in/2013/07/have-gmail-account-see-what-nsa-knows.html.

             I don’t know how melodramatic M. Shrivastava (2013) is in his article. He states that some officials and ministers defended the internet surveillance by NSA by claiming that “they are only collecting metadata related to your mails, messages and interactions from phone and internet companies” (Shrivastava, 2013, para. 1). It is alarming that they can access such information. Looking at the image of a social network provided (Shrivastava, 2013), one can easily see a whole communication tree. Not only can an individual see the communication lines between one person and a few others, but how it relates to a whole “community” of people, even ones who are connected to one person in the main “tree.” That is powerful; in the wrong hands, a person could be charged easily just for communicating – or communicating with someone who interacted with – a suspect or a person under investigation. The NSA does not access the content itself (Shrivastava, 2013, para. 1), so that does make a difference. It is not like they know exactly what you say, so a person has some protection. But even with the lack of information, a lot could be presumed or conjectured about a person’s interactions. Additionally, this is based on whether Shrivastava could be considered a reliable source – on the internet, anyone can lie about their identity or where they got their information.

 

“The Privacy Show.” (n.d.). On The Media. http://www.onthemedia.org/story/258658-the-privacy-show/.

            It is interesting the variety of concerns expressed over privacy issues online during the “Privacy Show” (n.d.) – mainly that it was akin to wearing an ankle bracelet tracking a person’s every “movement,” that there has not been an increase in security alongside the decrease in privacy, and that bias towards a person’s race/gender/sexuality/etc – or, in the case of one man, concerns that there may be homophobic engineers in Google who would discriminate against him – could affect an employee’s willingness to help someone online (00:00-01:16). Their range of reasons is enlightening; some people are worried that they have become “prisoners” to the system or that they lose out on giving up their privacy without any benefit taking its place or that even basic information about their identity could harm them. Overall, there is a sense that each user has lost control over their identity and abilities online, no longer “free” in the World Wide Web.

            The three factors mentioned concerning government and company “prying” into personal information online is interesting as well. Primarily these factors are the fear of terrorism, profit motives, and users’ desire for fun and convenience online (“Privacy Show,” n.d., 01:17-01:55). So it sounds like the government and companies pry because they are reacting – or want to take advantage – of the concerns of the populace. All of these factors derive from user wishes – whether for security against terrorism, especially in the wake of 9/11, or for better service.

November 18's Muddiest Point

What is the DSpace Digital Library System? What makes it different from other DL?

Week 12 Readings

Articles

Blossom, J. (2011). “What makes social media tick: seven secrets of social media.” In Content Nationl Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Out Lives, and Our Future. Indianapolis: John Wiley & Sons.

             Blossom specifically defines social media as “any highly scalable and accessible communications technology or technique that enables any individual to influence groups of individuals easily” (Blossom, 2011, p. 1). His logic sounds reasonable. He elucidates how although the scale and access differs between technologies and audiences involved, there is a constant need for social media to be scalable and easy to access (Blossom, 2011, p. 2-3). He additionally explains that social media remains a peer-to-peer medium, users relating to each other as peers and basing their authority on whether they share information considered authoritative by each other, and that its influence is unpredictable on the masses due to its scalability, information meant for a limited audience sometimes reaching greater influences in the wider world (Blossom, 2011, p. 3). I agree with the first part of his definition; social media is social in that many users can use and access technologies that allow them to communicate to a wide group of people. However, I disagree with the rest of his definition. While a user may engage in social media to influence others, that is just one reason. Numerous other causes can motivate a user to utilize social media, such as seeking information – thus being influenced themselves – or just communicating with others that they cannot talk or write to normally (whether due to the busyness of their own lives or geographical distances). As for his elucidation on “peer-to-peer,” I think that depends on the social media and individuals involved. Some hierarchy remains; mods and admins of discussion sites, for example, can delete posts made by regular users, undermining their wish to influence others.

 

Allan, C. (2007, April). “Using a wiki to manage a library instruction program: Sharing knowledge to better serve patrons.” C&RL News 68(4): 242-244.

             As I was reading the article, I kept on being distracted by the presentation of the content itself. While it was largely readable, the article divided into clear categories, the scan kept skipping on individual letters. For example, the sentence “The wiki, which is accessible by invited users at speci c URL, somewhat visually resembles a word processing program” (Allan, 2007, p. 242) has lost letters (“fi”) in the word “specific” while the sentence “The   rst use of the wiki deals with sharing information and new experiences….” (Allan, 2007, p. 243) loses the first two letters of the second word “rst” – based on latter paragraphs, probably was meant to be “first.” Such a problem does not lie with the writer, but with the digital format. It was published in an academic journal, so such glaring misspellings would have been fixed, and copying and pasting the sentences in a separate document retrieves the letters. This reminds me of our OCR task in the first assignment – not all of the information we were required to OCR had legible results – and my own troubles with making quotation marks and hyphens uploaded onto my website in assignment 5 (which, at this time, are still unsuccessful). Ultimately, this is a good lesson in itself when working with digital tools – become familiar with digitization and be prepared for some information not automatically translating well into new formats.

            The article itself was enlightening on the topic of wikis. Having heard about Wikipedia, I originally thought it was the only one of its kind – quite a naïve belief, considering that its format and type suggests development from a root model. So the idea that I could create my own wiki was interesting and could be beneficial for me in my future career. Whether I could fully use them as C. Allan (2007) suggests for libraries, such as managing public services information, collaborating on and monitoring reference questions, and evaluating databases (p. 242-243) or find my own uses, I don’t know – I’ll have to test them out myself to see. Curious about the “best known sites” Allan notes – seedwiki, pbwiki, jotspot, twiki.org, and phpwiki – (Allan, 2007, p. 242) I decided to look them up online and understand better how you would go about creating one. However, there have been many changes since 2007. twiki.org, pbwiki (relaunched as pbworks), jotspot (bought by Google and renamed Google Sites – http://www.crunchbase.com/company/jotspot), and phpwiki (changing its web address from phpwiki.org to http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/) remain wiki providers. seedwiki has been turned off (see http://seedwiki.com/ for its creator’s last words). Comparing the past to the present was interesting – most of them have persisted in providing wiki tools, but have developed as well, either changing its structure or management.

 

Arch, X. (2007, February). “Creating the academic library folksonomy: Put social tagging to work at your institution.” C&RL News 68 (2): 80-81.

             I found the risks, which X. Arch (2007) notes in his article, to be quite interesting. Specifically, Arch asserts that one issue in including social tagging is that spagging may occur, during which “users with bad intentions” tag irrelevant or inappropriate sites so as to make a profit or create chaos (Arch, 2007, p. 81). I agree that these are two main reasons for a user to tag unsuitable sites – it is part of human nature to seek ways to profit themselves in any way, whether by acquiring monetary sources or causing trouble for others. I think, however, that such a view assumes that everyone can rightly judge the nature of a site. Some may have tagged sites that they thought was helpful and relevant to the tagging or they may have misread the tags available. Thus, I would add that users with well-intentioned purposed but lead by ill judgment could be a cause for concern as well. Another issue was that, without a proper standard taught or enforced, users would have little knowledge in creating tags following a shared terminology nor would they know what keywords to choose (Arch, 2007, p. 81). I think this is a viable problem that should be solved. In such a case, a standard should be used. Although this may go against the idea of a folksonomy, such a taxonomy cannot be helpful if no one understands how to use it. It doesn’t have to be something strict and official, just a loose basis that could be a model for future additions to the tags. In such a case, you could mix both standards and local jargon – use standards for ideas that have few words to represent them and to act as a template for how to form keywords, use users’ inflections in what type of words are more common among the majority.

 

Wales, J. (2006, August). “Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia.” TED Talks video, 20:05. Accessed November 21, 2013. http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html.

            J. Wales’s (2006) stances on neutrality seem to conflict somewhat with his analysis of the structure of those who run/edit/manage Wikipedia itself. He asserts that Wikipedia follows a neutrality policy that is nonnegotiable, wherein users must merely report information and any controversies without bias for any side (Wales, 2006, 0:07:45-0:09:02). I think that this is a good standard to follow overall; Wikipedia is a global phenomenon, so there are more differences in personal opinions, political and economic beliefs, philosophies, religions, and societal factors to take into consideration than in one country alone. Such a stance not only allows the users to work with each other without contentions as Wales promotes (Wales, 2006, 0:09:03-0:010:00) but it also means that information about individual points will not be limited by one point-of-view but encompass more facets – not every detail, since neutrality does imply a side that considers the main opinionated, upfront viewpoints involved, but at least a varied mix of points from every side rather than one viewpoint.

            When compared to the structure of Wikipedia’s “staff,” though, the neutrality policy appears a little off. Wales explains that the management of the site derives principles from a wide variety of political philosophies, including the democratic nuances of voting for the erasure or inclusion of pages, the aristocratic assumption that certain figures who have worked closely with the set-up and management of Wikipedia for a certain length of time exert greater influence in the framework, and monarchic principles – not “benevolent dictator,” which Wales refuses to acknowledge – that Wales, the founder, makes the final decisions over everything (Wales, 2006, 0:14:08-0:17:50). Such a mishmash of political standards does not imply an anti-political or a flexible management standpoint alone, but a different form of management style. It is democracy tempered, a social construct that – while having relative equality amongst its management – still assumes clear leadership whose opinions do matter. If the “aristocratic” members and the “Queen” deemed it, they could alter the neutrality principle itself, declaring an opinion to be “neutral” when it is not while other members will have to yield to such a decision.

November 11's Muddiest Point

I'm still a little confused on the relationships between the different types of languages available (SGML, XML, HTML, XHTML, etc.). How does SGML simplify XML? Does XML define XHTML like SGML defines HTML, or does XML do something different entirely?

Week 11 Readings

Articles

Paepcke, A., H. Garcia-Molina, and R. Wesley. (2005, July/August). “Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative.” D-Lib Magazine 11: 7-8.

             A. Paepcke and his co-authors (2005), unusually, view the Web very negatively in the article. In terms of the Digital Library Initiative (DLI), they portray the Web as the disrupter of peace and alliance between computer scientists and librarians. It was the “somewhat undisciplined teenager,” a new son/daughter in terms that it has ruined their plans for their initiative by providing alternate sources of information (Paepcke, Garcia-Molina, and Wesley, 2005, under “The Cuckoo’s Egg Surprise,” para. 2). It challenged their assumptions about forming digital libraries and what was considered the primary source for finding and using materials. Yet Parpcke and his colleagues direct their analogy into an Oedipus/Elektra complex. The ‘teenager’ now has “sex appeal” for computer scientists; the Web offered a fertile area for machine learning, statistical, and experimental methods to become applicable to information search and organization, drawing in legions of researchers to participate (Paepcke, Garcia-Molina, and Wesley, 2005, under “The Cuckoo’s Egg Surprise,” para. 8). So it seduced computer scientists to the other side, leaving librarians off-balance in the Initiative. As such, it has become an adulterer, betraying the trust computer scientists and librarians had. Such language seems over-dramatic, though; the authors want to explain why digital libraries aren’t succeeding as they expected, so they found a scapegoat in the Web and made it the source of all of their troubles. I think a lot more factors are involved. Additionally, the Web is not the librarians’ enemy; it may cause hardships for the Initiative overall, but it has increasingly become a tool for librarians to use in linking, organizing, and creating information.

 

Lynch, C. A. (2003, February). “Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age.” ARL no. 226: 1-7.

             It is interesting that C.A. Lynch (2003) sets up the repository as a collaborative effort. He specifically states that a successful institutional repository portrays a collaboration between librarians, information technologists, archives and records managers, faculty, and university administrators and policymakers (Lynch, 2003, p. 2). This is interesting in that he takes a overarching viewpoint of the repository; rather than focusing on one identity or how one particular group of people creates or uses the institution, he suggests that it involves the work of many individuals. Thus the institutional repository does not appear to be so 2-dimensional, but more complex, requiring the actions of many people to work. This does fit its purpose to disseminate digital materials to its institution and related members – particularly the intellectual works of faculty and students (Lynch, 2003, p. 2) – in a sense implying that collaboration supplies benefits to a wider sample of people. I wonder, though, if institutional repositories should only distribute the works of faculty and students. Such a narrowing of focus may help the repository focus its aim to build up a collection and access to scholarship, but it also limits what counts as legitimate sources or information.

            Another interesting point is Lynch’s concerns over the use of repositories. The main troubles he foresees includes degenerating the repository into a tool for institutional control over intellectual work (Lynch, 2003, p. 4-5), adding additional “distracting and irrelevant policy baggage” to it (Lynch, 2003, p. 5), and – with increasing demand for institutional repositories – repositories may became hastily-made, hollow services (Lynch, 2003, p. 6). Thus he is concerned over the quality of institutional repositories; he associates a true repository as one little influenced by the politics of its institution [being almost ‘uncontaminated’ or pure, having its own agenda rather than fulfilling the agendas of its institution], yet requiring the full support and resources of its institution to be well-made and resourceful for its users. Can such conflicting worries coexist? Such a repository imagined by Lynch would need to be created by an institution which upholds values of open access to information and ideals on unrestrained/uncensored information. Reality, though, means that the repository in question has to submit to its institution to some degree if it is to receive funding or support in its own endeavors. As such, I don’t know how realistic Lynch’s concerns are or if they can be fixed according to his own values.

 

Hawking, D. (2006, June). “Web Search Engines: Part 1.” Computer: 86-88.
AND
Hawking, D. (2006, August). “Web Search Engines: Part 2.” Computer: 88-90.

             According to D. Hawking (2006), Web search engines require a lot of attention and work to operate. Physically, they can be sprawling. Each operates from numerous, geographically spread data centers and within each center are a variable number of servers to support services and specialized duties (Hawking, “Part 1,” 2006, p. 86). Thus search engines are not one entity, but a composition of entities; it needs different parts to ensure that it functions as it should. Its actions itself imply complexity as well. For example, search engines employ inverted files to identify indexing terms. Inverted files can only be created in two phases – first, scanning the text of each input document; second, sorting temporary files into term number order (Hawking, “Part 2,” 2006, p. 88). This requires a user to invest of lot of time and attention to create the files needed for the process. Taken altogether, this is a sobering thought; search engines have become such a common feature on the Web that to not see one would be a cause for outcry. It seems so easy to use – just enter a word or phrase, click, and you get your results – yet a lot of work goes into making sure it works.

 

Shreeves, S.L., T.G. Habing, K. Hagedorn, and J.A. Young. (2005). “Current Developments and Future Trends for the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.” Library Trends 53, no. 4: 576-589.

             In this article, I found the development of OAI services quite interesting. Rather than remain a tool only in the e-print archives community, others – libraries, museums, archives, etc. – started using it for their own services, creating user group-specific service providers (Shreeves et al, 2005, p. 578). Thus others started seeing its usefulness – probably through observing how the e-print archives community used it and debated its pros/cons. Yet, other communities didn’t mimic the original users explicitly. Rather, they not only utilized the servers to help provide federated access to resources but also developed further standards, tools, and metadata schemas to contribute to the OAI protocol (Shreeves et al, 2005, p. 578). In this way, the OAI provides a good lesson in using technologies, especially those created for a specific purpose or group. If others purposes exist for a device, then a user should test it out. Other people can use the same tool for different purposes. Additionally, what it is now does not mean that it will maintain that structure in the future; users can add new standards or other accessories to the technology to better adapt it to their situation.

October 28's Muddiest Point

I'm still a little confused about the role of CSS Comments (slide 30). How do the Comments explain the code used? Why are they ignored by the browsers?

Week 10 Readings

Articles

Bryan, M. (1997). “An Introduction to the Extensible Markup Language (XML).” The SGML Centre. Retrieved from http://www.is-thought.co.uk/xmlintro.htm.

             M. Bryan (1997) notes a very integral facet – scrupulousness – of the XML language. While he relates the multiplicity of XML languages available, as is considered in the other readings for this week, Bryan also states that XML can transfer information about the component parts of documents to other computer systems and is malleable enough to describe any logical text structure – memos, letters, dictionaries, databases, and the like (Bryan, 1997, under “What is XML?,” para. 6). At the same time, it identifies where the change of appearance happens, where a new element begins, and what boundaries exist for each part of a document (ibid., under “The components of XML,” para. 2). Thus XML is thorough. It concentrates on the individual parts of information – providing equal attention to each cog and not skipping over different key components – and covers a wide range of text structures representing a multitude of information types. Additionally, it sets up to mark everything – its beginnings, its endings, and its limits, to name a few. Such meticulousness ensures that all information is explained and moved entirely to other computers.

 

Ogbuji, U. (2004, January 20). “A survey of XML Standards: Part 1, The core standards – a foundation for the wide world of XML.” IBM: developerWorks. Retrieved from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-stand1/index.html

             U. Ogbuji (2004) highlights an important factor in understanding not only his survey, but also in interpreting XML. Rather than assume that he and his users will read his article in the same way, he defines what he means by “standards” in his introduction. Ogbuji sustains “that the word itself is a bit slippery,” having multiple forms, but that he himself “follow[s] the practical approach of defining a standard as any specification that is significantly adopted by a diversity of vendors, or is recommended by a respectable, vendor-neutral organization” (Ogbuji, 2004, para. 2). According to Ogbuji, there exists no customary “language” for determining XML Standards or its related premises – that even its subject of standards remains vague if no one actively elaborated on the topic. Yet he assumes that he is taking the “practical approach” – the more logical, possibly superior method of interpretation – for defining the word. While attempting to make the concept clearer is inarguably beneficial in this context, ensuring that readers have a clearer idea on how to analyze his article, such a viewpoint remains one bias on how to read it. It is good that he provides a definition, but what he may deem as “practical” may not be so in the overarching framework on XML discussion.

            Continuing along this concept of language (albeit within XML itself), the use of namespaces offers ways to manipulate vocabulary. Namespaces themselves can assign a vocabulary marker to each XHTML element, allowing the user to differentiate elements from the host vocabulary elements which use the same names (Ogbuji, 2004, under “XML Namespaces”). Such a method is fascinating in that it links standardized languages between levels. Namespaces acknowledge the issue that sometimes the official vocabulary repeats itself, confusing the contents of the document as a whole. Thus it provides markers that follow another standardization. Although complex in practice – or, as Ogbuji notes, a controversial move that may cause more problems than it should (ibid.), it does provide a framework for viewing how different forms of standard languages interact. Thus it may not be beneficial when a person needs to use it, but it is useful for theoretical analyses.

 

Bergholz, Andre. (2000, July-August). “Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial.” IEEE Internet Computing: 76-79. Retrieved from http://xml.coverpages.org/BergholzTutorial.pdf.

             Out of all of the articles required for this week, I believe that A. Bergholz (2000) provides one of the clearest definitions for XML and what it does. Specifically, he asserts that XML is “a semantic language that lets you meaningfully annotate text,” making it easier for users and computers to understand (Bergholz, 2000, p. 74). This is clearer than how the “XML Tutorial” (n.d.) of W3Schools describes XML. XML annotates – making comments, marking points with more in-depth descriptions that ensures smoother computation. This particular definition is also succinct, pinpointing the key characteristics of XML that a user would need to know to differentiate it from other concepts.

            What was new for me was XSL. Bergholz (2000) introduces XSL – the Extensible Stylesheet Language – as a complex of two languages, XSL transformations (or XSLT) and XSL formatting objects/language (p. 77-78). As far as I know, I have never heard about XSL. So reading about XSL proved most informative. Specifically, users can utilize XSLT to transform XML into HTML and reformat XML documents so that a variety of XML representations are mapped onto each other (Bergholz, 2000, p. 78). XSLT, in this manner, is relatively powerful. Although it cannot change the basic nature of HTML or XML, XSLT can reform its approach and appearance contrary to their character. I don’t know whether Bergholz’s claim that XSLT especially helps electronic commerce and electronic data interchange (ibid., p. 78) is true – I don’t have the necessary background and education to decide – but the premise sounds possible; if XSLT can reformat XML into different forms, then it can provide a wider range of documents that can be read more easily.

 

“XML Tutorial.” (n.d.). w3schools.com. Retrieved from http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp

            Similar to Uche Ogbuji’s article “A Survey of XML Standards: Part 1,” the “XML Tutorial” (n.d.) focuses on the manipulation of language and how users can use it. It specifically acts as a markup language, carrying data (not displaying it) and remaining self-descriptive (“XML Tutorial,” n.d., under “Introduction to XML,” “What is XML?”). Thus it has its own vocabulary, acting as a method of communication between user and computer. The Tutorial, however, argues that it “does not do anything;” it can “structure, store, and transport information” but “it is just information wrapped in tags,” needing additional software to either send, receive, or display it (ibid., “XML Does Not DO Anything”). Compared to Bergholz’s definition (Bergholz, 2000, p. 74), this definition isn’t as clear. I think I understand the basic meaning the Tutorial purports – that XML only marks up the structure and describes features, not actually commanding anything to be done – but I think that stating that it “does not do anything” confuses more than explains XML.

            The language of XML itself seems to be its own creation. It is very fertile; since the XML language does not have any predefined tags, the user can determine her own tags and document structure (“XML Tutorial,” n.d., under “Introduction to XML,” “With XML You Invent Your Own Tags”), so the number of XML language possible is limitless (ibid., under “How Can XML be Used?,” “XML is Used to Create”). As such, XML is almost alive, allowing users to create multiple languages to attain different purposes. A few rules still apply. For example, XML tags are case-sensitive (ibid., under “XML Syntax Rules,” “XML Tags are Case Sensitive”) and all attribute values have to be quoted (ibid., “XML Attribute Values”). So some limits exist, restricting the number and type of possible languages available. However, some restrictions are necessary so that XML language creation does not become too chaotic, following some basic pattern to work in practice and having an anchor in what does and doesn’t work.