Reading Response 16

William Jones' "Personal Information Management"

I particularly enjoyed Jones' section on Keeping actions. Bookmarking websites, filing information, and setting reminder alerts on emails are common things I do everyday so it was easy to relate to this section within the paper. I agree that sometimes although information needs to be saved or 'kept' it does become frustrating to have to go through the bookmarking process. I myself like to use the bookmarks toolbar within firefox which actually is a time-staking process. First I have to click the bookmarks button on the Apple Toolbar, then I select Bookmark this page. After this the bookmark window pops open and I'm prompted to name the Bookmark, decide it's location, and then tag it if I wish. Once I select that I want the bookmark on the toolbar and then I name it, I've spent almost an entire minute just saving the page. Rather than reading more about the topic or starting a new search, I'm stuck saving the page and wasting time.

I do agree that although saving information/sites is very beneficial, but what about those times where you forget where you saved the bookmark, what the actual name of the bookmark was. Just because you save something, doesn't entirely mean you'll remember what you had it saved as months later.

Lastly I laughed at Jones' description of "placing or leaving information in piles" as an alternative to filing. I have to admit that it's actually my preferred choice for filing:) Rather than file information/papers/letters in their respective places, I'd rather lump them in one big pile in the corner of my desk. Although it allows for easy access, I do spend an absurd amount of time fingerlicking and flipping through 100 pages just to find that old quiz to study from.

Reading Response 15

Cathy Marshall's "Do Tags Work?"

Marshall wrote a very interesting piece on tags and attempts to prove to us how they aren't all they're cracked up to be. I enjoyed Marshall's article and liked how she attempted to add a little humor in the mix. I also agree with her that tags may not be the best way to categorize and label photos but it really depends on the situation. I'm a huge fan of tagging pictures on Facebook. Of course when you have a name and that name has a profile it's much easier to tag someone in a photo and for it to be much more organized. In other situations I've noticed student's who study abroad take tons of pictures of famous buildings, statues, monuments and none of them have them tagged, just captioned. This is where it becomes difficult I'd think to tag a photo of a structure or scene.

I found her example of tags being verbs to be very interesting. I guess what she was trying to point out was that it isn't normal for a searcher to consider a tag to be a verb and unfortunately, using "spin" was actually the best tag for the search for the Milan Bull Mosaic. Most user's will query "Milan Bull" and finish with that, but if it became common knowledge that tags can also be verbs, maybe users will be able to form better queries when searching for their images.

Reading Response 14

Small-Scale Classification Schemes

The whole idea of small-scale classification schemes was very interesting to me once I started to relate it to video gaming. If I'm understanding it correctly, in a game like World of Warcraft, if items are categorized by Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, is that one form of a classification scheme? Slots on a character are Helm, Shoulder, Chest, Wrist, Hands, Leggings, Belt. When broken down there are some many different classifications that become so commonplace when playing the game you don't realize how they have helped organize the game in a fashion that keeps it very easy to understand. Also, although there are numerous races for players to choose from they have to pick a "class" for their character (shaman, mage, warrior, etc).

These small-scale classification schemes seem to pop up more often now that I've studied them and how they relate to my everyday life. When I relate Warcraft to a small-scale classification scheme am I right in that assumption? Is there more involved that I'm not considering. Obviously different examples of a classification scheme include ontologies, a thesaurus, and taxonomys among others, but does the example I gave detailing equipment slots, player classes, and item levels equate to a small-scale classification scheme?

Reading Response 13

Dumais - Data-driven approaches to Information Access

This was a very interesting article simply because I just read another article in my 500 class dealing with the same issues in information retrieval. Like the article says it can be quite frustrating when developing a query for a topic dealing with a word such as saturn when there are multiple meanings. For example if you are looking to find quick information on the planet saturn, when you first type saturn into Google your top two results happen to be detailing the car company and not the planet. This forces a searcher to reformulate his query which is something that I find very interesting. It's almost a science in how one can shape, trim and form the perfect query to find the answers/information they are looking for.

What's even more interesting is this idea of question answering systems. Systems that will provide you with an actual answer to your question rather than documents or sites like a Google search engine would. I feel like for awhile these systems will have to field simple questions such as Who Killed Abraham Lincoln but it will be very impressive when they become sophisticated enough to answer a question like Who Killed Abraham Lincoln and what gun was used?. Multipart questions seem like they would be very difficult for these systems, or maybe it's just not even possible. I'd really love to be able to give one a try.

Reading Response 12

The Semantic Web

This is what I'm talking about. This is the type of article I like to read. I couldn't think of a better way to describe the capabilities of the Semantic Web than how it was presented in the first five paragraphs. The anecdote used was a great way to take stray from the technical terms and definitions of the power of semantic web and to put it forth in a way that someone could easily see how beneficial it will be.

I really liked how in the story Pete was able to reformulate the plan within his own parameters. Rather than starting all over the agent immediately adapted to the previous parameters along with the new ones and provided Pete with a new plan while also notifying him of some possible deficiencies.

Semantic Web almost has a robotic feel to it. Whether it be R2-D2 or the creepy villain robot in that Will Smith thriller I-Robot. It's as if it's able to use what it already knows from our current web and it's able to branch out further and branch the communication barriers between humans and computers.

I'd really like to see some sort of timetable or prediction on win many think Semantic Web will be used at the level that our current Internet is today. It's great to think of this as the future but it would be nice to see how long we'll have to wait to be able to use the real thing.

Reading Response 11

Gruber 1995 - Ontologies as a Specification Mechanism

The first question I would have after reading over these two section's in Gruber's article is whether or not an ER diagram can be described as an ontology map? They seem very similar and while I have some experience in the field of ER diagrams in relation to databases I actually hadn't come across the word ontology (or maybe I have and just wasn't paying attention). Is there a difference between the two?

I'd be lying if I said that this particular reading wasn't very difficult for me to get through. It involves a lot of new terms that I've never seen or read about so I'm sitting here with more questions that responses. Another thing I was hoping to get a better understanding of was Gruber's comments about "The Knowledge Level" perspective. I guess I didn't completely understand the definition or the explanation that was given in terms of agents and actions.

If I had to give a definition of my own for ontologies it would probably be a representation of a set of concepts based on a certain topic and the relationships between those concepts. I hope that is right, or at least I'm on the right track.

Reading Response 10

Let Semantics Bring Sophistication to Your Applications

I completely agree with Coffin when he discusses how search's become too literal with your queries and it's something I deal with on a daily basis. It occurs quite often when searching for help with certain software nowadays especially when that software happens to have its name pulled from a completely different subject, like Green Pepper for example.

I hope it's okay but after reading the short bit about Semantic Web I wanted to focus my reading response more on that topic and the W3C link the article provided on Semantic at the very bottom. The whole idea behind Semantic Web is quite amazing and is definitely something completely new to me. One question I had and couldn't seem to find an answer for is how close is Semantic Web to actually being put in place and used. I'm not sure if that's a stupid question or if it's currently being tested to this day but I noticed the quotes phrased "Semantic Web is expected to..." Expected to when? When will this type of coding be realistic and how will it affect our current world wide web once it's finally unleashed?

If the introduction of a Semantic Web comes about, it's pretty amazing to think that it would change those Green Pepper queries from the expected results of recipes and cooking techniques to reviews and how-to's for the new software. I'm still a little confused about how it all would work but it is a pretty astounding concept.

Reading Response 9

Svenonius Chapter 10

It took me awhile at first but after reading through a few times I began to understand Kaiser's syntax rules or statements. To ensure that I have the right idea of Kaiser's method below I've written my own example and maybe you can verify whether or not I'm on the right track:

Concrete---Process, such as Book---Reading
Country---Process, such as USA---Athletics
Concrete---Country---Process, such as Basketball---USA---Athletics

The last two lines confuse me a bit and that's where I get a little hung up so maybe when I get your response back you can let me know what's right/wrong about my example.

Ever since my last blog post on DDC I can't help but be more intrigued by this type of syntax. I think I prefer it more simply because of how it employs the use of numbers and I see it more often (Campus Libraries). It's more interesting to me now simply because I understand it's use and how I can use it to my advantage. One thing I was wondering is when a new topic arises within a previously known topic, how are the numbers arranged? Pulling from my example from my last entry, here's what I'm trying to say:

534 Technology
534.3 Computers
534.34 Internet
534.349 Internet Gaming
534.3492 Massively Multiplayer Online Games
534.34921 World of Warcraft

In the coming months many believe there will be a release of a "Next-Gen Massively Multiplayer Online Game." If this is the case, any book/information released on a Next-Gen MMO, where would it go?

Reading Response 8

The Role of Classification in Knowledge Representation and Discovery

I enjoyed Kwasnik's study on hierarchies as it is something I actually enjoy delving into when categorizing/classifying material. What's interesting to me is studying Aristotle's philosophies on developing hierarchies when categorizing information, I can relate so much of that to what Shayne and I deal with constantly when breaking down our lolcat images. There are so many possible attributes to make subclasses that it becomes incredibly tedious to "classify all lolcats by their essential true qualities" if I was to steal Kwasnik's words.

I also thought it was cool seeing how the Dewey Decimal system was broken down as I have very little experience with library topics such as that. I notice that the bigger number is very broad and each added decimal lowers the search to another subclass for example if I was to do my own I think it would look something like this:

534 Technology
534.3 Computers
534.34 Internet
534.349 Internet Gaming
534.3492 Massively Multiplayer Online Games
534.34921 World of Warcraft

Would that be correct? If so, I'm glad I have a better perspective of what the decimals are actually doing now when I visit a library and see the Dewey Decimal system in use.

Reading Response 7

Cognitive Principles for Information Management:
The Principles of Mnemonic Associative Knowledge

I specifically liked the section on "Failures of Memory." I consider myself to have one of the worst memories of anyone I know because the second I get side-tracked by something I'll quickly forget what I was supposed to be doing or whatever someone just told me. I found it interesting that some researchers believe that memories are in fact permanent, it's the re-activation and re-call of those memories that is difficult. I completely agree with memory performance being affected by what state of mind you are in when the experience occurs. For instance when someone asks me to do something for them while I'm typing up this reading response, 10 minutes later I might not have any clue what they asked me about. However, I can remember every shot, every swing, and every putt from the day's earlier round of golf. I think it's because you concentrate so hard on the task at hand (golfing) that you clearly remember the entire experience later on in the day.

Categories and Concepts Crash Course:

I really enjoyed Aristotle's list of 10 "Categories." That was very interesting to me and a few of which confused me a bit. One that confused me was "Relation e.g. double, half" Was this saying like "half of a pizza" for example? I guess that one category kind of confused me and I would like to get that cleared up.

Reading Response 6

Bernstein & Haas Article -- Information Integration in the Enterprise

In Bernstein and Haas' article I was very interested in learning about different types of Info-Integration tools and to see which ones I liked the most. I'd have to say Document Management caught my eye immediately because I can relate a lot of what I read to what I do everyday for SILS working at the help desk. We continually have spreadsheets for toner stock, documents on wireless printing instructions, and slide show tutorials for using certain programs that we need to put on our web pages for students/faculty to access. We've also gone through the process of combining documents much like Bernstein and Haas' example of a financial analysis.

This type of indexing and organization has enabled us at the help desk to help students/faculty quicker while also providing ourselves with much faster access to anything we need while on the job. It's very cool to see how these certain tools are something that I've been doing everyday at work and not even realized.

Reading Response 5

Svenonius Chapter 7

The most interesting portion of this reading in my opinion dealt with the importance of a document's "location." I found it kind of confusing that the location of a document in Svenonius' opinion, is the most crucial piece of information towards obtaining the document. I would have thought the actual name of the document or title would be more important but maybe I'm reading it all the wrong way. I still can see what Elaine is trying to point out and maybe I'm just being a little stubborn about it.

Another interesting part of the chapter dealt with the problems of Internet Addresses when accessing documents. As an IS major and someone who deals constantly with computers and web design I could understand the negatives in having a certain address or URL for documents and the problems that arise once that address is changed or altered. It definitely brings up multiple issues, but the thought of URN's (Uniform Resource Names) is an awesome idea. I really hope to see something like that in the future. I can't count how many times I've looked up an old .pdf file just to see a broken link.

Reading Response 4

Svenonius Chapter 5

I personally enjoyed the section on Accuracy and its discussion of how title pages are basically the best way of specifying entities if you were using books as an example of an entity. I especially liked Blackburn's quote saying "It is I believe one of the laws of bibliography that catalog titles should be copies of the title pages of books." Usually it's difficult for me to pick apart Svenonius' writing because her vocabulary is a lot broader than mine but at the same time I feel like she adds sentences/quotes like this to provide a helping hand and put things in more simpler terms. In my opinion when I'm searching through catalogs or online databases for books, the title is easily the best attribute to focus on when dealing with a certain topic/subject that interests you. I liked the idea of title pages being a magnet and collecting all the "iron fillings" that relate to it.

Jacob/Shaw Reading

Within this reading I found myself breaking down the section on categorization the most. I completely agree with Markmans statement that categorization is the fundamental cognitive mechanism that simplifies the individual's interaction with the environment. I believe that figuring out the differences and similarities in entities is something that is so crucial in creating new knowledge. Without placing things into their own categories you'd be doing a disjustice to the uniqueness in everything that surrounds us each and every day. It's basically like what Medin says when he states that "the only case in which categorization would not be useful is where all individuals are treated alike." As we all know, this is something that will not happen anytime soon in today's culture, therefore it is still important to continually categorize individuals and other forms of entities.

Reading Response 3

Svenonius Chapter 3

I enjoyed the breakdown of "entities" in this chapter with a special interest in the idea of "superworks." At first I was a little confused with what Svenonius was saying a superwork was until she provided the Hamlet example. To be honest, I'm such a huge fan of the band Metallica that I think I might have a superwork of their material. My collection consists of not only their music (CD's, records, digital music, and even tapes) to movie posters, band memorabilia, photos of the band, and videos of certain performances. Obviously it is not a complete collection of everything "Metallica" but it's a bunch of different "works" within a superwork. One question I had was, to have a superwork, do you have to have everything? For example, do you have to have every photo, every song, etc. to officially have a "superwork?"

Choose Your Own Adventure Reading -- (The metadata framework)

I think what I liked the most out of this reading was the line that said "People make stuff. People use stuff. People do deals about stuff." I mean you really can't find a better definition for commerce than that right there. I found the most interesting section to be the paragraph is explaining why Metadata is so critical to e-commerce. The importance in the way things are identified and how they are described is crucial to the health of e-commerce. I never thought about this way but I can now tell that when shopping online after reading about this, you start to pick up on the minor details and you begin to see just how important metadata is for online shopping.

Reading Response 2

Svenonius Chapter 1

On page 2, Svenonius discusses access problems and different ways those problems arise. I thought it was particularly interesting how she described that one major problem will always be the users inability to at times create “adequate search requests.” What’s amazing is how I used to consider this to be a problem once search engines like Google and Yahoo came out, but really, these were problems that people over a century and a half ago were dealing with when Libraries were the only bibliographic systems available.
I was fond of the statement that “good systems design begins by postulating visionary goals, if only to make users aware of the extent to which compromises are being made.” I’m not entirely sure if I understood this completely but I think what Svenonius was getting across is that, although those past bibliographic systems and their ideologies were excellent, at some point one had to sit back and wonder how much work was actually done and whether it was necessary, when a simple solution would have worked just as well and would have been less complex.
I think my favorite part of the chapter and the one I connected with the most was when Svenonius discussed the “computer revolution.” How a book is “all of a piece” while digital documents nowadays are unstable, dynamic and without boundaries. Apparently this is a problem because these documents with uncertain boundaries can forever be changing, and altered, therefore changing the way we would categorize it. Basically, although computers do bring some solutions when it comes to organizing information, they have also brought a host of new problems.

Buckland “What is a Document?”

I found it difficult to accept the whole “object as documents” section by Paul Otlet. I totally understand where Otlet is coming from, its just the fact that in my generation documents are .doc’s, digital files, and they can be opened in Microsoft Word! Obviously I know that documents are more than just the digital form that I described but it goes back to faces of users from Svenonius’ Chapter 1 and how different people interpret things. I guess I just didn’t really get into the whole idea of a document being a dinosaur bone or painting. In my mind those are in a totally different category than documents.
Lastly, and continuing on with my thoughts of objects and documents, I found Briet’s examples very interesting when she listed six examples and whether or not they are documents. I feel like I understood her definition a bit better when dealing with what a document actually is. In her opinion, basically when an object becomes an “object of study” that’s when it becomes a document. So a photo of a star is a document, rather than the actual star in the sky, because that photo can be studied, mapped and charted.