Access to Reference Resources

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Access to Reference Resources In a Digital
Environment Michael Buckland University of
California, Berkeley Electronic Cultural Atlas
Initiative School of Information SLIS,
University of South Florida Tampa, February 3,
2009
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• Some ideas about learning. . . .
• Understanding requires knowing the context.
  Knowledge is power (Sir Francis Bacon) implies
  understanding relationships.
• 2. So libraries should support finding the
  context of anything! What? Where? When? Who?
  Whatever!
• 3. Best place to read is in a library among
  reference works.
• The reference library has been largely forgotten
  in the move of library services into an online
  environment.
• Using reference resources online should be as
  easy as Google and the Wikipedia to use and but
  also as reliable as a library reference
  collection.

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In a paper environment, reading inside a library
is the best place to learn. It is well designed
to explain the context!
How do we move this situation into an internet
environment?
Library resources Encyclopedias Atlases, place
name Biographical dictionaries Bibliographies Libr
ary catalog Statistical series etc., etc. . . . .
Text with a interesting details. Who was
she? Where is that? What is this? What else was
happening?
Reader
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Present situation 1 -- Definition For the
purpose of the research agenda, digital reference
is defined . . . as the use of human
intermediaries to answer questions in a digital
environment. Empowerment of librarians is good,
but library science is really about designing
services that empower library users, an even
higher goal. Library reference service in a
digital environment, Library and Information
Science Research 30, no 2 (2008)
81-85. http//people.ischool.berkeley.edu/bucklan
d/libref.pdf
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Martin Schrettinger. 1772-1851 Forget the mind of
God! (or Nature). Use an arbitrary systematic
arrangement. New name Library science 1808 --
201 years ago.
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Present situation 2 Stage of technology
change. Adoption of new technology typically in
two stages First Stage 1 - use new technology
to do the same thing better. Second - Stage 2 -
exploit the full capability of the new technology
to do different better things. The Internet
Public Library reference department is a good
example of Stage 1, Time now for Stage 2! What
would it look like?
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Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881 son of
Grigorii Goldberg Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04 Ph.D
w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906 Assistant,
Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07 Prof,
Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17
ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933 Kinamo cine
camera, 1921 microdots, 1925 search engine,
1927 Contax 35 mm camera 1932 kidnapped by Nazi
SA refugee in Paris, 1933-37 Laboratory,
Palestine, Israel, 1937 d. 1970.
WHO? Click a name to search for an internet
resource.
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Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881 son of
Grigorii Goldberg Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04 Ph.D
w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906 Assistant,
Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07 Prof,
Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17
ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933 Kinamo cine
camera, 1921 microdots, 1925 search engine,
1927 Contax 35 mm camera 1932 kidnapped by Nazi
SA refugee in Paris, 1933-37 Laboratory,
Palestine, Israel, 1937 d. 1970.
WHERE?
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Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881 son of
Grigorii Goldberg Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04 Ph.D
w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906 Assistant,
Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07 Prof,
Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17
ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933 Kinamo cine
camera, 1921 microdots, 1925 search engine,
1927 Contax 35 mm camera 1932 kidnapped by Nazi
SA refugee in Paris, 1933-37 Laboratory,
Palestine, Israel, 1937 d. 1970.
WHAT?
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Any word, name, document, or event
Context and relationships Ireland and Irish
Studies Project diagram.
Connect it with its context and other resources.
Facet Vocabulary Displays WHAT
Thesaurus Cross- e.g. LCSH
references WHERE Gazetteer Map WHEN
Period directory Timeline WHO Biograph.
dict. Personal e.g. Whos Who relations
Any catalog Archives, Libraries, Museums, TV,
Publishers
Any resource Audio, Images, Texts, Numeric data,
Objects, Virtual reality, Webpages
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The 9 to 5 problem
The reference library is open from 900 a.m. to
500 p.m.
Students are writing papers at home on laptops
from 900 p.m. to 500 a.m.
What is wrong with this situation?
What can librarians do about it?
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And other problems with the paper reference
collection . . .
-- Designed for community, not for an individual.
-- Designed for many queries, not the current one.
-- Not volatile.
-- Guides but no index. One doesnt really know
where to look. Little green lights on shelves
indicating which volumes mention this topic would
be nice.
-- Multimedia in theory bound volumes in
practice.
-- Disconnect with work practices Much
error-prone note-talking and transcription.
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Building the functionality of a reference
collection. 1. Context finder Search support
from text to reference works. 2. Context
builder Make, retain notes and links to
reference works. 3. Context provider Make
reference works better by adding two-way links,
e.g. text has links to place name list AND place
name list has links to texts. Demos at
http//metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/
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Initial sketch for Context Finding / Building
interface. Save search path Save link
notes as stand-off markup. Save link notes as
embedded mark-up.
Insert / block text
Ranked lists of suggested resources for each
facet chosen
Define facet
Display of search result
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Context Finder Ad hoc searches. Looking
outwards, not inwards!
Reference works
CONTEXT
FRAGMENT
CORPUS
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Scanned text
Named Entities
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Cursor over a name highlights every mention of
that name in the text.
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Named entities are linked to specific resources
or dynamic searches over relevant databases.
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Building the functionality of a reference
collection. 1. Context finder Search support
from text to reference works. 2. Context
builder Make, retain notes and links to
reference works. 3. Context provider Make
reference works better by adding two-way links,
e.g. text has links to place name list AND place
name list has links to texts.
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Context Builder Query, source, result saved as
markup in text and in notes.
Reference work
CONTEXT
FRAGMENT
CORPUS
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Named entities not detected automatically can be
added manually.
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Initially, named entities are linked to keyword
searches at the appropriate name authorities and
metadata services. Here we see a number of
possible candidates for Henry V.
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-- Disconnect with work practices Much
error-prone note-talking and transcription. The
case of editing of historical papers . . .
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Building the functionality of a reference
collection. 1. Context finder Search support
from text to reference works. 2. Context
builder Making, retaining notes / links to
reference works. 3. Context provider Enriching
reference works by adding reverse links, e.g.
place name gazetteer mentions where a place is
mentioned in texts.
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Context Provider Also reverse links from
resource back to text. Now two-way!
Reference work
CONTEXT
FRAGMENT
CORPUS
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Paper-based reference collection Codex
determines structure and use.
Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays
Facet Encyclopedia Topics Cross-references
WHAT Atlas, place list Places Maps
WHERE Chronology Time Timelines
WHEN Biogr. Dictionary Persons Relationship
s WHO
Search interest
Reversed in a digital environment Metadata forms
infrastructure.
Facet Vocabulary Displays
Reference Genre WHAT Topics
Cross-references Encyclopedia WHERE
Places Maps Atlas, place list WHEN
Periods Timeline Chronology WHO
Persons Relationships Biogr.dictionary
Search interest
Build a union index, so you know where too look!
Little green lights! http//metadata.berkeley.edu/
demos/
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• Importance of inverting the relationship between
  the part and the whole
• -- Indexes are created by inversion
• -- Union indexes Tell you which reference work
  mentions your query, like the Science Citation
  Index. . . as in Google.
• Use dynamic links to for real time searches the
  latest version of the best resources and, for
  vocabulary
• Search term recommender systems.

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A report on work by several people Aitao Chen,
Fredric Gey, Ray Larson, Dan Melia, Barry
Pateman, Vivien Petras, Ryan Shaw, and others.
Work supported by two U.S. federal government
agencies The Institute of Museum and Library
Services and the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Three projects - Support for the
learner (2004-06) ecai.org/imls2004 -
Biographical texts (2006-09) ecai.org/imls2006
- Irish Studies (2007-09) ecai.org/neh2007 Demos
at http//metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/ buckland_at_is
chool.berkeley.edu