The Problem of the Common Interface John Dove, President, Credo Reference

1
The Problem of the Common InterfaceJohn Dove,
President, Credo Reference
XXVII Annual Charleston Conference Charleston,
South Carolina 6 November 2008
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Inquiry aka Enquiry

• Credo References approach to its own governance
  is to view that a company is an ecology
  contributed to by various constituencies each of
  which are served by their participation in that
  ecology, and that
• The role of company managers is to facilitate an
  inquiry with constituents into ways in which the
  company can serve each constituency in a balanced
  way and have each constituency experience
  themselves as well-served.
• This presentation is to facilitate a discussion
  among librarians and publishers about how we
  together can
• Serve Users in much better ways than we do today.

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Nexus


UserNeeds
Reference Content

ReferenceLibrarianship
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Two quotes about Users

• Discovery without Delivery is a Disservice to
  Users Jay Jordan, OCLC

In an information-rich world, the real design
problem to be solved is not so much how to
collect and distribute more information but
rather how to increase the rate at which persons
can find and attend to information that is truly
of value to them. Peter
Pirolli, Information Foraging Theory, Oxford
University Press, 2007
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Credos model of User needs regarding reference

• Each Mode is characterized by differing goal
  states
• Get back to what they were doing
• Keep searching until satisfied that their own
  standards of source are satisfied
• Enjoying the journey with no particular goal in
  mind
• Seeking specific facts vs. seeking possible
  connections
• Etc.
• Each Mode may have differing reactions to false
  negatives and false positives. In some modes
  false positives are highly valued (serendipity),
  in others false positives are a huge annoyance.
• Users may shift from one mode to another in quick
  succession and may not be aware of what mode they
  are in.
• Making each of these modes available
  unobtrusively allows the user to self-select what
  the experience they will be most delighted by.
• We currently are focusing our product
  enhancements primarily in the Discovery,
  Diversion, and Fact-Finding modes and acknowledge
  that we dont yet have the capabilities to do
  much in the arena of the Research Support modes.
• We welcome comments, suggestions, and contrasting
  points of view.

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User Modes of Reference
DISCOVERY
FACT-FINDING
DIVERSION
Guided Exploration
Games and Puzzles
Quick Answer
Unguided Exploration
Definitive Answer
Stuck and needs help
RESEARCH SUPPORT
Detailed Bibliographic Research Projects
Awareness
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Librarian quote about online reference
We can envision an electronic-reference-bookcent
er, where publishers sell the content atan
affordable price, and users search via asingle
search interface chosen by the libraries.
--Jack OGorman, Sue Polanka, and Barbara M.
Bibel Reference Sources for Small and
Medium-Sized Libraries, ALA Editions 2008
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Going forward What is our common approach to
this vision?

• Digital Overlap Strategy? (This was described in
  detail by one of the plenary speakers, Derek Law,
  referring to the "cross-your-fingers-and-hope"
  strategy.)
• Cabinets of Curiosity? (This was again a
  reference from the morning's plenary attributed
  to Ronald Milne at the British Library referring
  to the wonderful individual online resources that
  have no interconnections whatsoever.)
• Snow Patrol blinded by the storm and ruts? (Yet
  another strategy from the morning's plenary
  just barrel ahead following the ruts in the road
  because it's too dark outside to see the signs
  posted for alternative pathways.)
• One Publisher does it all?
• One Aggregator does it all?
• MetaSearch tools already do it? (or could do it)?
• Create a Reference Metasearch?
• Everyone use the same XML standard such as
  DOCBOOK 5 and a standard API?
• Semantic Web?

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Semantic Web Is that a way forward?

• Tim Berners-Lee, May 2001 Scientific American
• Now another in October 2008 Scientific American
• What is any reference publisher currently doing
  that is related to the Semantic Web?
• Dbpedia and wikipedia infoboxes
• At last count Dbpedia has 116 Million triples
  mined from wikipedia infoboxes
• Categories of infoboxes run in the thousands
  including such categories as
• Names of Southern Womens Ice Hockey Teams, and
• Names of people who died in 101 B.C.
• Is there a way to start small?

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Start with a small number of generic classes and
attributes?
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Back up to the vision

• Lets just look at the vision
• Tim Berners-Lees Sci.American article in 2001
  painted a vision
• Software agents which could mine information
  about medical providers to automatically schedule
  a set of appointments optimizing the schedule of
  a husband and wife caring for their elderly
  parent.
• So heres my vision for online reference tools
  integration
• Imagine that a library has multiple online
  reference information systems including much of
  the content of a physical librarys reference
  collection today.
• Imagine a student or patron wants to understand
  more about the context of Charles Dickens life
  in London in the early 1800s.
• In a print world, the following picture would
  take forever to assemble, but in an online world
  with resources well-interconnected, imagine this

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Imagine the following enquiry

• Help me understand Charles Dickens life in
  London in the early 1800s.

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Imagine...
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
Edward FieldingMember of Parliament 3 Bernard
StreetEdward Fielding was the first member of
Parliament
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
15
Imagine...
Margaret HenleyArtist 5 Exmouth MarketMargaret
was the firstwoman to express
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
Oliver BradfordJudge 677B Vine HillJudge Oliver
Bradford presided over the famous
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
17
Imagine...
Henry S. WeymanWriter 122 Mecklenburgh
SquareHenry S. Weyman wrote the collection of
essays that
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
Spa Fields RiotsSuffragettes and their
supporters were attacked by mounted police on 2
December 18
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
Foundling Hospital In 1827 there were 8,000
abandoned infants in this hospital all of which .
. .
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
Peter Mark RogetPhysician 300 Great Ommond St, a
well-known doctor who late in life published his
personal thesaurus.
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
F
C
E
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
D
H
British Museum Reading RoomFrequent visitors
included Charles Dickens, Dr. Peter Roget, and
Karl . . .
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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Imagine...
Margaret HenleyArtist 5 Exmouth MarketMargaret
was the firstwoman to express
Henry S. WeymanWriter 122 Mecklenburgh
SquareHenry S. Weyman wrote the collection of
essays that
F
C
E
Foundling Hospital 40 Brunswick Square London,
WC1N 1AZ
Spa Fields Riots2 December 1816The Spa Fields
Riots were mass meetings that took at Spa Fields
G
B
Home ofCharlesDickens
Edward FieldingMember of Parliament 3 Bernard
StreetEdward Fielding was the first member of
Parliament
D
H
Oliver BradfordJudge 677B Vine HillJudge Oliver
Bradford presided over the famous
Peter Mark RogetPhysician 300 Great Ommond
StRoget helped found the School of Medicine
British Museum Reading RoomGreat Russell
Street London, WC1B
I
Note The content snippets shown here are
fictitious and do not reflect actual content from
these sources.
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And just how do we do this

• We think that the right technologies are now
  available to apply a very small part of Tim
  Berners-Lees vision to the world of general
  reference
• And the result would be libraries with vastly
  superior exploratory functionality
• That could greatly accelerate learners posing
  questions that would have been impossible only a
  few years ago

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Thank you

• Comments and questions are welcome
• dove_at_credoreference.com