Fostering and supporting creativity through digital libraries

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Fostering and supporting creativity through
digital libraries

• Shalini Urs
• Professor and Chairperson
• Department of library and Information science
• Director Vidyanidhi Digital Library
• University of Mysore, India

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Outline

• Context Convergence and integration
• Information cycle
• Digital libraries role in the information cycle
• Creativity
• Digital libraries role in supporting creativity
  cases and examples

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Digital revolution

• Key word-Convergence
• Convergence of activities and processes
• Roles are converging- what is the role of
  Libraries?
• Technologies are converging
• Result confusion and creativity

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Digital libraries for creativity

• Two facets
• Digital Libraries supporting creativity
• Creativity in developing Digital libraries

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Information cycle

• Creating information
• Fixing the information in a medium
• Storing the information
• Distributing information
• Archiving information
• Accessing information
• Using information

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Information cycle

• The cyclic nature of information has not been
  explicitly studied and exploited
• Link between creating information and using
  information is not taken into consideration in
  our discussions of knowledge creation and use

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Digital libraries

• Digital libraries what are they?
• Digital libraries are a focused collection of
  digital objects, including text, video, and
  audio, along with methods for access and
  retrieval, and for selection, organisation, and
  maintenance of the collection
• Operative words
• Focused collection
• Digital objects text, video, audio etc
• Methods for-
• Access and retrieval
• Selection, organisation and
• Maintenance of collection

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Role of digital libraries

• Enhancing access breadth and depth
• Enlarging audience breadth and depth
• Improving retrieval locating hidden treasure
• Preservation and archiving
• Has always been recognised and efforts are
  made to develop and design digital libraries for
  the above functions

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Digital libraries as dynamic landscapes for

• Creating
• Accessing
• Storing
• Retrieving
• Distributing
• Archiving
• Knowledge

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Role of Digital libraries

• In fostering and supporting creativity is not
  recognised and understood
• Digital libraries play a significant role in the
  creation of knowledge

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Creativity

• Creativity is ability to create ideas and
  artifacts-knowledge, information and other
  artifacts
• Creativity also called in to solve wicked
  problems

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Creativity Perspectives and frameworks

• Three frameworks for creativity
• Inspiration the Eureka kind
• Structural based on exhaustive exploratory
  approach
• Situational based on social and intellectual
  context

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Inspirational creativity- revolutionary kind-
intuitive variety

• Breakthrough discoveries Illuminatory moments
• Archimedes Eureka
• Kekule's Benzene ring discovery
• Newtons gravitational theory

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Points to ponder

• Luck favors the prepared mind
• Key is the prepared mind
• 99 perspiration and 1 inspiration
• Though it might happen at one moment, behind that
  breakthrough is the hard work and the persistent
  and focused attention to find solution

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Breakthrough discoveries

• The critical factor is the sudden association
  between seemingly unrelated issues or factors
• Creativity is also defined as seeing relations
  or associations where none is apparent
• Such association of seemingly unrelated factors
  for solving problems has led to some great
  discoveries
• The key is seeing relations between unrelated
  things

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How do Digital libraries support the
inspirational creativity?

• Free association
• Today digital library technologies support free
  association
• Example traditional classification vs Free
  association
• Search engines support free association example
  many advanced features support exploratory
  approach
• Diverse categorizing techniques offered by some
  search tools such as Vivisimo categoriser

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Hypertext linking

• The very word hypertext and hyper media refers
  to non linear presentation of information
• Early hypertext systems such as Engelbrats
  Augment was the first to recognise the potential
  of technology for augmenting human intellect
• Human mind does not think in a sequential manner
  but works in a Hyper mode

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Some Examples

• Search for communal problems in India
• Throws up Kashmir issues
• Click on Kashmir leads to Kashmir Carpets
• Click on Carpets leads to Persian carpets
• Write up on carpets leads to an anecdote about
  Cleopatra wrapped in a carpet seducing Caesar

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Some more examples

• Search Nose jobs led to cosmetic surgery
• Surgery leads to caesarean section
• That leads to Caesar- the first one to be borne
  by C section

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Creativity is fostered by

• Searching and browsing digital libraries
• Thinking by free associations
• Consulting with peers and interactivity
• Visualizing data and processes
• Exploring possibilities
• Intuition supported by instant access to
  knowledge and information

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Structuralism

• Emphasis on exhaustive exploration of previous
  work and possible solution
• Studying previous work
• Methodological techniques
• Understanding the problem
• Devising a plan
• Carrying out the plan
• Looking back

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Levels of creativity

• Classification of creativity
• Breakthrough types- revolutionary
• Evolutionary day to day tasks simple and
  routine jobs improved upon with creative ideas
  such as doctors doing their jobs and architects
  designing buildings, and librarians finding
  relevant information for their users

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The focus- Evolutionary creativity

• Beliefs
• Knowledge or creativity is-
• Cumulative-built on previous knowledge- both
  societal as well individual
• Is a continuous process-Improvement is creative
• Creativity is a integrative or integration
  process
• Technology supports and fosters creativity
• Libraries and digital libraries support the above

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Focus

• Some simple examples and how they could be used
  and applied to improve things or makes things
  better
• The development of digital libraries and ICTs to
  foster the simple tasks

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Word Processing software and creativity

• Yesterday the word processing software only
  supported simple creation, editing and text
  formatting, with minimal support for creativity
• Today ability to integrate text with diagrams,
  pictures , sound etc
• Support ofr creativity quite high
• Some examples spell checking, synonymous words,
  thesauri etc
• Tomorrow when a new word is presented, it is
  linked to its meanings, definitions,
  translations, hyperlinked to picture libraries,
  usages in different contexts etc

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Another example

• Multitasking- windows and tool bars today support
  multitasking fostering creativity
• Tomorrow- integration with other software tools,
  we can expect support for example synchronized
  scrolling of related documents to support
  comparisons
• Simple tools such as style sheets , windows
  wizard foster creativity

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Power Point presentations another example

• Windows wizard helps creativity
• Animations help express ideas better
• Slide layouts and slide transitions and such
  other features foster creativity
• Use of facilities for creating drawings, tables,
  cuing and many other features
• Innovative use of colors and other features
• Most applications now being multimedia helps
  foster creativity in idea generation

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National Libraries and digital domain Two main
dimensions

• Building digital collection of traditional
  materials such as old books, rare book
  collections, newspapers, printed music, maps,
  manuscripts, photographs, paintings and others
• Preserving digital heritage

This is re defining a tradtional role
Shaping a new role-reasserting old
responsibilities
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Decades Of ChangeWaves Of Internet Evolution
Technology
Standard
Innovation
Browse the Web
Program the Internet
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ICT and DL support for disadvantaged groups

• Use of icons- support illiterates and oral
  culture
• Touch sensitive screens
• Text to speech functionality
• Insets to elaborate further
• Insets- to special groups- ex- dumb people-
  special features
• Elderly and children

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Ebooks Another example

• eBooks today maybe easily created with software
  tools such as MS reader
• One can easily create cover designs
• Convert any text into a book form
• Text to speech functionality allows one to make
  the ebook suitable for visually handicapped.
  illiterates
• Customization- of fonts, size and other features
• Turning pages- metaphor
• Annotating, book marking and other features

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Creativity through collaboration

• Simple tools for collaborative creative processes
• DLs are called as collaboratories
• Simple tools- Review feature in Word
• Net meeting allowing people to meet on line
• Another example Wiki fosters collaboration
• Specialized tools to foster collaborative
  writing-many examples

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Invisible college concept

• Virtual college
• Brining like minded and similar thinking people
  to share and collaborate
• E-mails, Videoconferencing, teleconfercing and
  many other tools
• Listservs
• Closed interactive workspace-allowing members to
  share and create works collaboratively

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Digital Libraries for children

• Visual Query specification
• Example children wanting some pictures of fish
  eating other animals
• But children are not able to articulate their
  query
• Digital libraries created for children can
  incorporate innovative query interfaces

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Right This is where children search.They can
search in four ways. 
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The query results for fish that eatother
animals.
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Browsing

• Browsing has been one of the well known process
  that supports creativity
• Open Access was introduced with the idea of
  supporting browsing rather than searching
• Digital libraries with their rich linking
  features support browsing
• Browsing also promotes recognition rather than
  recall
• Traditional IR tools supported Recall but recall
  is not easy, while recognition is easier

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Personalization and customization

• People need to seek, use, re-use, create,
  maintain, and preserve information in support of
  their work and life activities. In a world of
  print and hard-copy documents, the process of
  creating new works involves copying, rewriting,
  cutting, pasting, and rearranging prior works of
  ones own and of others, while adding ideas,
  data, analysis, effort, and other forms of value
• In the digital world, creators are dependent
  upon digital tools to perform tasks that once
  could be accomplished with scissors and paste,
  pencil and paper calculations, and later with
  photocopiers and other reproduction devices

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Digital libraries and education-from asynchronous
to synchronous mode

• Learning moving beyond acquiring facts and data
• Learning can be more interactive with the support
  of DLs
• DLs support rich interaction
• Classrooms are becoming creative work spaces
• Teachers lectures linked to supporting
  materials, tools and resources
• Blending of library support with classroom
  teaching in a synchronous rather than
  asynchronous manner
• Practical training, visits to museums, galleries
  and all other activities may be made synchronous
  today with the help of DLs

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Visualization processes and creativity

• Visualization is a powerful tool especially in
  some fields- such as chemistry, medicine /
  surgery, design, architecture etc
• Today, many software tools support converting
  data to visual representations
• Simple to complex tools have made these processes
  very simple and leading innovations
• Visualization software Examples-http//www.spotfi
  re.com

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Some more examples

• http//www.thebrain.com
• Taps the power associations by visualizing
  information flow and relationships between words
  , concpets etc
• http//www.mindman.com
• Creates relationships among information easily,
  identify relationships between items and branches
• http//singnet.com.sg/7Eaxon200/
• A sketchpad for visualizing and organizing ideas

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Exploring tools-simulation tools

• Supporting methodological exploration of
  solutions
• Simple tools-electronic spreadsheets-what if
  tools that allow business planners to try out
  different strategies and approaches
• More complex tools- flight simulators, traffic
  flow models, weather models

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Creativity and digital libraries

• Many simple tools can be effectively used to
  support creativity
• Different tools may be effectively integrated to
  support higher level of creativity
• Using these helps better digital libraries
• Good digital libraries support creativity in the
  end-users- who are the creators of ideas,
  knowledge in other fields

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• Be Creative

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• Thank U
• For contact
• shalini_at_vidyanidhi.org.in