Stephen RhindTutt, President, Is Reference Dead Is Collecting Dead

1

• Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President, Is Reference
  Dead? Is Collecting Dead?
• November 10th, 2007

2
Overview

• The demise of reference and collections?
• What lies behind this?
• Evaluating reference collections
• Next generation
• Summary

Collection Development
Reference Collections
RIP
RIP
3
The Reference Collection

This collection, refined and built over the past
90 yearsrepresents the totality of human
thought and experience Dave Tyckoson , Facts
Unfiled Are Reference Collections Still
Relevant?
4
Facts Unfiled Are Reference Collections Still
Relevant?

• Ulrichs I just go to the journal web pages
  to find this information
• Books-in-Print mostly use Amazon.com
• American Library Directory go to the
  individual library web page
• U.S. Government Manual find the agency on the
  web
• Bartletts Familiar Quotations only after
  searching the web
• Million Dollar Directory corporate web site
  gives you much more information
• Encyclopedia of Associations go to the
  organization web page

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Collections

Were doomed

• Its all going to be available on Google,
  Amazon, Microsoft
• Fully searchable, lots of functionality, well
  mined
• Information strives to be free
• The author as publisher what need for
  publishers?
• The universal electronic library what need for
  small libraries?

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Reference and Collections

• Never been more alive
• 61 billion searches conducted on the Web
• Unique visitors in September 2007
• Google 112m
• Yahoo 108m
• MSN/Windows Live 94m
• Wikipedia 47m
• The wonder of Wikipedia
• Many more collections being created in digital
  form
• Journal Archives
• Web sites

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What lies behind this?
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Paper vs. Electronic
Ubiquity Free Automated Built into
Workflow Analyze Explore 24 hour updates External
content links Auto-generated content User
generated content Answer a question Find a fact
Value
Answer a question Find a fact
Electronic
Paper
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What is reference in electronic form?

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Traditional Paper Model

Reference
Books CDs, LPs, Audio DVDs, VHS, Films Prints
Photographs Journals (Articles) Microfilm
Collections Archives
Reference
Reference
Reference
Reference
Unidirectional
Reference
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Nature of electronic publications
Photograph
Image
Page
Gallery
Article
Chapter
Website
Book
Journal

• Everything interconnected
• Everything refers to everything else

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Nature of electronic publications
Page
Page
Page
Page
Page
Page
Page
Page
Page

• Pliable
• Constantly evolving
• Without place
• Practically unlimited in size

• Atomic
• Interconnected
• Interdependent
• Connection vs. the object

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Blurring of boundaries

• All electronic products are reference
• They all answer questions
• Theyre packed with references
• Theyre all interlinked
• The Web is essentially a referential medium
• Distinctions like reference, journal,
  dictionary, collection, library, are
  borrowed from the paper world
• The boundaries are blurred
• Is JSTOR not a reference tool?
• How useful is an AI database without full-text?

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Refer-ence is essential to the electronic world.

• No one site will contain all information
• Effective publication is a function of delivering
  the right content, in the right way to the right
  people.
• To do this we will need high quality access to
  content across different publishers, libraries
  and websites.

Refer-ence is critical to doing this Google,
Yahoo, etc can help
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Its about the linksthe refer-ences

• Links document intellectual pathways through data
• Indexing links adds value substantially
• Links
• Prevent duplication of indexing, content and
  commentary
• Links are expensive to create and maintain
• Versioning is critical to scholarship.
• Some links confer authority
• Links are intrinsically bidirectional (Ted
  Nelson)

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Blurring of Collection

• Collection Selection of material for a
  particular purpose
• What does it mean when
• Many items are universally accessible?
• Many items can only be accessed on a particular
  site?
• When there are numerous surrogate versions?
• When annotations, links and notes can be added?
• Most websites are collections

Need for organization, vetting, quality control,
selectionetc
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Evaluating reference and collections

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Wiki Web vs. Traditional Reference
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Evaluating Reference

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Evaluating Reference

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Evaluating Reference

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Wikipedia as a type of reference
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Wikipedia as a type of reference

• Personal essays, dictionary entries, critical
  reviews, propaganda or advocacy and original
  research are excluded
• No original research doesnt break new
  ground
• Denigrates expertise no points for being an
  expert on a topic
• Avoids bias aims for a neutral view
• There is no objective history
• He is a controversial figure, both praised and
  condemned by other commentators.
• Historical scholarship is characterized by
  possessive individualism we need to know
  whose history it is

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Lincoln Example

• Not just factual accuracy but also a command of
  the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis
  and interpretations, and clear and engaging
  prose.
• Roy Rosenzweig, Can History be Open Source?
  Wikipedia and the Future of the Past
• Lincolns death made the President a martyr to
  many. Today he is perhaps Americas second most
  famous and beloved President after George
  Washington. Repeated polls of historians have
  ranked Lincoln as among the greatest presidents
  in U.S. history.
• Wikipedia Entry
• The republic endured and slavery perished. That
  is Lincolns legacy.
• Jim McPherson, Oxford University Press, ANB
  Entry
• Wikipedia is more anecdotal, colorful, more
  popular, more factual (e.g. 10 pages on
  Lincolns sexuality)

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Reference Evaluation

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Organizing Duke Ellington

• How many capsule biographies do we need?
• Over 6,300 books contain biographical entries
  about Ellington
• 460,000 web pages in response to Duke
  Ellington biography
• Wikipedia doesnt point to for fee items
• Duke Ellington was attracted to girls and they
  were attracted to piano players

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Organizing Duke Ellington
Contemporaries

Works About
Discography
Life
How does a monograph fit?
Long
Short
Medium
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Encyclopedia of Homelessness

• Subject Coverage
• Abeyance theory, Child care, Gentrification, HIV
  and AIDS, Images of homelessness in contemporary
  documentary film, Low-income housing,
  Marginality, Panhandling, Safe havens, and
  Salvation Army.
• Bibliography of autobiographical and fictional
  accounts
• Filmography
• Directory of street newspapers,
• 23 documents related to the history of
  homelessness
• Extensive cross-referencing

Selection, Organization, Authority, Completeness
of Purpose
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Electronic value added

• A collection or task focus is critical
• The right information always trumps more
  information
• What the right information is depends on the
  task at hand

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The right information
Long term factors influencing combustion and burn
rates in North American forests. David Jones,
Journal of Forest Husbandry, Sept 1999.
OSH-ROM(Occupational Health and Safety)
CAB (Husbandry)
Biosis (Species)
Agricola (Agriculture)
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Utility of information
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Semantic Indexing
Document
Battle IDAuthor IDEvent IDSource IDDateAge
writing
Source
Battle
Author
Event
SourceEditorPublisherPlaceEtc
DayEventEtc
Where ? When ?Who ?DeathsLeaders Etc
Birth ? Death ?Where ?When ?Occupation Etc
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Reference/Collection
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Civil War Research Database
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Civil War Research Database
Extract from A fortnight with the Sanitary
Atlantic Monthly, Feb 1865
Whom did he serve with?
Where did they fight?
What happened to him?
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The American Civil War Online
Websites
Newspapers
Letters Diaries
Photographs
Music
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Workflow

• Interactive Tables
• Graph Digitizer
• Equation Plotter
• Diagram Viewer

• Integrated Periodic Table
• Unit Converter
• Slide Show Viewer
• Browsable Tables of Contents

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Publisher and Librarian Tasks
Integrate

Train
Promote
Fund
Select
Compare
Evaluate
License
Commission
Develop
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Where were headed
Why?
Therefore
Who, What, When, Where?
After Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom,
Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills.
http//www.systems-thinking.org/
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Workflow and the automation of reference

• SDI and RSS Alerts
• Link resolvers
• XML Gateways
• eScience
• Nanohub
• Data mining tools
• Expert Systems

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Summary

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Summary

• Everything electronic is reference
• Most electronic destinations are collections of
  sorts
• High volume, first step reference works such as
  Google and Wikipedia can be turned to our
  advantage
• We cant beat them on
• Price, size, usage, general comprehensiveness
• Hard to beat them on
• Currency, factual accuracy
• Easy to beat them on selection, authority,
  specificity of purpose
• Requires humans to create, judge, evaluate,
  train, promote, cite

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Friends and allies
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Is print reference dead?

Fred Jones Somewhat Complete Guide to Common
Topics Everyone needs to know (1998
Hardcover)
RIP
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Not really

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Sources

• Facts Unfiled Are Reference Collections Still
  Relevant? by Dave Tyckoson (originally published
  as Facts Go Online Are Print Reference
  Collections Still Relevant? in Against the Grain
  16(4), September 2004.
• Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the
  Future of the Past by Roy Rosenzweig, in Journal
  of American History, June 2006.
• Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom, Gene
  Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills.
  http//www.systems-thinking.org/