Reality Check:
What is it That the Public
Wants Today?
James Weinheimer
"Reimagining the library catalog:
changing user needs, changing functionality"
CaMMS Forum
Friday, June
22, 2012
A few numbers
555 million webSITES
compared to:
1,052,803 book titles published in 2009
288,355 published traditionally
764,448 self-published
Worldcat: 271,171,335 records
includes non-book materials, and probably includes
records for articles for FirstSearch and OAIster.
129,864,880 books
(total books = manifestations as estimated by
Google)
271,171,335 total records in Worldcat
vs.
129,864,880 total books
vs.
555 million webSITES not webPAGES
Library Metadata
Metadata Macrocosm
Some important talks
David Weinberger: Too big to know
Some important talks
Clay Shirkey on "It's not information overload. It's filter
failure"
Some important talks
Debate on the Filter Bubble
Some important talks
Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice
a)Freedom is Good.
a)Freedom means I have
more Choices.
a)Therefore, the more
Choices I have means I
have more Freedom.
Some important talks
Noam Chomsky:
“...the Internet is kind of like walking into the
Library of Congress in a sense. Everything is there,
but you have to know what you’re looking for. If
you don’t know what you’re looking for you might
as well not have the library. Like you can’t decide
you want to become a biologist -- it’s not enough
to walk into Harvard's biology library. You have to
have a framework of understanding, a conception
of what’s important and what isn’t important; what
makes sense and what doesn’t make sense. Not a
rigid one that never gets modified, but at least
some kind of framework.
Unfortunately that’s pretty rare. … So yes, they can
find things of value and significance, but you have
to know to look for them and you have to have a
framework of analysis and perception that allows
you to weed that out from a lot of the junk that
surrounds it.”
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Outrageous amount of information being created
Metadata isn't what it used to be
It's not Information Overload, it's Filter Failure
Filter Bubbles
Paradox of Choice
People need frameworks before they can even
begin
BUT:
 None of these people are librarians!
An Incredibly Short History of Statistical Displays
An Incredibly Short History of Statistical Displays
Tables
An Incredibly Short History of Statistical Displays
Tables
Graphs and Charts
An Incredibly Short History of Statistical Displays
Tables
Graphs and Charts
Modern
Forms
An Incredibly Short History of Statistical Displays
Tables
Graphs and Charts
Modern
Forms
Google Public Data Explorer
An Incredibly Short History of Library Search Results
Search for
Book Catalog
Stonehenge
Card Catalog
From: Harvard, it's in the cards / Mindy Johnston - October 27th, 2008. Harvard Law School Library Blog
http://etseq.law.harvard.edu/2008/10/852_rare_october_2008/
Online Public Access Catalog
Statistical Information!
Faceted Catalog
Search Result Summary
Of the 5691 resources with the word Stonehenge, 1402 are about the place of
Stonehenge. The most prolific author is J.H. Walsh, who wrote under the name
of Stonehenge [link to authority record] and wrote primarily in the 1800s.
In the past 10 years, there have been 387 books published on the place of
Stonehenge, and of those the most prolific author is Sam Christer, who writes
books of fiction. Since 2002, the number of non-fiction books about Stonehenge
have averaged 43 each year and the latest ones are ...., while the ones that
have been most often cited are …. Most popular subtopics of Stonehenge are...
Related topics are...
Concerning articles on Stonehenge, we discover ….
The problem is
the
not
the catalog
CATALOG
RECORDS
Thank you!
Statistics
R
Internet 2011 in numbers: http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/17/internet-2011-in-numbers/
Worldcat Statistics: http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/statistics/default.htm
E
Self-publishing versus traditional publishing (Words of Every Type / Ian Tuttle): http://wordsofeverytype.com/tag/totalF
number-of-books-published-by-year
Books of the world, stand up and be counted! / Leonid Taycher (Google Books Search)
E
http://booksearch.blogspot.it/2010/08/books-of-world-stand-up-and-be-counted.html
YouTube Statistics: http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics/
R
E
David Weinberger, Too Big to Know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCVI-yolj34
N
Shirkey, Clay. The problem is filter failure, not information overload.http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-1014229816.html
C
When It Comes to Politics, the Internet is Closing Minds. Fora.tv
E
http://fora.tv/2012/04/17/When_It_Comes_to_Politics_the_Internet_is_Closing_Minds
Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice. TEDTalks
S
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
Presentations
On America's Declining Empire, Occupy and the Arab Spring / Noam Chomsky and Joshua Holland. Znet
http://www.zcommunications.org/on-americas-declining-empire-occupy-and-the-arab-spring-by-noam-chomsky
Other
Cataloging Matters Podcast no. 7: Search. First Thus http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2010/12/cataloging-matters-podcastno-7-search.html
Cataloging Matters Podcast no. 14: Musings on the Linked Data Diagram. First Thus
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2012/03/cataloging-matters-podcast-no-14.html
Revolution in our Minds: Seeing the World Anew. First Thus http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2012/02/revolution-in-ourminds-seeing-world.html
Narrative Science: http://www.narrativescience.com
Little League Recap: http://www.gamechanger.io/features/admins/recap-stories
Forbes Earnings Review: Compuware http://www.forbes.com/sites/narrativescience/2012/05/17/forbes-earningspreview-compuware-3/