Andrew, I would say one thing that is missing from Summon is "context"
or "intelligence". Summon is basically a big fulltext index (and I
don't mean to imply that that's bad in any way), but it doesn't
provide a tremendous amount of connections /between/ discrete
resources, outside those that Solr naturally brings (similarity,
etc.). Authors as first class citizens, for example (including, as
Eric mentions, their blog or information about their department, etc.)
or places.
After being discovered, how can resources in Summon be reused (outside
of bibliographic managers)? What context does that use supply back to
the system?
I think Eric's point is that libraries have lost sight of curating a
collection (and this need not be physical, local or 'formal') and
enriching it to help their specific communities with their specific
needs and interests, finding the relationships between resources and
providing some semblance of guidance. Instead, we all dump a bunch of
(the same) copy cataloged MARC records into clunky silos and license
journal content and ebook (available in different silos).
Summon certainly allows you search across these things better than we
probably ever have, but it doesn't address the fact that there are no
relationships built between anything anymore. Everything's flat,
everything's just as important as everything else and the only
connection between things are strings.
I don't mean this as a knock on Summon, but it does nothing to stop
libraries' descent into irrelevance and, in many ways, may encourage
it simply because it does *something* and this hand-wavy vision I just
put out there would require years of concerted effort and libraries
actually investing and actively working towards new and challenging
ideas.
-Ross.
On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Andrew Nagy <asnagy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Eric - As I read your email, I can only think about how Summon has
> answered all of these questions and has brought true resource discovery to
> fruition. Since you raise these questions, you must think that Summon is
> missing something. What is Summon missing that is not allowing it to
> resolve these struggles?
>
> Andrew
>
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 8:01 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_nd.edu> wrote:
>
>> I think library "discovery systems" and/or catalogs need to do more, and
>> here's why. [1]
>>
>> The amount of full text content available to libraries has never been
>> greater than it is today. Millions of books have been collectively digitized
>> through Project Gutenberg, the Open Content Alliance, and the Google Books
>> Project. There are thousands of open access journals with thousands upon
>> thousands of freely available scholarly articles. There are an ever-growing
>> number of institutional repositories both subject-based as well as
>> institutional-based. These too are rich with full text content. None of this
>> even considers the myriad of grey literature sites like blogs and mailing
>> list archives.
>>
>> Library "discovery systems" and/or catalogs are designed to organize and
>> provide access to the materials outlined above, but they need to do more.
>> First of all, the majority of the profession's acquisitions processes assume
>> collections need to be paid for. With the increasing availability of truly
>> free content on the Web, greater emphasis needs to be placed on harvesting
>> content as opposed to purchasing or licensing it. Libraries are expected to
>> build collections designed to stand the test of time. Brokering access to
>> content through licensing agreements — one of the current trends in
>> librarianship — will only last as long as the money lasts. Licensing content
>> makes libraries look like cost centers and negates the definition of
>> "collections".
>>
>> Second, library "discovery systems" and/or catalogs assume an environment
>> of sacristy. They assume the amount of accessible, relevant data and
>> information needed by students, teachers, and researchers is relatively
>> small. Thus, a great deal of the profession's efforts go into enabling
>> people to find their particular needle in one particular haystack. In
>> reality, current indexing technology makes the process of finding relavent
>> materials trivial, almost intelligent. Implemented correctly, indexers
>> return more content than most people need, and consequently they continue to
>> drink from the proverbial fire hose.
>>
>> Let's turn these lemons into lemonade. Let's redirect some of the time and
>> money spent on purchasing licenses towards the creation of full text
>> collections by systematic harvesting. Let's figure out how to apply "distant
>> reading" techniques to the resulting collections thus making them,
>> literally, more useful and more understandable. These redirections represent
>> a subtle change in the current direction of librarianship. At the same time,
>> they retain the core principles of the profession, namely: collection,
>> organization, preservation, and dissemination. The result of such a shift
>> will result in an increased expertise on our part, the ability to better
>> control our own destiny, and contribute to the overall advancement of our
>> profession
>>
>> What can we do to make these things come to fruition?
>>
>> [1] from the original blog posting - http://tinyurl.com/37nfc2o
>>
>> --
>> Eric Lease Morgan
>> University of Notre Dame
>>
>
Received on Wed Sep 01 2010 - 08:17:49 EDT