March 23, 2005
Law Librarian Bloggers go Public
Blog tools can be a great way to feed current information to a library's constituency. Blogs are easy to use, easy to maintain, and perhaps most importantly, allow librarian bloggers to communicate brief pieces of information in a chronological fashion, while, in some cases, also building archives by subject/category.
David Badertscher, librarian at the New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library, has recently introduced a blog for his library users. He includes cases of note, current events relating to law and legal research, and other news items of potential interest. His tool of choice is the Bloglines blogging function, a no-cost and quick way to get information out to the real world.
As reported by FeedMeLegal, Kirkland and Ellis librarians/researchers are publishing research tips and developments on their recently released blog, Kerblog.
While these aren't "enterprise blogs", because they are available on the open web, the principle is the same in that their main audience is likely to be their own attorneys and staff. Though, in these cases, the rest of us can always listen in!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)March 06, 2005
It's a Brave, New, Messy World
Libraries by their nature tend to be neat, tidy and well-organized. That's what we expect from libraries, after all. And catalogers valiantly strive to identify and describe library collections, imposing structure where there was none, in order to provide access to the materials housed therein.
In contrast, the web is NOT neat & tidy, but chaotic and impossible to control. It's contents can't be adequately described in a MARC record and it can't be cataloged by humans carefully assigning LC subject headings. It's simply too large and changeable. What has been made possible by machines must be organized by them, which may not be easy to accept by people who have spent their lives classifying information, piece by piece, bit by bit.
Some of us are dealing with reality better than others. In particular, Michael Gorman, ALA President-Elect and former cataloger, needs to develop some new coping skills. His current approach is perpetuating a librarian stereotype that we usually try to avoid, that of the Luddite librarian. Along the way, he has insulted a large group of people who tend to like to express themselves rather vociferously in very public forums; not a wise move, in my opinion. These are the people that Michael Gorman calls "The Blog People."
It all started with a L.A. Times commentary written by Gorman called "Google and God's Mind." (Dec. 17, 2004) In that article he explains why he opposes Google's plan to digitize the holdings of several major research libraries. His main concern seems to be that he's afraid that people will read small pieces of these scholarly books out of context, without the full experience of consuming the entire book, from cover to cover.
First, let me get this out of my system. Since when do librarians try to dictate how people use information? Are there Gorman-police who watch users in libraries to make sure they don't just glance at a page, but instead read the entire book because Michael Gorman think that's what they should do?
Of course, it's true, there are advantages to the context provided by entire works. And having the book at hand in an easily perusable form is important. But there's a missing piece here. Regardless of all the work done by dedicated catalogers, it's not always easy to identify books that contain the information you want. Books are cataloged as a whole, with general subject headings applied, typically 3 or 4, to describe the entire contents of the item. Yet works often contain a wealth of information that's not reflected in the subject headings. And yes, Google can tap that specific content better than any library catalog can. That's the beauty of full-text searching.
That's why I was so excited when Amazon started loading the full-text of many of the books they sell. They knew something that Michael Gorman doesn't. They knew that many people would use Amazon's full-text search as a finding tool. In fact, the publishers and authors, who were a little wary of having their works available on Amazon in full, learned what Amazon must have suspected all along; those that have their books available in full-text sell more books.
And so it may go for libraries as well. That's the beauty of digitizing what is now a relatively invisible collection. We talk about the invisible web, but with so much research is done online, by both "regular" people and professional researchers, it is the content of books that's truly invisible.
These materials will become quite visible once they're digitized. Then, when a researcher finds a book that they're interested in as a result of a Google search, they may very well want to read the hard copy. That's were we get them back to libraries. If Google chooses to include Worldcat records for the digital titles, so much the better.
On the other hand, sometimes readers may find the information they want and need, and find reading it in digital form works for them. That's okay, too.
At any rate, my opinion on this differs from Gorman's. That happens among reasonable people. And this L.A. Times article itself is not Gormangate. Nope, it's what happened afterwards. The bloggers, obviously people who are digital by nature and tend to have, how shall I say it, strong opinions on things, read the article and reacted. And they weren't always very nice. Gorman was clued in by friends that the "blog people" were talking about him.
That's when we get to the Library Journal article, a public relations disaster for librarians called "Revenge of the Blog People."
Gorman's credibility is shot right up front when he refers to Google as a "notoriously inefficient search engine" that gives you thousands of hits in "no useful order." (Huh? Has he actually ever used Google??) Then he moves on to an insulting tirade against bloggers, including possibly the most quoted section:
"It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. In that case, their rejection of my view is quite understandable."
That's a fancy way of saying that bloggers, a rather diverse group ranging from the teenager next door to professional journalists to librarian-bloggers, some of whom no doubt pay ALA dues, are all...idiots.
This Library Journal article is getting more coverage on blogs than probably anything else right now relating to libraries and librarians. So thanks for that, Michael Gorman. I must say that this is not how I would have chosen to have my profession represented among the many young people (and older ones!) that you've insulted. Yes, I know, they insulted you, too, but you're a big boy, and as president-elect of ALA I would expect your responsibility would be to enhance the image of librarians. So much for that idea.
As Gorman says, "I have spent a lot of my long professional life working on aspects of the noble aim of Universal Bibliographic Control—a mechanism by which all the world's recorded knowledge would be known, and available, to the people of the world." Well you know what? I'm sorry, Mr. Gorman, but when it comes to making information available to the masses, the "boogie woogie Google boys" as you condescendingly call them are making a tad more headway on that goal that you were ever able to in your lifetime. And that's something we should all be happy about.
For more information on Gormangate see:
Free Range Librarian - Gorman on Reflection
An Accumulation of Random Facts and Paragraphs From The Blog People on Michael Gorman
Blog People Buttons & T-Shirts - Somebody's got to have a sense of humor!
Google Search - Revenge of the Blog People
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)January 23, 2005
Enterprise Blogging
During the early days of the web, when I was just starting to work with html, I remember thinking about how web pages could be used internally in an organization. I was, naturally, mainly thinking of library-related information, and in fact, wrote my library procedures manual in html with the thought that someday it could be stored in a central location where my entire staff could access it.
Apparently that wasn't a unique idea because intranets came along soon thereafter and rapidly gained in popularity. Is there any AmLaw 100 firm without an intranet? Probably, but you get my drift.
Now the talk is all about whether blogs are useful corporate/business communication tools. I think the same principle that applies to intranets, applies to blog tools. It's all about content. Blog software offers an easy, and in some contexts, primitive, "content management system" which allows users to provide updated content without the need to know html. The success of a blog tool (or intranet) depends upon the willingness of someone in the organization to share and update information on a regular basis. Some will succeed, some will fail, and often it won't be a function of the tool itself, though certainly cumbersome and difficult to use software will have a chilling effect. But the tools are a mode of communication; given the tool, someone still has to take the time to take advantage of the opportunity.
There, I'm glad I got that out of my system. Now to the main point. Laurel A. Clyde recently wrote an article, Enterprise Blogging, which details many of the ways a blog can be used in an organization. She also offers a variety of web resources, including a list of blogs about enterprise blogging, and a nice bibliography of related articles, so if you're looking for ideas on how to use a blog in your firm, or just want to be able to justify blogs to management, you should take a look.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)January 17, 2005
Benefits of Blogging for Law Firm Librarians
Librarians typically come across new information, web sites and resources on almost a daily basis. But can you recall that new source or research tip the next time it's needed, months or even years later? I can often remember questions from months ago, but not necessarily the answers, or more importantly, how I went about finding them. In addition, in a multi-librarian firm, it's also very important to share information among the library staff.
It's clear that attorneys aren't the only ones that need knowledge management! The old 3 x 5 index card reference file really doesn't cut it anymore.
In a recent article in the "California LegalPro" supplement to the Recorder (Fall 2004), "Blog-On!", Diahann Munoz, a reference librarian in the DC office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, talks about how the library staff at Morgan set up a private blog on Blogger.com to save such tidbits as "new database information and passwords, answers to difficult questions..information regarding vendor or professional meetings, links to articles of interest..and new discoveries about products and services.."
Since blogs are full-text searchable, and allow categorization by topic, blog software/services can be a great way to create a shared, reference database, without those old 3 x 5 cards!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)January 09, 2005
Wikis at Work
Wikis are an excellent way to collect unstructured information and collaborate with others. As you can imagine, this means that wikis have quite a bit of potential in a business environment. According to PC Magazine ("Wikis at Work"), that's what they've learned at Dickson Allan, an IT consulting firm, where the information technology consultants use wikis to collaborate and communicate information about Dickson Allan clients.
Dickson Allan uses a tool called "Jotspot", which provides a ready-to-go wiki at a reasonable per month, per user charge. Jotspot makes it easy to get started with a number of pre-built templates to choose from. Every page you create has an email address, and you can simply send email to a Jotspot wiki page in order to add content. Of course, you can also use their WYSIWYG editing tool.
A tool like Jotspot, which hosts the software and data for you, may be the easiest way yet to get a wiki going at work.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)December 07, 2004
Blogging with Lawyers
Joy London, of Excited Utterances fame, describes blogging technology and its growing popularity in the legal community in her article, Blogging with Lawyers. She discusses blogging basics and explains the natural partnership between blogging and KM. Great article! And thanks, Joy, for including LawLibTech in your list of favorite blawgs!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)September 19, 2004
Create a Book from a Blog
Speaking of writing for the web, if you have a LiveJournal, DeadJournal or UJournal blog, you can memoralize all your gems of wisdom in book form by using a free service called LJ Book. It will grab your blog entries and create a PDF file which you can then send to a printer, for a price, to get the actual hardcopy. The same service for Wordpress and Movable Type users is currently in beta.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)August 08, 2004
The Wall Street Journal Discovers Wikis
When a new Internet technology is discussed in the Wall Street Journal, (A Wiki May Alter How Employees Work Together, July 29, 2004) it's a good hint that the tool is on the move from the public Internet, to the business enterprise.
A wiki is not a complicated idea. It's simply a way to gather information in one location/web site/document, and allow editing by all users, or a defined group. But the applications in a work environment could be significant. According to the article, "The prospects of moving wikis into the office are good, especially since they are already working well in non work situations."
My favorite quote from the article: "..if the blog is a soloist, a wiki is an orchestra."
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)July 17, 2004
Top 50 Legal Blogs
I really have some catching up to do after being out of town!
I'm pleased that LawLibTech was included in the "Eddix 50", a list of the top 50 legal blogs. The list is really quite handy, offering brief and thoughtful descriptions of each blog. If you're looking for a list of legal blogs, this is a good list of high-quality blogs.
According to Jeff Beard, "If you haven't come across EDDix (Electronic Data Discovery Information eXchange) yet, that's because they're still in their site's beta launch. EDDix's niche is attempting to provide independent research, analysis and reporting on the EDD marketplace, and their mission is to make sense of EDD so you can make the right decisions."
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)May 13, 2004
Congressman Starts a Blog
Roll Call reports that Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has launched the first blog written by a member of Congress. That's one way to stay in touch with constituents! Thanks to Richard Ramponi for the tip.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)March 22, 2004
Why Weblogs for KM?
Michael Angeles sees many reasons to use weblogs for KM, and he details those reasons, plus much more, in his recent presentation, "Supporting Enterprise Knowledge Management with Weblogs: A Weblog Services Roadmap", given at the recent Computers in Libraries conference.
According to Michael, the new KM is a bottom-up effort, which is particularly well supported by blogging, or k-logs. He also quotes Lou Rosenfeld's Roadmap for Enterprise Information Architecture which describes "guerrilla" information architecture as grass roots content producted by experts without necessitating IT involvement, blogs and wikis being prime examples. The advantages of "Guerrilla IA" is that it "keeps knowledge creation close to the owners/creators of that knowledge."
One of several interesting tools mentioned is k-collector, an enterprise aggregator for blog content.
There's much more there, so be sure to take a look if you're interested in this topic. Now, I wonder where Michael is speaking next?
February 10, 2004
Just an Idea - Blog Tools for Lexis & Westlaw?
I recently saw a demo of the Lexis Publisher product. I listened carefully, then said "It's a blog." Okay, it's ALMOST a blog. Really. It just needs a few minor tweaks.
Perhaps you need convincing. Then let's start with a quote directly from the Lexis web site. "With LexisNexis Publisher you can enhance the value of the information by adding comments and links to direct users to related internal or external documents."
Publisher provides content that can be delivered to the an Intranet or via email. You design searches to grab articles, typically news, on a topic. So far it sounds a news-feed, and it is. But the administrator also has the option of reviewing the search results and removing items that aren't pertinent. The administrator can also ADD entries that can point to internal or external content. The content can be pushed to your intranet OR your external, public web site.
The content is typically shown in reverse chronological order. Remember Darlene's Fichter's simple definition of a blog? "A web page containing brief entries arranged chronologically."
Now, if they would add a icon to the browser that would allow an administrator to grab links to anywhere on the Intranet or Internet, including Lexis, there you'd be, Bob's your uncle, and Publisher is a blog.
There could be many applications for a tool that would blog content from Lexis and/or Westlaw. You could create a blog on the fly for a particular research project, adding links and comments as you went along, and deliver your research in blog format. You could create custom newsletters on a particular topic, incorporating content from any web site, paid or free.
Why not just use a regular blog tool? For a couple of reasons. First, Lexis has dynamic addresses, which means you can't just copy a URL, click on it later, and get back to where you started from. (This will, however, work on Westlaw, which has static addresses.) And you have the advantage of content being fed to you, kind of a blog on steroids. Add robust categorization features, and who would need anything else.
If it looks like a blog, and acts like a blog...
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)January 30, 2004
Create a Policies and Procedures Manual with Movable Type
During the course of a day, sometimes to no one in particular, I might look at an Intranet application and say "It's a blog." I'm saying that a lot lately. My co-workers think I have blogs on the brain. It's my way of noting how many places on our Intranet could be generated by using a blog tool rather than custom programming.
Here's one that probably wouldn't have occurred to me. D. Keith Robinson used Movable Type, a common blog tool, to create a policies and procedures pages on a hospital Intranet. This is different from what I would usually consider a potential blog application because it is much more subject oriented rather than date oriented.
Think of the possibililties. How about maintaining a procedures manual for library staff? And of course, like Keith, you could do policies and procedures for your entire organization. Actually, any collection of relatively small pieces of information, whether by topic or date would be likely suspects. And here I thought that was a wiki. Who knew.
Here a blog, there a blog....
By the way, I spotted this on what is quickly becoming one my favorite blogs, Column Two.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)January 19, 2004
Wikis in Practice
Last week I talked about wikis. Since then I've spotted couple of interesting examples of public wikis.
KMWiki is "A virtual space where we gather to collect, comment, anneal and refactor our thoughts, links, insights and questions around knowledge management." You'll find a wealth of KM resources here, and if you know of a resource that's not there, you can just add it!
If you want some instruction on how to use a wiki, and space to practice, take a look at Jurawiki.de WikiSeminar. This virtual seminar is hosted by Networklawyers, and is available in German and English.
[Jan. 23, 2004 - I've removed a reference in this entry to KM Wiki, which appears to have been hijacked by porn spammers. Therein lie the perils of allowing anyone to edit. As of today all the KM content is gone.]
[Jan. 26, 2004 - The KM content is back on KM Wiki, so I've reposted the reference above. Let's see how long it stays spamless!]
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)January 14, 2004
What is a Wiki?
I firmly believe in collaboration. I know I can accomplish much more in concert with others than on my own. Therein lies the main premise behind wikis.
(Econtent: If Two Heads are Better than One, Try 7,000 with Wikipedia)
But what exactly is a wiki, and as a practical matter, what is its reason for being? Those questions have taken me a little time to figure out. Luckily a recent article in PC Magazine, Take Back the Net, has helped clarify matters for me.
A wiki is web site that can be edited by any of its members. Many public wikis, such as Wikipedia, can be edited by anyone, making them the ultimate in collaborative endeavors.
Yes, that's right, anyone. I'll admit the librarian in me jumps up and exclaims, "What about accuracy, data quality, authoritativeness? How would you end up with a good product when just anybody can participate? Can that really work?"
In theory, universal editing rights allows information to be compiled quickly, and if an error makes its way onto the site someone else will spot it and correct it just as quickly. (By the way, if you're wondering what wiki means, it is a shortened version of wikiwiki which is Hawaiian for quick.) It most certainly opens up a whole new way of sharing and consolidating information.
Of course, I'm still stuck on that information quality thing. But for our purposes, the best thing is to let that go, and move on. Because I believe the more practical application of wikis is a bit more exclusive. Which gets us to the PC Magazine definition. "In many ways, wikis are the world's simplest Web sites. Any member can add or edit pages. Users need learn only a few simple formatting rules... The wiki's content is built by all the members working together."
And membership does NOT have to include everyone. It can be defined however you want to define it. Okay, now I'm on board.
To get a feel for how this would work, take a look at PC Magazine's Editor's Choice for wiki tools, EditMe. If you click through to the list of web sites using EditMe, you'll see a recipe site, a simple example of a public wiki. New pages are created by members for each new recipe. Users can view an index of all recipes. Now some people might get the urge to cook upon viewing this site, but not me. I got the urge to create a collaborative reference/research database. Call me crazy. And hungry.
There are obvious KM applications. A wiki could make it easier for a group to gather information on just about any topic. Of course, this could be done with a Word document as well, but that could get cumbersome quickly. An EditMe wiki comes with it's own search engine built right in and the site is designed to be organized in manageable chunks, complete with an index.
Sometimes a simple tool can solve a fairly complex problem.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)January 10, 2004
K-Logging: Supporting KM with Web Logs
Just when you thought you've got blogging figured out, along comes another term, k-logging. Don't despair. It's a simple concept. K-logging stands for knowledge blogging, in other words, using blogging tools for knowledge management.
I just recently spotted an interesting article in Library Journal, April 2003, K-Logging: Supporting KM with Web Logs. Michael Angeles, a blogger himself, (http://iaslash.org/) discusses how librarians can support the information needs of k-loggers.
He suggest that "the library should be responsible for certain basic actions: support k-loggers by providing content; provide access (taxonomies) to their content; and share knowledge through aggregation and publishing."
This includes making content available in xml/rss format so that it can easily aggregated, retrieved and blogged by k-loggers.
Great stuff. I'm adding Michael Angeles' blog to my news aggregator right now!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)Fighting Crime by Blogging
It may seem to some that blogging is the snake oil of the cyberage. It's often recommended to cure just about whatever ails you. The truth is blogging really can be useful in a variety of ways because it can help solve the universal problem of managing small pieces of information that are often be so elusive.
According to a recent article in PC Magazine, (Blogging for Business) blogging is being used by the Western States Information Network, a federal funded agency that collects, analyzes and share crime information, as a simple way to communicate. Think of it as quick and easy KM for law enforcement.
They're using Traction Software's enterprise blogging solution, noting that it was very easy to setup, and offered the project based security that they needed.
I know I feel safer.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)November 30, 2003
Blogs for Intranet Content
Blogs have a reputation for being personal, often trivial, online journals. But when considering blogs for an Intranet you need to get beyond the stereotype and keep in mind that blogs reduced to their bare bones are simply web pages with short entries in reverse chronological order that can be categorized by subject.
The content presented can vary dramatically. For example, any "What's New" page is a possible candidate for a blog. Do you want to distribute current awareness information? Consider a blog as an easy way to post to a web page, and also automatically distribute the entries via email if you so choose.
According to Ron Miller in Blogging for Business "blogs could be used…as a way to distribute information that changes on a regular basis, perhaps providing a more sensible venue for news than the company portal…"
The idea of capturing knowledge with a k-logs (knowledge logs) is also intriguing. The difference between a k-log and a blog is in the content, not the execution. The same software can be used, but the assumption is that high level knowledge would be shared in a k-log. Granted, it would require a motivated person or persons to take the time to post, but what a great way to enable participants to quickly share short, concise piece of information or start an internal conversation on a topic.
Traction Software is the name that pops up most often in connection with Intranet blogging. It's similar to standard blog software, but includes group collaborative tools, sophisticated security, and built-in email functionality.
If you're using blogs in your organization, post a comment and let us know more about it!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)November 19, 2003
Blogging at Internet Librarian
If you're new to blogs Darlene Fichter's presentation The Blogging Explosion—Libraries & Weblogs is a good introduction. She also includes examples of how blogs are being used on library web sites.
My favorite part was Darlene's clear definition of a blog, "A web page containing brief entries arranged chronologically."
This no-frills description makes it easy to imagine the many ways they can be used on web pages or Intranets.
Do you want more pithy quotes about blogs? Here's one from Evan Williams, founder of Blogger.
"To me, the blog concept is about three things. Frequency, Brevity and Personality."
He's definitely got that brevity thing down pat!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
