Category: digital [humanities|libraries]

Willard McCarty is “a scholar-provocateur,” in the words of David Gants, who is introducing him at the moment. The full title of his keynote is “Beyond the word: Modeling literary context.”

WM is “the heavy metal version of an intellectual butterfly.” That’s in his words. Same disclaimer as with Shillingsburg: dense, dense. Choppy synopsis.

The humanist perspective on tools problematizes them, which is the point of tool development in the humanities. Our job is not to solve or to fix, but to question. Context explains nothing: it is merely more text. And yet, it remains: how else does the textual environment select for meaning, beyond contiguity and syntax?

Modeling defines an intellectual space within which we can apply styles of scientific reasoning without compromising the humanities.

Main kinds of text analysis, and their origins in prior habits of mind:

– Corpus linguistics (main foci: corpus, concordance, collocation; “words are known by the company they keep” [quote from Firth?])

– concordance is more than “known by the company it keeps”. its 17th-century practitioners were thinking typologically.

– Statistics: searching for hidden patterns of meaning

– some working patterns are inherently stochastic, essentially guesswork. (Humanities are intimately tied to stochastic ways of working, which isn’t to imply that sort of work is easy.)

– Metatextual [semantic] encoding: nontextual entity X exists in textual location Y. Gain control of the world by categorizing its parts.

– Relational database design. Resolves an artifact of study into one or more entities sharing an identical set of attributes. Strict logical principles apply, but there’s a trade-off between these principles’ limiting nature and the manipulability they allow for over significant amounts of data.

What does this analysis seek to do? [Here follows a complex argument which, when the webcast of the keynote goes up, I hope to fill in.]

Not building digital replicas of books (a literary jukebox), but modeling (purposeful gerund: the process of modeling!) of cultural artifacts is the point of humanities computing. Computers change the speed at which modeling can happen, and the amount of data that can be modeled. We think differently when more comes more quickly into view. A gap separates, and will always separate, modeling from the model.

The assumption that individual agents of a model are independent variables that don’t affect each other but act separately upon a given entity is erroneous and damaging to research.

Modeling makes our readings more informed.

…As usual when listening to Willard speak, I’m too overwhelmed by all the information flying at me. Consider this a placeholder.

Stan Ruecker, Sara Dorow, Heather Jiang, Zachary Devereaux and Christopher Moore co-wrote this one. The full title of their paper is “Shallow, narrow, deep and wide: issue crawling for Chinese adoption.” [vz: a bit confused as to what this means. Intriguing, though.] All authors are from the University of Alberta, with the exception of Zachary Devereaux who is from Ryerson/York University. The paper was presented by him and Christopher Moore.

ZD shows us hyperlink analysis maps, which he proposes are textual maps.

IssueCrawler: server-side webtool, created by the Govcom.org Foundation in Amsterdam. Crawling, as in spider robots that take as starting points the websites you’re interested in exploring. The example issue is adoption of Chinese children by people all over the world, particularly in the US and Canada.

To launch the crawl, the researcher sets the number of iterations of method (how far the crawler goes – how many websites) and depth (how deeply within each site the crawler explores). We go on to a demo of the adoption crawl (a shallow one – two sites out, two levels deep). Many .gov/.ca sites with factual information, and .com/.org sites with much more personal accounts (“pink and fuzzy,” they say, especially since 95% of Chinese children who get adopted are girls), acculturation tips, etc. Not very many Chinese sites in there, although there are some in the larger network. Third crawl is deep and wide: 2 iterations out, 3 levels deep, with legend: considered by research team as the most representative network map. Shows a “strong” inner network; presence of professional, resource, and secondary activities for adoptive families (consumer/charity/cultural). Highlighted is the Association for Research in International Adoption.

The researchers’ chosen topic highlights that it’s possible to hyperlink-analyze from a censored and uncensored point of departure, see the differences easily.

Conclusions:

– websites in this context represent dynamic and interactive hypertext.

– the result is an interactive and informative set of dynamic maps that aid analysis of the online presence of the communities in question.

– future research: cross-platform content analysis of network, as well as its different instantiations over time.

[my talk went pretty well. whee! freedom for the rest of the conf! love when I’m up early.]

Jane Morris is at the University of Toronto. The full title of her paper is “Readers subjective perceptions of lexical cohesion and its implications for computers’ interpretations of text meaning.”

[vz: interesting. I’m not sure what I think about the phrase computers’ interpretations. slippery slope from here to computer sentience, which I certainly ain’t against, but which is a controversial topic at best.]

Meaning of text can be approached from three different (and much debated) points of view: what the readers think it means (attentional structure), what we think the author(s) thought it meant (intentional structure), and what the text itself means (linguistic structure).

Machine text and corpus analysis (computational linguistics) can only access the meaning inherent [?] in the text, but not the readers’ or writers’ perspectives. Computational linguistics has often proceeded as though the attentional and intentional structures of texts didn’t exist.

Properties of text, according to David Olson: it’s an artifact; it’s a representation of knowledge/meaning; and it needs to be interpreted by readers.

Morris’ research question: how subjective is the interpretation of lexical cohesion of text? Investigated this in a study using 26 readers and 3 texts.

Some definitions. Lexical cohesion: contribution to a text’s meaning by groups of related words running through it. Linguistics studies: meaning, coherence. Computational linguistics studies: structure of text, summarization, information retrieval, spelling correction.

Study’s objectives: summarize agreement between readers on work groups, using individual diffs as an indicator of objectivity. Readers underlined groups of words they thought were related in the same color, different groups being different colors. They then wrote out those word groups separately, and wrote a brief description of what they thought the groups meant. (Funeral, communion, chapel, deceased: processes involved when someone dies.)

Study showed about 40% individual difference in readers’ lexical interpretation of texts. This implies significant limitations in machine analysis of texts. How to computationally account for differences interpretation? Morris proposes developing reader and writer models [vz: agent-based modelling might be useful?] Simple reader model: reader-specific corpora, thesauri, and view of lexical cohesion (use reader-based thesaurus – which can be generated using off-the-shelf software – to identify word groups in text).

Future research: different texts and different readers; subjectivity of other aspects of meaning; what does subjectivity mean or reflect (reader attitudes); [more on] how to create reader models, and also writer models to reflect writer subjectivity.

Peter Shillingsburg teaches and researches at De Montfort University in England, formerly of the University of North Texas.

Whoo, this is dense, and he’s reading – not much buffer talk. My synopsis is going to be incomplete and choppy.

Claims to be neither a computer scientist nor a humanities computing expert (the bulk of the attendees at this Breadth of Text conference.) He is one of the most prominent text analysts of the current scholastic age. “My field represents the problem, and your fields represent the solutions,” he says.

Question being addressed: what is it about what he does [we do] professionally that actually matters? Higher education isn’t aiming to create better citizens these days, so much as serving as “tertiary education” after which one learns how to live. Given the present [rather elitist] state of higher education, what is it that textual critics do that really matters?

It seems that preparation for career is at least more pressing, if not more important, than preparation for life. We work at a time when scepticism about what the university does is high, except insofar as it teaches money-making.

Teaching is said to be the second oldest profession in the world, at its height in the now-destroyed Library of Alexandria. Because texts are multiplied for dissemination, wear out and need to be replaced, copying texts is important – and highly imperfect (see also parlor games of telephone). Proofreading, then, is the first function of textual criticism, and otherwise excellent scholars seem to be terrible at it (editors, binders etc. of scholarly editions not excepted).

Then there’s the task of restoring integrity to texts that have fallen afoul of their original versions. Here [he implies] we need collaboration – among editors, philologists, historians. Shillingsburg proceeds to give us some rather egregious examples: one is the relationship between two Victorian-novel protagonists. Early in the novel, between 1850s (?) and 1989, they go up some stairs “hand in hand,” which was thought to foretell the development of their relationship. But the manuscript actually says that Henry went up the stairs hat in hand. This sorta changes the entire relationship, as portrayed.

What does one do when a text, as it exists, doesn’t seem to make any sense – but for which no alternative (manuscript, for example) exists? Some editors have deleted phrases or changed words, based on their own common-sense judgment. Who’s to do better? And what about editing texts by genius authors who use[d] words we have not yet learned (sprinkt for sprinkled)? There was a time when such things were “corrected” by well-meaning but erroneous folk.

Is it okay for a university to set up shop and do the best it can with what it has? Without a hard “standard” for editing ambiguous texts? [vz: this standard, even if it exists, is often meaningless!] What does “integrity” of a text mean?

The task of the textual critic, and importance of textual criticism, is [in] validating and maintenance task preliminary to actual criticism. Textual integrity is a foundational myth. There are indeed wrong ways to edit texts; but is there only one right way to edit them? The questions should be why the text has acquired its particular forms, who has made it so and under what cultural circumstances? [vz: I’m paraphrasing like crazy here.]

Textual criticism insists that any text will do – but that every text will do only that which it is capable of doing. It doesn’t necessarily represent “what the author thought,” for example. The task of the textual critic is to help students and teachers to know which text of a work they’re using, and to show how multiple/unstable/created texts change our perceptions of the work. A textual critic is proofreader, amender, identifier of the salient features of a work, who lets readers know what particular text of the work they have in hand, and what its particular characteristics are.

“Of him that is appointed to teach, the first business is to learn, an unintermitted attendance to reading must qualify him to be heard with profit….For such service he can be fitted only by laborious study, and study therefore is the business of his life; the business which he cannot neglect without breaking a virtual contact with the community. Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhored as treachery.” –Samuel Johnson

Let’s not allow Johnson’s stirring words to mislead us regarding what academics can/cannot, should/should not do. What we do is, at the end of the day, criticism and not fact; inference and not truth. It is because of this inherent uncertainty, however, that our commitment to accuracy and precision should be greater. Ignorance is the academic’s most intimate familiar, never to be banished – only used to learn more about how much we have yet to do.

The travel just doesn’t stop. I’m at CaSTA 2006 – the Canadian Symposium for Text Analysis. This morning I’ll present a paper titled “Two perspectives on collaboration in the humanities.” Collaboration is what I spoke about last week in Vermont, too; maybe I should write about that here sometime.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure how much documenting I’ll be doing in the next 2.5 days. But, boy, the program sure seems interesting.

Fredericton, New Brunswick is gorgeous. Fantastic drive up.

Steven F. Daniel, NewsBank [parent company of Readex]. “Around the world in 80 documents: International content in 19th-century congressional publications.” Last presentation of the institute! Go Readex, y’all inspired me to blog THE WHOLE THING. That’s a first.

Get this: it’s possible for Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg (protagonist of Around the World in 80 Days) to go through Readex’s Congressional Serial Set and pull a document on every country he visits during his journey. Not only that, he can pull information on every steamship line involved. Awesome.

Steven takes us through every one of the places that Fogg visits on his travels. We are shown documents relating to:

– the London Penitentiary Congress (1872);

– Paris Commune: Letters from the US Ambassador;

– P&O Steamship Co.;

– Suez Canal at the Philadelphia Exposition;

– Irrigation in India, a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury;

– Elephants, a letter from the King of Siam proposing to populate America’s forests with them;

– Singapore, with photographs from Commodore Perry’s report on his voyage to Japan in the 1850s;

– Hong Kong: Letters from the US Consulate;

– Slavery in China: Letters from Shanhai Consulate;

– Tea in Japan, a letter from the Secretary of State;

– Pacific Mail Steamship Co. (Fogg takes it to across the Pacific, from Asia to San Francisco);

– Railroad across America (a Memorial of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California);

– Cunard Line [of ships] (Fogg misses this one and has to take another ship);

– Irish labor conditions (a letter from the Secretary of State); aaand

– London Exposition (another letter from the Secretary of State regarding the exhibition of 1871).

Other tasks, projects, fun things to do with the Serial Set:

– write a paper at 2am in your dorm room;

– sail up the Amazon;

– study the antiquities of Easter Island;

– read a biography of the last Emperor of Brazil;

– explore the Congo;

– sail the Dead Sea;

– cool off in the Arctic or Antarctic;

– study the sieve of Sebastopol [vz: Sevastopol] or learn why Bolivia has no seacoast.

What a way to demo a digital document collection. That’s awesome. A great note to leave the institute on. Thank you, Readex.

[The second talk of the morning was mine; I was a bit busy and didn’t blog it. It went very well.]

Terry Reese, Oregon State University, “Breaking out of the box: Libraries without walls.”

Terry is not just a librarian but also a client-oriented infrastructure and application developer. He “lives metadata,” all the time, is a firm believer in metadata. He builds tools for handling metadata. He thinks that the most important thing that librarians do is not digitization, but creating metadata for digitized objects. Go metadata!

(For the record, I’m totally with him here.)

Libraries today are suffering from an identity crisis, trapped between the traditional roles of a library and the current expectations of its users. So what do undergraduates want? They want a library that fits into an ipod, they wanna use google and other software they’re already familiar with.

Libraries are their communities’ (esp. small communities’) primary information providers. Libraries have also started facilitating, for example, borrowing from other institutions (interlibrary loan), providing e-resources. Nowadays, libraries are one of the many information providers available to their users.

Libraries’ evolving roles aren’t new. They’ve traditionally evolved with technology. But up until now they were central repositories of trusted information, and now they’re no longer in that center. (vz: or not in the center alone.)

Evolution isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It underlines libraries’ past successes, and it also demonstrates a vibrant information ecosystem of which libraries are now a part. But with evolution comes the necessity to learn a new language. Syndication; blogs and blogging; reviews and user-driven ratings all are parts of that same ecosystem.

Library 2.0: socially driven content; social networking; social bookmarking; personalization. Folksonomies, tagging and tag clouds. This may be scary for librarians, but it’s also what the users want to do. New programming tools: AJAX, API, ruby on rails, Python, LAMP. From there follows: open access, open source, open content. (Metadata wants to be free! Free the metadata!)

Also, Library 2.0 is about web services. Digital library dev’t needs to start with an understanding that the library needs to be more transparent (a sort of business model; for example, label everything so that users know where their information is coming from). Libraries need to look outside the library community for usable technologies. Maybe libraries could start collaborating as groups, and develop software of their own, perhaps starting with some open-source software and customizing it for librarians’ purposes.

How the user sees the library in the digital world. Looking to the past: library -> individual materials. Looking to the present: library [as middleware] -> a complex interconnected lot of materials.

“Unlibrary”: digitization is not enough; accessibility only through the library isn’t sufficient.

In 5 years, in Terry’s library, simple aggregation of resources will not be enough. Databases and websites will be replaced by mechanisms that fetch information into users’ workflows. Single points of access for information will be the goal. Also, “intermediate environments” (mashups, aggregations, workflow – think Spell with Flickr… and, oh my gawd, hamster sudoku! And, holy $#!7, Massachusetts campaign contribution map) will be consumers of library services, just like more traditional users.

An example of how libraries could usefully do that sort of thing is umlaut by Ross Singer. There are also search engine that search multiple resources, whether within or outside the library.

So what can libraries do? They can work with partners: no library, LC or the smallest of them, is large enough to solve these problems themselves. They can also continue to innovate: libraries need to do more development. They should depend less on their vendors and more on developing solutions to their problems themselves. These solutions should be open-source. Finally, libraries can open their current systems to outside users. This is something libraries don’t like to do right now. But libraries expects groups like publishers, Google etc. to provide harvested metadata, but they don’t build this facility into their own systems.

Another thing to do is insist on metadata from vendors as part of the RFP (request for proposal) process, in the course of licensing negotiations, etc.

Lastly, interoperability. Terry talked about a proposed technical protocol named IHP that seem to be library-specific, and all of that information went straight over my head. Sorry, Terry.

Ed Redmond, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (LC), “Digital Maps and Digital Map Reference.”

LC has been around since 1800, and has been collecting maps for the entire time. Over 5 million map sheets dating from 1830 to the present! That’s a lot of maps. In fact, more than anyone else in the world.

1995 – they decided to digitally scan historical maps. What do they scan: American Memory stuff; documents for the Congressional Relations Office; documents for the general public. Scanning goals: research quality images (not perfect reproductions); controlled access; persistent URLs. Priorities: cartobibliographies, out-of-copyright stuff (pre-1923); items with existing catalog records. They also scan atlases.

Their scanner is HUGE, and is called JumboScanner. Can do maps 3×5 feet in one pass. It takes 15-30 minutes per map. Scans are saved as TIFF and converted into JPEG2000. Like most projects I’ve seen at this institute, theirs seems to be [almost] entirely Windows-based.

Other benefits to scanning (besides preservation and public access): LC has in the past supported international mediation of geographically based conflicts (?). They don’t do that anymore, but they do have the resources to make maps for various Congressional divisions on demand. Confidentiality issues are involved with those kinds of maps, so they can’t put them into the catalogue without the requester’s consent.

The LC Map Collections website now features more than 10,000 cartographic items. The American Memory site also has an LC Learning Page, created especially for teachers. Collection Connections marries digital content with education standards, offering among other things sample lesson plans. They even do video conferences featuring maps, where LC specialists talk to classes via video.

Ed proceeded to show us a bunch of fascinating historical maps. Check out the website, it’s awesomely outrageous.

Mary Molinaro, University of Kentucky. “Finding your niche: Leveraging limited resources to build a digital program.” Oh, this will be great. Resources are almost never sufficient in the humanities, as Mary herself mentions right at the beginning. :)

First, though, she demonstrates a VHS tape she found titled “Richard Simmons groovin’ in the house.” Go Readex! They know how to relax!

MM distinguishes between project and program: quit thinking about “digital initiatives” and “projects.” They imply temporary status. “Program” implies infrastructure and sustainability, which is advantageous even within the project, for morale and a better mentality.

Good news/bad news: we’re hopelessly lost, but we’re making good time (or rushing headlong into… something). There’s no set formula for building digital programs. Some of what MM will say isn’t news, but is good to remember as lessons from our non-digital past. MM will list general pointers for building a program, and then proceed to talk about her KY group’s experience with building a program, going point by point. That specific information is in parentheses below.

1. Look to the future. It’s easy to get into the daily routine with no end game in sight, particularly if you’re trying to distinguish yourself or your project. How do you find a new place where you can make a significant contribution, find your niche? Look to the future.

2. Look to the past, too. Where are your areas of strength? Where’ve you been successful in the past? Can you look at those things in a new way, that’ll turn them into assets for building a new program?

3. Assess your strengths (follows from previous point). Can you itemize the useful stuff you have that you can leverage – people, equipment, good will? (50 yrs of microfilming; 30 yrs of oral history; good relationship with partners in the state)

4. Acknowledge weaknesses. Priorities are always competing. How do you convince people that yours are the ones that ought to be supported? Also, work with the staff you have. Take note of their expertise (or not) and move forward from there. (high competition for resources; mired in activities they can’t easily jettison; ‘wring our hands’ mentality)

5. Seek opportunities. One thing can lead to another. It’s seldom that someone just comes to you and offers you $1M to move forward on your project. Be proactive about funding especially. (opportunity to coordinate state digital library, and hire a digital librarian; looked for, and found!, just the right grant)

6. Take opportunities that do come your way. (And/but:) Choose your projects strategically. (U of KY chose board of trustees minutes; yearbooks; student newspaper. not something the public is clamoring for, but when the project was finished the trustees were very, very impressed, and so looked favorably upon expanding the program for participation in the NDNP project mentioned in the previous post)

7. Beware mission drift. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. Without focus it’s really easy to fall away. (too easy to say yes to fund-generating proposals such as in 6 above)

8. Continually stretch. Generate more ideas than you can possibly realize, then pick out of them. This is better than looking for that One Perfect Idea, and pushes the upper bound higher. (MM’s group brainstormed regularly and had a whiteboard dedicated to the ideas generated and a list of needs! – could do this electronically, but this is visible to anyone walking in including potential donors, and this visibility is very important)

9. Take risks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Give yourself permission to fail. If you wait until everything’s in place, you’ll never get anywhere. Have a clear understanding with your boss that not everything you do may be 100% successful, but as long as you’re advancing your program, it’s worth doing. (you can drive your car off that cliff, but once you do, you really limit your options; fear of risk can be paralyzing, but at some point you gotta let go of the what-ifs)

10. Network like crazy. Opportunities present themselves in the oddest of places. Tell your story widely. If you don’t, nobody will know what you’re doing. (have an elevator statement about your project, a spiel that you can give in the space of an elevator ride; and also, find places to tell your story)

11. Seek advice. Ask experts, get opinions, and you’ll begin to see consensus. Money spent on the right consultants can be money very well spent. You can also get a lot of advice for free. (call in experts; attend as many training opportunities as possible)

12. Fast-paced is better. This works for KY, anyway. Not talking frenzied here, but an aggressive pace with high expectations creates a self-perpetuating high-energy atmosphere. Likewise, a sluggish atmosphere self-perpetuates and bogs you down. (has melded MM’s group together and created an entrepreneurial environment)

13. Learn from failures. Pay attention, and try not to make mistakes more than once. In the long term failures can be as important as successes. (MM’s group is just not meant to scan state math tests. it’s a long story)

14. Leverage successes. Turn one success into another. Building a program is an iterative process; sometimes the steps are big, and other times they’re small. (they got really good at turning one success into another)

15. Celebrate success. Personal thanks can mean a lot to people. Thank them individually, in public, in a group. Market your group’s successes. (they’ve had celebratory dinners, written for the library newsletters, acknowledged individuals publicly, looked for ways to leverage staff’s successes into opportunities for them individually)

16. Money means a lot but it’s not everything. There are other ways to build infrastructure: space, equipment, goodwill, percentage of individuals’ time. (all of these things can be made a commitment on the part of the university when you’re applying for grants, and that might help not only with the work but with getting the grants in the first place)

17. Not everything you do will be meaningful, but make sure something is. “If you build it, they will come” does not always work. What will your resource help people do? Have an identified outcome for everything you do.

Matthew Beacom, Yale University Library. “After AAACR2 [Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules]: Content standards for resource description and access.” He’s all about cataloguing cultural objects.

AACR == great example of international agreement regarding digital standards. What surprises MB is that the agreement has survived for this long, and has been amended/improved too.

AACR (created in 1978) IS THE LAW. But it was created by its own community of practice, and is in continuous development. (As all rulesets should be. -vz)

What is a content standard? MB and his community use it thus: it’s a bit lik the rules of the road for driving. Highways, town roads, cars, companies that make all those things exist, but if you didn’t know which side of the road to drive on, but we wouldn’t have the [social structure of] the transportation system. Same with information standards.

Why a new standard? Short answer: the digital revolution. Before, users had to position themselves in a physical environment to use resources; and they had an institutional environment that helped them to use those resources. (You don’t walk into a library and expect to purchase a book on your way out, clearance sales notwithstanding.) Nowadays we bring resources to ourselves much more than before.

RDA (Resource Description and Access) is the new standard in development.

RDA will be: a new standard designed for the digital (as opposed to card-catalog) environment, developed as a web-based product, suitable for describing digital and analog artifacts. It’ll also be a multinational content standard, developed for use in English language environments (but can also be used by other-language communities). It’ll be independent of the format used to communicate information.

Distinctions between libraries, archives, museums etc. are breaking down, and their interrelationships are changing in nature as well. They’re not going to turn into one another, but the clarity of distinctions has changed, and the potential for collaboration has increased.

It’ll support FRBR [Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records] user tasks (!!! – yay!), such as find, identify, select, obtain. It’ll enable users of library catalogs, etc. to find and use resources appropriate to their information needs.

Who develops and supports RDA? A buncha acronyms; see RDA link above and also this list. People from Australia, Canada, the US and England make up the Joint Steering Committee.

AACR2 has two parts: description and access. RDA (draft arrangement) is description, relationships, and access point control. As part of revision, description and relationships are now grouped into Part A, and access point control is Part B. (vz: I’m not sure what access point control is.)

Timeline: looking at first release of RDA in mid-2008, but there might be a delay of 6 months to a year. Meanwhile there’s a lot of work as pieces of RDA get drafted and commented on.

Continuity vs. change: “Why didn’t you just throw out AACR2 and start over?” Well, they wanted to maintain some continuity, and keep the best of what they had. Also: compatibility with existing records is essential! And also, maintaining international agreements is important.

Stressed: RDA will be a content standard, not a display standard. It will contain new and refined data elements (with respect to AACR2) but retain relationships between elements.

Revenue for AACR2 goes into a fund that goes back into making it better, and then what’s not used goes to copyright owners. This is a self-supporting operation.