Library Stuff

Say hello to Blabble. From an article from Internet Retailer:

“Rice notes that some search engines such as Google pull listings from blogs, but they treat the blog listing as they would any web page, requiring the searcher who specifically is seeking blog content to read through all the listings returned in a search to identify those from blogs. Existing software products aggregate listings from blogs, but require the user seeking a view of overall trends or opinions as represented in blogs to read through all the blog listings to make that determination manually.”

“Rice says Blabble goes a step farther by incorporating natural language processing that parses blog listings returned in a search into parts of speech so as to extract from them words, phrases and constructions that indicate opinion. “50,000 people may write about a topic, but you don’t have time to read 50,000 listings,” says Rice. “And I probably don’t care about one individual opinion; it’s the aggregate that I care about.”

Check out the sample searches and you can see how the software works. I have never been a fan of natural language when it comes to searching (Sorry AJ), but within the confines of aggregation (not RSS aggregation, but group aggregation), it could work. Take the most popular words used to describe something in a multi-million blog post database and match them up with search terms and you have Blabble. Or so it seems… (link via Topix)

It looks like there is some discussion going on about Peter’s work with his library OPAC.

- Art mentions Peter’s work with Amazon API and ILL. Oooooh. Peter, show us what you did.

- Jeff, who also commented on my post, works at Library Elf, which “an Internet-based tool for anyone who uses the library and would like to keep track of what they’ve borrowed. Subscribers are able to checks one or more library accounts in one place, giving you a way to simultaneously keep tabs of the status of all your items on loan”. This just screams RSS Feeds…

- Walky points out that e-mail alerts of overdue books can be easily converted to RSS by using Dodgeit, which is a great idea. He also points to Peter’s new scripts: Feeds for new DVDs added to the library collection, and a quick URL for ISBNs (similar to TinyURL)

While these hacks are amazing, I wonder why library vendors haven’t created them themselves so that we don’t have to rely on Peter to create them for us. Also, these are just for one vendor (and, in the case of Library Elf, only a small number of libraries), so most of us can’t use them. We’re getting there, but I still feel that we are far away from an understanding of this technology. Sigh.

I guess I can be a bit pleased knowing that OCLC Research may hear about it…

Ross Mayfield, whose weblog I’ve subscribed to over the weekend, has an interesting round-up of the wikipedia fiasco that dominated the social networks scene this week (at least, it did in my aggregator):

“Which brings me to an lingering thought — that explicitly codifying reputation introduces a cost which can constrain commons-based peer production. Wikipedia was never supposed to work, somehow does because of good club theory and transaction costs, and has gained a reputation as a resource. Introducing reputation for contributors or articles is the greatest risk to the Wikipedia community. Getting a base study on factual accuracy can help inform this decision as well as educate the public on how to use and participate with this commons resource.”

When I first mentioned Wikipedia on LS about 1 year ago, I immediately received an e-mail from a colleague saying that I shouldn’t be linking to it due to it’s “non-authority” based postings. I agreed with the comment, somewhat due to my library school training on the use of “relevant” resources to answer reference questions. That was before I started to read about social networks and collaborative group work and how, as a general idea, groups work much better than individuals in solving complex problems and getting to answers quicker. Now, this is a general statement. Many factors need to be at play within the group for it to work in its best capacity. That is why I have become infatuated with Wikis over the past month, even though they go against one of the basic premises of librarianship: relevant sources. But shouldn’t librarians do a bit more research into collaborative work and online social networks before we dismiss wikipedia as garbage? Shouldn’t we analyze resources for quality before making blanket statements about wikis and other collaborative tools?

Granted, the article that started this well-informed debate was not the fault of the librarian who sent an e-mail to a reporter. We all have the right to our opinion. The reporter should have interviewed others who believe that wikipedia is a worthwhile resource. I, for one, am glad that the article came out. We need more discussion like this, especially in the library community, as it fosters meaningful discussion and great fodder for me on upcoming projects…

Peter Rukavina has figured out a way to create an RSS feed of the books that he has checked out of his library:

“The result is a Perl script that automatically connects to the web-based Dynix (aka Epixtech) OPAC and grabs a list of the items I’ve got checked out and the date they are due. It then creates an RSS feed that I can read in my newsreader every morning.”

Of course, the first thing that came to mind was that Peter should contact Dynix and show them what he has done. My second thought was that he should contact the other vendors and show them how it can easily be done. My third and final thought was to contact Peter, get on my knees, put my hands in the air, and scream, “I’m Not Worthy”. Great spidering work Peter. I’d love to see some other feeds that can be created with the Dynix catalog (RSS Feeds by DDC or subject headings, perhaps?).

Does anyone work (or know someone who works) at the National Archives in the UK? I am in desperate need of two reports that only seem to be held there. If so, then please contact me. Thanks in advance. Fellow bloggers, a little linkage would be appreciated as always.