Post on 19-Jan-2018
description
The Internet Public Library
…and SILS’ membership therein
Refresher• In Sept 2007 the SILS faculty voted to join the IPL
Consortium on a trial basis.
• The IPL gave us a ½-year membership Jan-June for ½-price, $2500.
• I agreed to train faculty & students in IPL use, & evaluate our membership.
• “The IRB has determined that this submission does not constitute human subjects research as defined under federal regulations [45 CFR 46.102 (d or f)] and does not require IRB approval.”
Evaluation criteria
1. Number of courses teaching with the IPL2. Number of research projects using IPL
data3. Publications by faculty & students4. Use of the IPL as a resource that may be
leveraged to obtain grant funding
Membership has its privileges
1. Support from IPL staff for integrating IPL-related projects into teaching
• Ask a Question service• Collection development, Management, etc.
2. Access to IPL’s data• Google Analytics
• Pre-GA webstats• Archive of answered questions
3. Access to the IPL Learning Community
Current teaching
• 501: training & answering dig ref questions• 740: DL evaluation assignment
• 513 in Fall?: building IPL collections
Current research
• Lauren Perry’s project• Identifying Reusable Resources in Digital
Reference Answers
Lauren’s project• RQ: Are there socioeconomic trends in IPL usage stats?• Data:
– IPL stats from NC, 1/1/07 to 3/7/08– 2000 Census– 2006 SAT scores
• Hypothesis: Users from more wealthy, educated areas would be the primary users of the IPL & other online reference sites.– Apparently is not the case
• Exploratory: What are the characteristics of the IPL’s user community? Compare IPL use to some other online tool (dictionary.com, some other online encyclopedia).
% population with > high school degree vs. Visits
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% with +hs degree
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Identifying Reusable Resources in Digital Reference Answers
RQs:• What resources are provided in answers to
digital reference questions? With what frequency are these resources used in answers to different topics and types of questions?
• To what extent are the resources provided in answers reusable for future answers? What factors affect their reusability?
• What is the useful lifespan of a resource provided in an answer to a past digital reference question? To what extent is time a factor in a resource’s reusability?
Work to date
• Eliah Hecht wrote a crawler to download all records in the QA archive as of Jan 2008 (n=60,393).
• We developed DC-based XML tags for fielded & structural data in the records.
• Eliah wrote a parser to mark up all records.• I’m doing exploratory data analysis.• Stephanie is contemplating how to apply NLP
methods.
What resources are provided?
Domain Provided in % of answerswww.ipl.org 11.9www.google.com 5.1www.yahoo.com 1.1www.altavista.com 1.0www.amazon.com 1.0www.hotbot.com 0.7www.infoplease.com 0.7en.wikipedia.org 0.6www.geocities.com 0.6www.britannica.com 0.5
What resources are provided? IPL
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AADMIN
AONART BBIOBUS C
COM DDAVE
DEFDIY
EDUENG
ENTENV
FAILED
FARQGEN
GEOGOV
HEAHIS
HISTHOB
HUMINTIPL
ISCI K LLA
W LIB LIT
LITCRIT
MATMETAMIL
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bookFARQ.html
articleFARQ.html
new sFARQ.html
litcrit.out.pl?au
litcrit.html
historyFARQ.html
presidents.html
48476
etymology.html
recordFARQ.html
brow se.pl
POTUSFARQ.html
findingpeopleFARQ.html
genealogy.html
genealogyFARQ.html
bluebookFARQ.html
litcritFARQ.html
ref32.00.00
usedbookFARQ.html
What resources are provided? IPL
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1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
bookFARQ.htmlarticleFARQ.htmlnewsFARQ.htmllitcrit.out.pl?aulitcrit.htmlhistoryFARQ.htmlpresidents.html48476etymology.htmlrecordFARQ.htmlbrowse.plPOTUSFARQ.htmlfindingpeopleFARQ.htmlgenealogy.htmlgenealogyFARQ.htmlbluebookFARQ.htmllitcritFARQ.htmlref32.00.00usedbookFARQ.html
Implications
• Reference expert systems are a pipe dream.– Or, as Karen Spärck Jones would say,
question answering is not a rational task.
• Teaching reference requires apprenticeship.
Notes from 4/7 IPL Fellows Meeting
• Possible merger with LII
• Revision of mission & vision statements to incorporate LII mission & vision
• Revisions to Ask a Question webforms
• Tracking question traffic to better plan for assignments in Reference courses
Agenda for 5/5 Fellows Meeting1. Mission/Vision Statement finalization
• Review by IPL Deans scheduled for May 1
2. Review and feedback on IPL Ask a Question form drafts• KidSpace Question Form• Adult Question Form
3. Library locator database or dataset for IPL site
4. Timeline for IPL site
Teaching opportunities• 513 in Fall?: building IPL collections• 382: Systems Analysis• 509: IR• 510: NLP• 534: Children & Tech• 585: Management• 697: Emerging Topics• 760: Web Databases• 788: User Education• 890-096: Evidence-based Librarianship• Probably others
• Drexel’s & FSU’s IPL course
Research opportunities• Development of special collections; how
collections evolve over time• Management of online services; management of
virtual organizations• Webmetrics• NLP, text mining• How communities of interest can be developed
& sustained• Professional development needs• Probably others
Evaluation criteria, redux
1. Number of courses teaching with the IPL2. Number of research projects using IPL
data3. Publications by faculty & students4. Use of the IPL as a resource that may be
leveraged to obtain grant funding
The IPL as a resource for SILS
• Needs the IPL data can address:– Provides a data set with which to do pilot
tests, test hypotheses, etc.– Provides students a data set for Masters
papers, other research projects.• Revenue neutral
Conclusion
• Evaluation of the usefulness of the IPL’s resources for SILS will take >1 semester.
• Breaking news: University Research Council grant for $5000.