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Summary

Introduction

Like the library in Ranganathan's (1931) five laws of library science, the web is a growing organism, and the changing nature of the web is one of the themes that will be developed throughout this book. As this chapter will show, the technologies being utilized are changing, as are the sites and services available to investigate the web. Librarians need to understand the changing nature of such sites and services if they are to make use of web metrics for either relational or evaluative purposes.

Over the past 20 years the web has become a ubiquitous part of the modern world, and the development of associated tools and technologies has had a big impact on the nature of the web metric investigations that have taken place. During this period search engines have indexed large amounts of the web, and provided advanced search functionality that has enabled increasingly complex investigations of web content and hyperlink networks. The Web 2.0 revolution saw the major search engines and social media services provide application programming interfaces (APIs) so that developers could automatically interact with a website's content, enabling larger scale investigations to take place. The establishing of semantic web standards promised a web where many of people's mundane computing tasks could be completed automatically by computer programs (BernersLee, Hendler and Lassila, 2001), while the development of cookies has enabled organizations to track users both within and across websites (Turow, 2011). However, technological progress has not been smooth and uninterrupted. Search engine and API functionality has in some instances been retracted, a semantic web has not emerged as quickly as some people expected, and restrictions have been placed on cookies by the European Commission (Information Commission Office, 2012). All these changes have had an effecton the types of web metrics that can be developed: those metrics that were available yesterday may not be available tomorrow, but new ones will emerge. Understanding how the tools have changed in the past can help us to understand how they may change in the future and help us to recognize potential areas of opportunity.

Summary

Whenever you can, count.

Sir Francis Galton (1884)

By this stage of the book it is to be hoped that librarians will have been persuaded about the potential for web metrics in their professional activities. Even if they are not quite ready to start advertising a web metric service to their users, they will at least recognize the importance of tracking their own metrics, and should be dissuaded from merely reaching for the closest numbers to hand.

This last chapter considers the potential future of web metrics and its relationship with librarians. As has been emphasized throughout this book new web technologies are frequently emerging, and so are the tools available to investigate them. It would be a fool's errand to attempt to predict the emergence of any specific new technology or tool, or the future dominance of any particular website, but it is reasonable to expect certain current trends to continue, such as the digitization of analogue content and the capturing of an increased amount of data from our daily lives. It may also be expected that much of this data will increasingly be open, although this is by no means definite. While some embrace the opportunities for new services that are offered by the sharing of information, others are concerned about the seemingly inevitable loss of privacy that comes with it. Each of these changes will have potential ramifications for web metrics and how they can be used by librarians.

Before we hurtle towards the future it is important to pause for a moment and reflect on how far we have come, not only in this book, but with web metrics.

How far we have come

As would be expected of a book called Web Metrics for Library and Information Professionals, this book has discussed a wide range of tools and sources. These have included: web crawlers, semantic web crawlers, social network sites, RDF triples, APIs, data extractors, data scrapers, data aggregators and graph visualization software. The full list would be a long one, and as we necessarily move rapidly from one technology to another, it is easy to overlook the scale of what is being discussed. After all, it is not unreasonable to liken the development of web crawlers and services such as Google Trends to early examples of scientific instruments that provided insights into the physical world.

Summary

Overview

This chapter and the next discuss digital libraries and the web through the lens of collections and collection building. This chapter begins with an exploration of the parallel but separate developments of the web, digital library repositories and hybrid libraries. It then turns to an examination of digital library repositories. Topics include numbers, usage and discover - ability of repositories; current position and roles; systems and software; federation and dissemination of repository content; next-generation repository systems; and cyberinfrastructure, data and e-research support. The next chapter moves on to the examination of hybrid libraries, then concludes with thoughts about advances, opportunities and challenges for both hybrid libraries and repositories.

The traditional library worldview

Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, conventional definitions of libraries and core assumptions of the general public have tended to emphasize their collections over their social roles. Services are sometimes mentioned, but the core assumptions are that libraries are collections of things (especially books) in fixed locations (buildings and later, online ‘virtual’ collections or repositories), and the role of libraries is to provide access and support for these collections on behalf of the communities they serve. In keeping with this set of core assumptions, library roles and services have tended to be defined through the collections lens: selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, managing, providing for access, answering questions and providing instruction about how to use collections. The result is that collections take center stage and dominate the current library worldview, or overall perspective from which people (including librarians) define libraries.

Carl Lagoze discusses the notion of library core assumptions as a ‘meme’ (a worldview) that has influenced digital library development. He contrasts the library meme with the web meme (2010, 48–71) and goes on to argue that over time, the library meme engendered digital library technical approaches and standards that did not play out well on the web as both the web and digital libraries evolved. Indeed, large-scale success for digital library researchers and practitioners has often depended on others being willing to adopt or accommodate digital library ways of doing things (as opposed to the ways things are typically done on the web).

Summary

Introduction

As we explained in Chapter 2, the term ‘web bibliometrics’ is used within this book to refer to the intersection between bibliometrics and web metrics, and involves the quantitative investigation of traditional publications (e.g., journals and books) through the web.

Traditional bibliometric investigations have not interrogated a universal library containing all bibliographic material that has ever been written, but rather are operationalized through a limited bibliographic resource, most often the Web of Science citation index. Such a bibliographic resource is restricted to a small proportion of the items that would be included within a universal library, and the information stored about the items is also restricted.

The web has made traditional bibliographic resources more accessible and extended potential bibliometric investigations in three ways. It:

Summary

Introduction

Much of the information that is placed online is not on an individual's or an institution's personal server, but rather makes use of external sites and services: images are uploaded to Flickr; videos to YouTube; presentations to SlideShare; and comments to Twitter. Such sites and services not only ease the publishing process for individuals, but also enable the delivery of content that has the potential to go viral. There are advantages and disadvantages for web metrics. On the one hand external sites and services can provide additional or more complete metrics: they provide a large amount of data structured in the same manner, and it is theoretically possible for all data that meets a particular criterion to be retrieved. On the other hand metrics are severely limited to the functionality that the service allows; although the data may be structured, the website may not facilitate access to this data.

With such a wide range of services available, from a web analytic point of view it is necessary for librarians to ask which services are worthwhile (Vucovich et al., 2013), and at what point to stop spending the time and effort on a service. As with the web metrics discussed in the previous chapter, social media metrics offer the potential for a far wider range of insights than those into a library's own web presence. A handful of individual sites and services with hundreds of millions of users can also provide insights into a range of realworld user behaviour, forming the basis of a wide range of webometric investigations.

This chapter starts by considering the types of social network site that are available and the types of social network site content that librarians may be interested in evaluating. This is followed by a closer look at some of the popular social network sites that may form the basis of a web metric investigation, previous investigations that have taken place, and some of the tools that are available.

Summary

Introduction

The web provides the opportunity for metrics to be used for a wide range of investigations, most of which may be broadly categorized as either evaluative or relational. This chapter broadly considers evaluative metrics for websites, blogs and other selfhosted content, Chapter 5 considers evaluative metrics for thirdparty social media services that a large number of individuals and organizations make use of, and Chapter 6 considers relational web metrics. In many ways the split between selfhosted and thirdparty hosted content is an artificial one. For example, millions of blogs are hosted on thirdparty sites such as Blogger.com, while individuals and organizations do not have to rely on a microblogging service such as Twitter, but could host their own microblogging service using open source software such as Status.net (http://status.net). The split reflects a significant difference in the control a user has over the data that is available and an uncertainty in the data that is collected.

When people or organizations host their own content on their own servers the only limitations of the information that they gather about the use of content on their site are technical problems to be overcome. However, when a website is integrated into the wider ecosystem there is more uncertainty: in the same way that there is no simple answer to how many web pages exist, there is not a simple answer to how many links a website has pointing to it or how many times it is mentioned. This is a problem that is made more difficult as the web is necessarily viewed through the limited view of a particular search engine or other tool, and the limitations of the tool are not always explicit. In comparison many of the large social network sites provide a restricted environment, where only certain behaviour is allowed (because of editorial and technical restrictions) and only certain data may be accessed.

These restrictions also reduce the ambiguity in the data available from the services; a Twitter account has a known number of followers, a Facebook user has a known number of friends, a YouTube video has a known number of views. We may disagree with the concept of Facebook's ‘Like’ button or what counts as a view on YouTube, but these are known discernible units.

Summary

Overview

This chapter examines the social value of digital libraries. It begins by exploring past and present understandings of the value of libraries to their communities. Taking a well known framework that lays out libraries’ social roles as a starting point, the chapter then suggests a possible new framework to describe the social roles of digital libraries. The remainder of the chapter explicates this potential framework, exploring aspects of each social role. The sections offer examples, consider benefits and challenges, and draw attention to key readings from digital library researchers and practitioners.

Introduction

This chapter treats aspects of the topic of the value of digital libraries to society. With respect to the concept map from Chapter 3 (Figure 3.1, p. 64), this chapter deals with the lower right quadrant – that is, the intersection of the communities that use digital libraries and their social and economic aspects. In a nutshell, the following sections center on social roles and how digital libraries might:

Summary

ACAS

Tel: +44 (0) 8457 474747

www.acas.org.uk

ACAS is the employment relations service for England, Scotland and Wales. It offers practical, independent and impartial advice to employers, employees and their representatives. ACAS encourages people to work together effectively, and aims to promote good practice in the workplace and to help resolve disputes. The website gives details of all the regional ACAS offices, which usually operate Monday–Friday, 08.00–18.00.

(See also their Code of Practice and Grievance Procedure guidelines on pages 88–9.)

Amicus

General Secretary, 35 King Street, London WC2E 8JG, UK www.amicustheunion.org

The Amicus website takes enquiries and the regional offices, etc. are also listed. Search the site for information on bullying, etc.

Andrea Adams Trust

Hova House, 1 Hova Villas, Hove, East Sussex BN3 3DH, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1273 704 900

Fax: +44 (0) 1273 704 900

E-mail: mail@andreaadamstrust.org

www.andreaadamstrust.org

The Andrea Adams Trust is the world's only non-political, nonprofit- making charity operating as a focus for the diverse and complex problems caused by bullying behaviour in the workplace.

Association of Personal Injury Lawyers

11 Castle Quay, Castle Boulevard, Nottingham NG7 1FW, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 870 609 1958

www.apil.com

The Association has over 2500 members able to give medical and legal advice; they undertake special plaintiff work.

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

BACP House, Unit 15 St John's Business Park, Lutterworth, Leicestershire LE17 4HB, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 870 443 5252

Fax: +44 (0) 870 443 5161

E-mail: bacp@bacp.co.uk

www.bacp.co.uk

The BACP offers guidance and advice.

Chartered Institution of Personnel and Development (CIPD)

151 The Broadway, London SW19 1JQ, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8612 6200

Fax +44 (0) 20 8612 6201

E-mail: www.cipd.co.uk/contactus

www.cipd.co.uk

This professional body for personnel and human resources managers offers guidance and advice on a range of personnel matters. Chartered Management Institute

3rd Floor, 2 Savoy Court, The Strand, London WC2R 0EZ, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7497 0580

Fax: +44(0) 20 7497 0463

E-mail: enquiries@managers.org.uk

www.managers.org.uk

The Institute is a professional management body offering guidance and advice.

Summary

Introduction

Since the introduction of computers in information handling about five decades ago, a number of types of electronic information services have become part of the information landscape. These require new approaches to organizing information that are quite different in some cases from those used in conventional libraries. Information contained in online databases, and of late in web and digital libraries, requires different tools and techniques to organize it in a way that will facilitate better access. While specific tools and techniques for the indexing and retrieval of largely unstructured online information resources emerged over the last four decades or so, alternative techniques for handling structured data have more recently appeared in other areas of computerized information handling like DBMS (database management systems) and expert and knowledge-based information systems. This chapter provides a brief overview of the various approaches to organizing information in non-library environments. Specifically, it examines the traditional online database approaches, DBMS approaches and modern intranet and web-based approaches to organizing information. The basic differences between these various approaches to organizing information are discussed, and references are given to the appropriate chapters discussing various new techniques such as metadata, ontology, information architecture and the semantic web. Today's information professionals need to have an understanding of all the different approaches to organizing information in order to be prepared for every aspect of library and information management and services.

Organization of electronic information

In the last chapter we discussed how classification schemes are used to assign class numbers to documents, which represent the subject contents of these documents and help us specify the locations of documents in a library's collection. However, for most users class numbers cannot be used to access items via catalogues, because they do not form part of the everyday vocabulary of the general users. In order to facilitate access to library catalogues, specific tools like subject heading lists were developed. Such tools specify natural language terms and phrases that can be assigned as subject headings or subject descriptors in catalogues and bibliographies.

With the introduction of computers in the late 1950s and early 1960s several databases of information resources – books, journals and conference papers, etc. – were developed. Such databases were produced by large libraries, like the National Library of Medicine in the US, or by commercial database producers.

Summary

At some point the Internet has to stop looking like the world's largest rummage sale. For taming this particular frontier the right people are librarians, not cowboys. The Internet is made of information and nobody knows more about how to order information than librarians.

(Rennie, 1997, 6)

Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by packrats and vandalized nightly.

(Ebert, 1998, 66)

Introduction

In Chapters 2 and 3 ‘Why digitize?’ and ‘Developing collections in the digital world’ we looked at how decisions might be made in libraries about digitizing local holdings, and how libraries are dealing with the plethora of digital information that they are buying or licensing from major information providers. There are new formats, new resources and new players in the traditional venues of information supply, and the changes are rapid and bewildering. In this chapter, we consider the complexity of the new information spaces within which libraries are operating. We show how the limitations of search engines create confusion and effort for users, and discuss alternative models of resource construction and description, and of metadata creation. We examine the crucial roles played by the library and librarians in bringing some order into the chaos.

This chapter will discuss the following issues:

• the world wide web: structure
• the world wide web: content
• libraries and the web
• search engines and their limitations
• resource description
• metadata
• types of metadata
• metadata schemas
• other metadata systems
• collection-level description
• metadata creation
• collaborative projects in resource description and discovery

The world wide web: structure

In Chapter 1 ‘Digital futures in current contexts’, we describe briefly the origins and structure of the internet and the world wide web, which are interdependent concepts, given that the structure grew out of the origins. The web is now the largest information space that the world has ever known, and it continues to grow exponentially. Any estimate of how large and complex the web is will always be inaccurate and out of date the instant it is computed. Nevertheless, the scale is frightening: recent analyses report that there are currently around 100 billion hypertext links on the web, and projects which are attempting to map these links suggest that the complexity is on a level with that of the human genome (Denison, 2001; Jackson, 2001; Nuttall, 2001).

Summary

The digital library provides convenience, customization, community, accessibility, and quality.

(Guenther, 2000, 39)

The user, having entered the portal, never leaves – the portal goes out into the information universe on his or her behalf.

(Brophy, 2001)

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is on the portal as a means of disseminating and providing information in the digital world. Portals are points of focus where people plan and begin voyages on the internet. Portal content and design is often about developing a desire in the user for information of a type that will ensure they will return, and frequently, to the portal. Thus, concepts of marketing and brand loyalty will be discussed here, along with the synergy of the information resources accessible, the various products offered, the delivery of what the user wants, and the price they are prepared to pay. Many service providers will need to consider their ability to personalize and customize access to portal and digital library resources. The portal and personalized information environment (PIE) may be the answer to satisfying the core objective of easing the information glut that prevents users finding the most appropriate and relevant information. Will the portal be an answer to information overload, or is the portal maybe a Trojan horse of e-commerce companies aiming to reduce our individual choices and decrease the role of the library?

This chapter will discuss the following issues:

• defining the users’ digital content dilemma
• delivering content with portals
• the portal as a community tool
• the importance of content
• branding and marketing in the portal arena
• delivering information and delighting the user
• personalization.

Defining the users’ digital content dilemma

The delivery of well-designed and developed digital library resources is only one aspect of the solution needed from the user's perspective. The other aspects revolve around finding and using information as quickly as possible in this digital era. As described in Chapter 1 ‘Digital futures in current contexts’, information growth is exponential, and selecting the most relevent materials has become a distinct challenge. The Search Rage study (Sullivan, 2001) suggests that almost one-third of Americans do more than one internet search every day and 80% at least once a week, with 60% accruing more than one hour of searching per week.

Summary

Introduction

This chapter describes the phases involved in developing and establishing research data management (RDM) services. It draws on the Digital Curation Centre's programme of engagement with universities in the UK, and from working alongside related projects developing RDM services. The chapter envisages a development cycle that involves a range of the stakeholders and actors discussed in Chapter 3.

The RDM development cycle is viewed here as a recurring sequence of six phases, familiar from other forms of service design. The first involves envisioning the need for change, then initiating a process to bring that change about. Next is a discovery phase, characterizing the data management lifecycle and its stakeholders to scope their requirements for change. This enables the design of policies and services to address gaps between what is currently done and what is needed. Alpha and beta stages of the design phase test the ground for the implementation phase. Lastly, evaluation of the process and its outputs should ensure that what has been learned feeds into the continuous improvement of services provided to researchers and other customers, such as funding bodies, research users and the broader public.

In section 2 we describe the six phases identified in Figure 4.1: envision, initiate, discover, design, implement and evaluate. These are informed by service design principles and established practice in business process reengineering (BPR) (Kettinger et al., 1997).

Developing a research data management service in a university is like business process reengineering in some respects. For example, senior management need to support it, customer requirements need to be met, and internal stakeholders’ buyin is essential. RDM is also like BPR in that its outputs typically include tools for transforming digital data and the workflows around data production. Also like BPR, cultural change may be at least as significant to success as the enhanced capabilities that are on offer from changed systems.

There are also important differences between the RDM context and business process change. Section 3 considers the research data management context, including the norms of practice with which service development must contend. Research contexts are unlike business processes in that they are typically more complex – i.e., the activities involved are difficult, uncertain, and with highly variable levels of interdependence and standardization.

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Glossary

3 - Data collection tools

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Dedication

9 - The future of web metrics and the library and information professional

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Index

4 - Digital library collections: repositories

Summary

7 - Exploring traditional publications in a new environment

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5 - Evaluating social media impact

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Index

4 - Evaluating impact on the web

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6 - Social roles of digital libraries

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Bibliography

31 - Related Families

C - Advice centres

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2 - Information organization in non-library environments

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5 - Resource discovery, description and use

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32 - Related Corporate Bodies

7 - Portals and personalization: mechanisms for end-user access

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4 - A pathway to sustainable research data services: from scoping to sustainability

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