Archive for June, 2009

Paper as a Social Object: “creating conversations, collecting scribbles, instigating adventures”

June 19th, 2009

I love it when paper and digital formats are both used for what they do best. Like the Incidental:
“The Incidental is [a] feedback loop made out of paper and human interactions – timebound, situated and circulating in a place.” [Schulz and Webb]

annotated incidental 4/25/09

annotated incidental 4/25/09

“Over in Milan at the Salone di Mobile they’ve created a thing called The Incidental. It’s like a guide to the event but it’s user generated and a new one is printed every day. When I say user generated, I mean that literally. People grab the current day’s copy and scribble on it. So they annotate the map with their personal notes and recommendations. Each day the team collect the scribbled on ones, scan them in and print an amalgamated version out again. You have to see it, to get it. But it’s great to see someone doing something exciting with ‘almost instant’ printing and for a real event and a real client too.

The actual paper is beautiful and very exciting. It has a fabulous energy that has successfully migrated from the making of the thing to the actual thing. Which is also brilliant and rare. [Ben Terrett as quoted by Schulz and Webb]

The Incidental was created at and for Milan’s furniture/design fair with funding by The British Council.

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JCDL 2009 Poster Session in Second Life

June 18th, 2009

Last night I popped into Second Life for a poster session. JCDL 2009 is going on in Austin this week, and several of the posters were on display in the Digital Preserve region of SL. Chris Beer asked for some screenshots.

Here’s the whole poster space from outside. (Click each image for the ginormous full-size screenshot.)
Poster Session Entrance
My avatar (TR Telling) is in a bright orange UIUC GSLIS T-shirt, thanks to a class tour Richard Urban led last year. With a closer look, you can spot the screen that was used to project MinuteMadness.

Here are two posters, “Finding Centuries-Old Hyperlinks” and “Toward Automatic Generation of Image-Text Document Surrogates to Optimize Cognition”.
Two Posters: "Finding Centuries-Old Hyperlinks" and "Toward Automatic Generation of Image-Text Document Surrogates to Optimize Cognition"Poster numbers were used for the best poster competition, I believe.

Large text-sizes really help viewing from afar; deft users can get a closer view with ‘mouse look’. I took a second screenshot of the “Finding Centuries-Old Hyperlinks” poster since it was my favorite. Xiaoyue (Elaine) Wang and Eamonn Keogh suggest cross-referencing manuscript pages using icon similarity.
Closer View of "Finding Centuries-Old Hyperlinks"Handouts could be really useful for a SL poster session — I had to settle for taking screenshots. Clicking on the poster could give a copy of the poster, which could include links to more information. A mailbox could facilitate sending messages to the presenters.

One presenter ‘attended’ from New York. Several people are gathered around her poster, which generated a lot of discussion.
postertalk
In the left corner you can see one of the more visually striking posters, a study of LIS students’ impressions of the Kindle, after using it for something like 3 weeks.

To the right of the entrance is a sign that says “What did you think?”, which linked to a comment form to be completed on the Web. I succeeded at that box, but wasn’t able to figure out how to submit a second, in-world comment form.

My avatar is just stepping down from a rotating lazy-susan which held a striking comment box. Getting a comment form and filling it out was straightforward. However, dragging and dropping the form back onto the box, as suggested, didn’t work for me.

I had several interesting conversations, most notably a chat outside in the Poster Garden with Javier Velasco Martin who helped build and furnish the Preserve. Ed Fox was easily identifiable: his avatar’s first name is EdFox. For social gatherings, handles are useful, but for professional gatherings it can be reassuring to know who you’re talking with.

Here’s one last look at the dome from the outside. I love the bright aqua JCDL lettering. And, what trip to Second Life would be complete without some flying?
Flying by the JCDL Poster Session Dome With a closer look, you can see the large comment box in the center of the dome.

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Surveillance, Personal Edition

June 2nd, 2009

Have you ever kept a calendar, tracked what you eat, or saved receipts? Simple data, like how much soda you drink, can tell a story:

Giving up Coke (or not) by Tim Graham

Giving up Coke (or not) by Tim Graham


In fact, what you drink can tell several stories. Here’s a more elaborate example, also by Tim Graham:
"I drink therefore I am" by Tim Graham

"I drink therefore I am" by Tim Graham


This is what we call self-surveillance.

What is self-surveillance? Read my article! (Also in PDF). Or Nathan Yau’s blog.

Also added to to the publications page: Nathan Yau & Jodi Schneider “Self-Surveillance,” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Vol. 35, No. 5 June/July 2009, 24-30. [HTML][PDF] . Thanks to Diane Neal (NCCU/U. Western Ontario), who edited the special section on Visual Representation, Search and Retrieval for this issue, and to the Bulletin’s editor Irene Travis and designer Carla Badaracco (who made the 16 figures work for screen and print).

Hat tip to Jenny Levine, whose “How Public is your Privacy” often comes to mind.

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