Archive for the ‘library and information science’ Category

Last call for public comments: NISO RP-45-202X, Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern

November 26th, 2023

I’m pleased that the draft Recommended Practice, NISO RP-45-202X, Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) is open for public comment through December 2, 2023. I’m a member of the NISO Working Group which is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in collaboration with my Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science project.

The NISO CREC Recommended Practice will address the dissemination of retraction information (metadata & display) to support a consistent, timely transmission of that information to the reader (machine or human), directly or through citing publications, addressing requirements both of the retracted publication and of the retraction notice or expression of concern. It will not address the questions of what a retraction is or why an object is retracted.

NISO CREC

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Fully funded PhD program in Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, deadline December 1, 2021

November 2nd, 2021

Dr. Jodi Schneider’s Information Quality Lab invites applications for fully funded PhD students in Information Sciences at the School of Information Sciences (iSchool), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Current areas of interest include:

  • scientific information and how it is used by researchers and the public
  • scholarly communication
  • controversies within science
  • potential sources of bias in scientific research
  • confidence in applying science to public policy

Candidates should have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in any field (e.g., mathematics, sciences, information sciences, philosophy, liberal arts, etc.). The most essential skills are strong critical thinking and excellent written and spoken English. Interest or experience in research, academic writing, and interdisciplinary inquiry are strongly preferred.

Students in the Information Quality Lab develop both domain expertise and technical skills. Examples of relevant domains include public policy, public health, libraries, journalism, publishing, citizen science, information services, and life sciences research. Examples of technical skills include knowledge representation, text and data analytics, news analytics, argumentation analysis, document analysis, qualitative analysis, user-centered design, and mixed methods.

Examples of current Information Quality Lab projects:
REDUCING THE INADVERTENT SPREAD OF RETRACTED SCIENCE: SHAPING A RESEARCH AND IMPLEMENTATION AGENDA (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation) – stakeholder-engaged research to understand the continued citation of retracted research, currently focusing on standards development and raising awareness of what various stakeholders across scholarly communication can do.

STRENGTHENING PUBLIC LIBRARIES’ INFORMATION LITERACY SERVICES THROUGH AN UNDERSTANDING OF KNOWLEDGE BROKERS’ ASSESSMENT OF TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION (Institute of Museum and Library Services Early Career Development) – Scientific misinformation and pseudoscience have a significant impact on public deliberation. This project will conduct case studies on COVID-19, climate change, and artificial intelligence to understand how journalists, Wikipedia editors, activists, and public librarians broker knowledge to the public. We will develop actionable strategies for reducing public misinformation about scientific and technical information.

USING NETWORK ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT AND ASSESS CONFIDENCE IN RESEARCH SYNTHESIS (National Science Foundation CAREER) – developing and testing a novel framework to evaluate sets of expert literature for potential sources of bias and to allow evidence-seekers to swiftly determine the level of consensus within a body of literature and identify the risk factors which could impact the reliability of the research.

Dr. Jodi Schneider studies the science of science through the lens of arguments, evidence, and persuasion. She seeks to advance our understanding of scientific communication in order to develop tools and strategies to manage information overload in science, using mixed methods including semantic web technology (metadata/ontologies/etc.), network analysis, text mining and user-centered design. Her long-term research agenda analyzes controversies applying science to public policy; how knowledge brokers influence citizens; and whether controversies are sustained by citizens’ disparate interpretations of scientific evidence and its quality. Prior to joining the iSchool, Schneider served as a postdoctoral scholar at the National Library of Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biomedical Informatics, and INRIA, the national French Computer Science Research Institute. She is an NSF CAREER awardee and holds an Institute of Museum and Library Services Early Career Development grant. Her past projects have been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, Science Foundation Ireland, and the European Commission.

iSchool PhD PROGRAM
iSchool PhD students have backgrounds in a broad range of fields, including the social sciences, sciences, arts, humanities, computing, and artificial intelligence. Accepted students are guaranteed five years of funding in the form of research and teaching assistantships, which include tuition waivers and a stipend. Additional funding is available for conference travel.

Our PhD program in Information Science is the oldest existing LIS doctoral program in the U.S. with 270 graduates. Recent graduates are now faculty members at institutions such as the University of Michigan, University of Washington, University of Maryland, Drexel, and UCLA, professionals at Baidu, Google, Twitter, Uber and AbbVie, and academic library professionals at the Library of Congress, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago.

APPLICATION PROCESS
For more information about the application process, please visit: https://ischool.illinois.edu/degrees-programs/phd-information-sciences/apply
Next application deadline: December 1, 2021
(This is an annual opportunity.)

QUESTIONS

For additional information about the iSchool PhD program, see https://ischool.illinois.edu/degrees-programs/phd-information-sciences

For questions about the program, please contact Prof. Michael Twidale, PhD Program Director, at ischool-phd@illinois.edu.

For questions, about the Information Quality Lab, please contact Dr. Jodi Schneider.

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Library Linked Data at ALA 2014

June 6th, 2014

Linked Data is big at the 2014 American Library Association meeting! All day Friday & Saturday, plus Sunday morning, you can get your recommended dose of Library Linked Data. See you in Las Vegas?

Friday June 27
I’ll be speaking and moderating a question session in this full-day preconference.
Practical Linked Data with Open Source (separate ticket needed)
Friday, June 27, 2014 – 8:30am to 4:00pm
N258, Las Vegas Convention Center
This pre-conference combines theory and practice by giving participants a working knowledge of the creation and use of linked data and linked data applications. This session will ground participants in linked data models and patterns through hands-on exercises. Participants will go home with a working knowledge of the state of the art of linked data in open source library systems and the use of linked data to solve metadata problems across libraries, archives, and museums

Saturday June 28
I will be speaking about international developments in LLD in Part I:
International Developments in Library Linked Data: Think Globally, Act Globally (Part One)
Saturday, June 28, 2014 – 8:30am to 10:00am
N264, Las Vegas Convention Center

International Developments in Library Linked Data: Think Globally, Act Globally – Part Two
Saturday, June 28, 2014 – 10:30am to 11:30am
S230, Las Vegas Convention Center
Libraries have the potential to make major contributions to the Semantic Web, but are still emerging as global participants. RDA implementation and the BibFrame initiative have drawn fresh attention to the promise and potential of linked data. What are the international developments in linked data, emerging from libraries and other memory institutions? Come hear our speakers address current projects, opportunities and challenges.

Taking action: Linked data for digital collection managers
Saturday, June 28, 2014 – 1:00pm to 2:30pm
S222, Las Vegas Convention Center

The linked data movement has gained momentum. But how does paradigm shift affect digital collection workflows? This workshop will provide key theoretical concepts of linked data and engaging hands-on activities demonstrating how CONTENTdm metadata can be transformed into linked data. The workshop will also provide a forum to discuss how linked data might alter our current practices and workflows. This workshop is geared toward beginners and is designed for curious exploration and active learning.

OCLC The Power of Shared Data: What’s New and What’s Next?
Saturday, June 28, 2014 – 3:00pm to 4:00pm
N116, Las Vegas Convention Center
Join OCLC’s Ted Fons and Richard Wallis to understand how OCLC is leveraging your WorldCat holdings to give your institution broader visibility on the Web. In this session, we will detail current features, planned enhancements and new developments related to linked data.

Sunday June 29
Linked Library Data Interest Group
Sunday, June 29, 2014 – 8:30am to 10:00am
N237, Las Vegas Convention Center
Talk by Jon Phipps & discussion to follow. (Sunday, sadly, I’m on a plane to another meeting.)

Jon Phipps, of Metadata Management, will present a talk on:

RDA and LOD — FTW or WTF? : A Fair and Balanced Point of View.

Is RDA just “the rules” or is it a robust bibliographic metadata model designed specifically to support rich, FRBRized, distributed LOD that just happens to come with several thousand “pages” of rules? What’s this “unconstrained” stuff? Why does RDA RDF have URIs I can’t “read” and will never remember (and what are lexical aliases)? Why are there so many definitions for “Work” anyway? How is RDA handling versioning and releases? How is RDA using Git and GitHub? Why does any of this matter to my data and, more importantly, me?

You’ve got questions? Maybe Jon Phipps has some answers (except for that last one). Jon is a partner in Metadata Management Associates, a consultancy specializing in, wait for it … metadata management, and has been collaborating with various groups of well-intentioned folks trying to define RDA as a data model for what seems like centuries, and thinks that quite recently the JSC has pretty much nailed it.

A question and answer period and a lively managed discussion will follow the presentation. More info & speaker biography.

Understanding Schema.org
Sunday, June 29, 2014 – 10:30am to 11:30am
S230, Las Vegas Convention Center
Jason Clark and Dan Scott

Schema.org is an effort among major search engines to promote better linking of Web content through the use of metadata attributes in HTML markup, allowing for improved access to digital objects. The ALCTS/LITA Metadata Standards Committee invites you to hear speakers who are active in schema.org development in libraries, and who will discuss initiatives in this area within the GLAM community which promote a broader understanding of the development of bibliographic information among these communities.


Kudos to the LITA / ALCTS Linked Library Data Interest Group and ALCTS/LITA Metadata Standards Committee for facilitating a great program!

Above information from the American Library Association and its Linked Library Data Interest Group (updated June 17): double-check room numbers at the conference website, and add sessions to your conference scheduler.

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Error reporting: it’s easier in Kindle

May 9th, 2012

One thing I can say about Kindle: error reporting is easier.

You report problems in context, by selecting the offending text. No need to explain where - just what the problem is.

Feedback receipt is confirmed, along with the next steps for how it will be used.

By contrast, to report problems to academic publishers, you often must fill out an elaborate form (e.g. Springer or Elsevier). Digging up contact information often requires going to another page (e.g. ACM.). Some make you *both* go to another page to leave feedback and then fill out a form (e.g. EBSCO). Do any academic publishers keep the context of what journal article or book chapter you’re reporting a problem with? (If so, I’ve never noticed!)

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Karen Coyle on Library Linked Data: let’s create data not records

January 12th, 2012

There have been some interesting posts on BIBFRAME recently (noted a few of them).

Karen Coyle also pointed to her recent blog post on transforming bibliographic data into RDF. As she says, for a real library linked data environment,

we need to be creating data, not records, and that we need to create the data first, then build records with it for those applications where records are needed.

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Code4Lib 2012 talk proposals are out

November 21st, 2011

Code4Lib2012 talk proposals are now on the wiki. This year there are 72 proposals for 20-25 slots. I pulled out the talks mentioning semantics (linked data, semantic web, microdata, RDF) for my own convenience (and maybe yours).

Property Graphs And TinkerPop Applications in Digital Libraries

  • Brian Tingle, California Digital Library

TinkerPop is an open source software development group focusing on technologies in the graph database space.
This talk will provide a general introduction to the TinkerPop Graph Stack and the property graph model is uses. The introduction will include code examples and explanations of the property graph models used by the Social Networks in Archival Context project and show how the historical social graph is exposed as a JSON/REST API implemented by a TinkerPop rexster Kibble that contains the application’s graph theory logic. Other graph database applications possible with TinkerPop such as RDF support, and citation analysis will also be discussed.

HTML5 Microdata and Schema.org

  • Jason Ronallo, North Carolina State University Libraries

When the big search engines announced support for HTML5 microdata and the schema.org vocabularies, the balance of power for semantic markup in HTML shifted.

  • What is microdata?
  • Where does microdata fit with regards to other approaches like RDFa and microformats?
  • Where do libraries stand in the worldview of Schema.org and what can they do about it?
  • How can implementing microdata and schema.org optimize your sites for search engines?
  • What tools are available?

“Linked-Data-Ready” Software for Libraries

  • Jennifer Bowen, University of Rochester River Campus Libraries

Linked data is poised to replace MARC as the basis for the new library bibliographic framework. For libraries to benefit from linked data, they must learn about it, experiment with it, demonstrate its usefulness, and take a leadership role in its deployment.

The eXtensible Catalog Organization (XCO) offers open-source software for libraries that is “linked-data-ready.” XC software prepares MARC and Dublin Core metadata for exposure to the semantic web, incorporating FRBR Group 1 entities and registered vocabularies for RDA elements and roles. This presentation will include a software demonstration, proposed software architecture for creation and management of linked data, a vision for how libraries can migrate from MARC to linked data, and an update on XCO progress toward linked data goals.

Your Catalog in Linked Data

  • Tom Johnson, Oregon State University Libraries

Linked Library Data activity over the last year has seen bibliographic data sets and vocabularies proliferating from traditional library
sources. We’ve reached a point where regular libraries don’t have to go it alone to be on the Semantic Web. There is a quickly growing pool of things we can actually ”link to”, and everyone’s existing data can be immediately enriched by participating.

This is a quick and dirty road to getting your catalog onto the Linked Data web. The talk will take you from start to finish, using Free Software tools to establish a namespace, put up a SPARQL endpoint, make a simple data model, convert MARC records to RDF, and link the results to major existing data sets (skipping conveniently over pesky processing time). A small amount of “why linked data?” content will be covered, but the primary goal is to leave you able to reproduce the process and start linking your catalog into the web of data. Appropriate documentation will be on the web.

NoSQL Bibliographic Records: Implementing a Native FRBR Datastore with Redis

  • Jeremy Nelson, Colorado College, jeremy.nelson@coloradocollege.edu

In October, the Library of Congress issued a news release, “A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age” outlining a list of requirements for a New Bibliographic Framework Environment. Responding to this challenge, this talk will demonstrate a Redis (http://redis.io) FRBR datastore proof-of-concept that, with a lightweight python-based interface, can meet these requirements.

Because FRBR is an Entity-Relationship model; it is easily implemented as key-value within the primitive data structures provided by Redis. Redis’ flexibility makes it easy to associate arbitrary metadata and vocabularies, like MARC, METS, VRA or MODS, with FRBR entities and inter-operate with legacy and emerging standards and practices like RDA Vocabularies and LinkedData.

ALL TEH METADATAS! or How we use RDF to keep all of the digital object metadata formats thrown at us.

  • Declan Fleming, University of California, San Diego

What’s the right metadata standard to use for a digital repository? There isn’t just one standard that fits documents, videos, newspapers, audio files, local data, etc. And there is no standard to rule them all. So what do you do? At UC San Diego Libraries, we went down a conceptual level and attempted to hold every piece of metadata and give each holding place some context, hopefully in a common namespace. RDF has proven to be the ideal solution, and allows us to work with MODS, PREMIS, MIX, and just about anything else we’ve tried. It also opens up the potential for data re-use and authority control as other metadata owners start thinking about and expressing their data in the same way. I’ll talk about our workflow which takes metadata from a stew of various sources (CSV dumps, spreadsheet data of varying richness, MARC data, and MODS data), normalizes them into METS by our Metadata Specialists who create an assembly plan, and then ingests them into our digital asset management system. The result is a HTML, RSS, METS, XML, and opens linked data possibilities that we are just starting to explore.

UDFR: Building a Registry using Open-Source Semantic Software

  • Stephen Abrams, Associate Director, UC3, California Digital Library
  • Lisa Dawn Colvin, UDFR Project Manager, California Digital Library

Fundamental to effective long-term preservation analysis, planning, and intervention is the deep understanding of the diverse digital formats used to represent content. The Unified Digital Format Registry project (UDFR, https://bitbucket.org/udfr/main/wiki/Home) will provide an open source platform for an online, semantically-enabled registry of significant format representation information.

We will give an introduction to the UDFR tool and its use within a preservation process.

We will also discuss our experiences of integrating disparate data sources and models into RDF: describing our iterative data modeling process and decisions around integrating vocabularies, data sources and provenance representation.

Finally, we will share how we extended an existing open-source semantic wiki tool, OntoWiki, to create the registry.

saveMLAK: How Librarians, Curators, Archivists and Library Engineers Work Together with Semantic MediaWiki after the Great Earthquake of Japan

  • Yuka Egusa, Senior Researcher of National Institute of Educational Policy Research
  • Makoto Okamoto, Chief Editor of Academic Resource Guide (ARG)

In March 11th 2011, the biggest earthquake and tsunami in the history attacked a large area of northern east region of Japan. A lot of people have worked together to save people in the area. For library community, a wiki named “savelibrary” was launched for sharing information on damages and rescues on the next day of the earthquake. Later then people from museum curators, archivists and community learning centers started similar projects. In April we joined to a project “saveMLAK”, and launched a wiki site using Semantic MediaWiki under http://savemlak.jp/.

As of November 2011, information on over 13,000 cultural organizations are posted on the site by 269 contributors since the launch. The gathered information are organized along with Wiki categories of each type of facilities such library, museum, school, etc. We have held eight edit-a-thons to encourage people to contribute to the wiki.

We will report our activity, how the libraries and museums were damaged and have been recovered with lots of efforts, and how we can do a new style of collaboration with MLAK community, Wiki and other voluntary communities at the crisis.


Conversion by Wikibox, tweaked in Textwrangler. Trimmed email addresses, otherwise these are as-written. Did I miss one? Let me know!

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Support EPUB!

November 7th, 2011

EPUB is just HTML + CSS in a tasty ZIP package. Let’s have more of it!

That’s the message of this 3 minute spiel I gave David Weinberger when he interviewed me at LOD-LAM back in June. Resulting video is on YouTube and below.

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Web of data for books?

November 5th, 2011

If you were building a user interface for the Web of data, for books, it just might look like Small Demons.

Unfortunately you can’t see much without logging in, so go get yourself a beta account. (I’ve already complained about asking for a birthday. My new one is 29 Feb 1904, you can help me celebrate in 2012!)

Their data on Ireland is pretty sketchy so far. They do offer to help you buy Guiness on Amazon though. :)

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Frank van Harmelen’s laws of information

November 1st, 2011

What are the laws of information? Frank van Harmelen proposes seven laws of information science in his keynote to the Semantic Web community at ISWC2011. ((He presents them as “computer science laws” underlying the Semantic Web; yet they are laws about knowledge. This makes them candidate laws of information science, in my terminology.))

  1. Factual knowledge is a graph. ((“The vast majority of our factual knowledge consists of simple relationships between things,
    represented as an ground instance of a binary predicate.
    And lots of these relations between things together form a giant graph.”))
  2. Terminological knowledge is a hierarchy.
  3. Terminological knowledge is much smaller ((by 1-2 orders of magnitude)) than the factual knowledge.
  4. Terminological knowledge is of low complexity. ((This is seen in “the unreasonable effectiveness of low-expressive KR”: “the information universe is apparently structured in such a way that the double exponential worse case complexity bounds don’t hit us in practice.”))
  5. Heterogeneity is unavoidable. ((But heterogeneity is solvable through mostly social, cultural, and economic means (algorithms contribute a little bit). ))
  6. Publication should be distributed, computation should be centralized to decrease speed: “The Web is not a database, and I don’t think it ever will be.”
  7. Knowledge is layered.
What do you think? If they are laws, can they be proven/disproven?

Semantic Web vocabularies in the Tower of Babel

I wish every presentation came with this sort of summary: slides and transcript, presented in a linear fashion. But these laws deserve more attention and discussion–especially from information scientists. So I needed something even punchier to share, (prioritized thanks to Karen).

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