NJSLA Blog

Modeling Information Seeking Behavior in Social Media — Wednesday, May 13 at Rutgers

Library & Information Science Seminar
School of Communication and Information
13 May 2009, Noon – 1:30pm, SCI Faculty Lounge (room 323, 4 Huntington Street, New Brunswick)

Modeling Information Seeking Behavior in Social Media

Eugene Agichtein, Emory University

Abstract: Social media is transforming how we seek and find information online: it is now a prominent part of the web information ecosystem, a powerful platform for information seeking, and a planet-scale experimental testbed for studying information seeking behavior and interactions. In particular, the Collaborative Question Answering (CQA) model has emerged as a potential alternative to automatic web search: participants post questions and answers, and rate and evaluate each other's contributions. The resulting archives of both the content and the context of the interactions complement the more limited web search interaction data, and provide a testbed for development of novel natural language processing, text mining, and information retrieval techniques. I will describe our progress on mining various traces of information seeking behavior in social media for improving search relevance, estimating content quality, and search intent and satisfaction with the obtained results.

Biosketch: Dr. Eugene Agichtein is an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at Emory University where he founded the Intelligent Information Access Laboratory. He is also affiliated with the Computational & Life Sciences program and the Linguistics program at Emory, and with the Web Science Initiative at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Eugene’s research interests are in information retrieval, user modeling, text and data mining, and their application to social computing and medical informatics. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2005, and a B.S. in Engineering from the Cooper Union in 1998. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Text Mining, Search, and Navigation group at Microsoft Research, and a consulting researcher at Yahoo! Research. Eugene's research has been recognized with a Microsoft ‘Beyond Search’ award, and ICDE 2003 "best student paper" award, and a SIGMOD 2006 "best paper" award.

Further Information: For further information about Eugene’s visit, including the opportunity to meet with him while he’s here, please contact Nick Belkin, [email protected], 732 932 7500 x8271.

See this event on the NJSLA Calendar and add it to Outlook.

Pres4Lib2009: A Camp for Library Speakers and Trainers — Friday, June 12 at Princeton Public Library

Looking to hone your presentation skills, become a better speaker, or develop your training/presenting toolkit? If so, you will not want to miss the inaugural Pres4Lib Camp on June 12, 2009 in Princeton, NJ. The camp, hosted by the bloggers of Library Garden and friends, is being sponsored by SJRLC, CJRLC and the Princeton Public Library. The camp is open to anyone who works in libraries or with libraries and librarians.

Cost for the all-day session is $25. More information is on the Library Garden blog.

See this event on the NJSLA Calendar and add it to Outlook.

Alice Rankin Distinguished Lecture--Peter Bromberg on Leadership and Remaining Relevant

Are you remaining relevant in times of change? 

Peter Bromberg, Assistant Director, South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, gave an excellent talk  The Value of Leadership, the Leadership of Value: Remaining Relevant in Times of Change as our honored Alice Rankin Distinguished Lecturer on April 23rd.   As we have all discovered, things are moving rapidly,  and we must adapt to thrive. In Peter’s talk he notes that nothing is inherently valuable, only our customers’ perception of what is of value  to them.  Sort of the opposite of “Build it and they will come.”

Peter  Bromberg certainly practices what he preaches. He developed QandANJ.org, the country’s first collaborative virtual reference service,  founded Library Garden, a popular team blog, and was named a 2008 Mover and Shaker by Library Journal. 

Peter began with the cautionary tale of  Encyclopedia Britannica. Their scholarly print publication thrived as a model for over 200 years.   Between 1990 and 1993, they lost 80% of their revenue from competition from Bill Gates’ upstart Encarta CD Rom.  Britannica’s unwillingness to collaborate with Gates and realize they were in the information business, not academic publishing, nearly put them out of business.  Fast forward to the free Wikipedia in 2003  and then to 2009 when after much resistance, there will be a new version of Britannica online allowing users to edit entries—emulating the Wikipedia. 

As Peter notes, history used to “freeze and unfreeze” and was fairly stable over long periods of time.  We are now in a period of fluidity where changes happens in unexpected  microbursts, not macrowaves. The technologies which disrupted Encyclopedia Britannica, and all the rest of us, are now compacting over time in their frequency.

Peter’s advice is to keep strategic thinking, but  throw out long-range planning.  Accept that we are in permanent beta and must be in a continual state of learning.  Our users used to be in an information desert and now using the internet is like getting a drink from a fire hydrant.  Expectations have changed, and new value propositions include better, cheaper faster.  Libraries must move from a storehouse model  to the business of filtering information to help people to make connections and bring meaning—like the function of the human brain.

Our value has to be user centered—what matters is how you make users feel about themselves in relation to you.  As Peter pointed out, what we value is emotional, not rational,  and rationality leads to conclusions, but emotions lead to actions.  It’s okay to provide statistics to people, but also include stories and pictures. 

Many times people don’t know what they want until they get it;  as Henry Ford said, if he’d asked what people wanted they would have said faster horses.  Peter encouraged us to begin reaching out to users in relatively easy ways he called “low hanging fruit” such as RSS , TOC alerts, continual contact, a website, classes, screencasts, IM reference, and especially being kind and caring—and faking it when we don’t feel like it!

And context matters!  Package your services instead of loading people down with too much. Present to them three databases which will give them info they can’t get anywhere else, save them time, etc. 

Peter drew some very interesting parallels between continual learning and creativity and taking improv classes (which he does) as a way of letting go of fear of failure and giving up the illusion of control—which we never had anyway. He notes that messing up is a positive sign, otherwise we will never get any better.   Improv also requires teamwork ;  there are no one person improv shows, and each performer is empowered.   All applicable to our roles in libraries! 

One thing I will keep in mind from his talk for a  positive outlook is “There are no mistakes, only interesting choices”, so go ahead and make them!

Peter’s talk and slides are available at PeterBromberg.com/sla

Photos from Peter Bromberg's 'Alice Rankin Distinguished Lecture' Held April 23 at Rutgers

Peter Bromberg gave a great lecture Thursday night, April 23, at Rutgers on The Value of Leadership, the Leadership of Value. We'll soon post more on the event, but for now please enjoy the photo slideshow below.

Top Ten Reasons to Come Hear Peter Bromberg (Thursday, April 23 in New Brunswick)

Time's running out to register online for Peter Bromberg's talk, The Value of Leadership, the Leadership of Value: Remaining Relevant in Times of Change. For more information on Pete and the program, see the blog post.

Please remember to register by Friday, April 17, so we have an accurate count to give to the Rutgers Conference Center. (You can pay by check even if you register online.)

Without further ado ... Pete tells us the Top Ten Reasons you should come to hear what he has to say. Actually, it's all about YOU and what YOU'LL DO (well, number 9 might not be all about you):

1. Learn how to stop worrying and love disruptive technologies.
2. Find out whether the speed of light is fast enough service, or do they really want it yesterday?
3. See a great slide of a brain made out of lime green Jell-O.
4. Find out what a "lucky saucer" is and why you have to have one.
5. Learn to go beyond customer expectations. (If Henry Ford responded to customer requests, he would have bred faster horses.)
6. Find out whether that 100-page strategic plan makes a better door stop or bird cage lining.
7. Find out what you may have in common with British Elementary School children.
8. Laugh.
9. Be either greatly relieved or greatly disturbed to learn that when it comes to value, it's not about you. 
10. Find out why, after all, libraries should be in the filtering business.

Hope to see you there!

Eric Schwarz, NJSLA President (newjersey.sla AT gmail.com)

See this event on the NJSLA Calendar and add it to Outlook.

SLA-NY Chapter Program

Posted on behalf of Judith Albert, NY Chapter Publicity Chair

 

WHEN: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 5:30 - 7:45 PM

Networking Reception: 5:30 - 6:30 PM

Presentation including Q&A: 6:30 - 7:45 PM

 

PROGRAM: The Honorable Laura Ward of the NYC Criminal Courts will tell

us the intriguing story of how she and her colleagues in the United

States Attorney's Office successfully prosecuted notorious mob boss John

Gotti. The NY Times referred to this as stunning accomplishment as "a

scintillating triumph for a team of Federal prosecutors who, with years

of diligence and a few good breaks, breathed new life into a tired old

script and shattered the maddening aura of invincibility of a notorious

gangster who called himself a plumbing salesman." (April 3, 1992)

Documents related to Judge Ward's presentation are available at:

http://units.sla.org/chapter/cny/downloads.htm

 

WHERE: Thomson Reuters, 195 Broadway (at Fulton Street ), Thomson Hall,

4th Floor. Please join us in thanking Thomson Reuters which is donating

the venue and catering for this event. Thomson Reuters is pleased to be

an SLA-NY Centennial Year sponsor.

 

DIRECTIONS: A, C - to Broadway & Nassau; J, M, Z - to Fulton & Broadway;

2, 3, 4, 5 - to Fulton & Broadway.

RSVP: To Vida Cohen at [email protected] by close of business Tuesday,

April 21st . In honor of its Centennial and of the outstanding nature of

this program, SLA-NY is delighted to invite non-members, including our

colleagues from other organizations of information professionals, to

join us at no charge. All attendees must be on the security list in

advance.

** Please email Vida by close of business on Thursday April 23rd if you

have to cancel your RSVP.

SLA Centennial Updates: Timeline and Videos

Did you know that SLA's New Jersey Chapter, the Biomedical and Life Sciences Division and the Business Group (later merged into the Business and Finance Division) all started in 1935? Check out the SLA's interactive Centennial Timeline for more firsts and milestones.

Did you have a chance to check out the SLA Centennial Videos? The winners are listed below and also on the SLA site.

Student Category winner: The More Things Change.... Produced by: Noni Vidal, Clarion University.

Professional Category Winner: I Am SLA. Produced by: Lisa Wolfe, Geri Heberlie and Paula Martin, St. Louis Metro Area Chapter.

SLA@Pratt Career Fair (Friday, April 24, New York City)

See SLA@Pratt for the most up-to-date information.

SLA@Pratt will be hosting the first annual SLA Career Fair at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science on Friday, April 24, from 4-7pm.

Students and alumni from Pratt and other library and information science programs from the New York metropolitan area will have the chance to network and ask questions of professionals from a variety of New York special libraries: law, corporate, academic, medical and museum, as well as representatives in information architecture and book vendors. Industry recruiters and Pratt SILS advisors will be on hand both to answer questions and offer quick resume counseling. Speakers will be presenting, while various institutions will have tables set up for the entirety of the fair. A schedule of speakers will be posted on the website as the date approaches.

Bring your resume, a handful of business cards, friends from other LIS programs and questions for your colleagues. We have a resources page for the Career Fair with suggestions on where to get free or low-cost business cards; plus resume tips and overall career fair tips. Even if you are not graduating this semester, it's never too early to start networking!

Please RSVP by Tuesday, April 21st.

What: SLA@Pratt Career Fair
When: Friday, April 24, 4-7pm
Where: Pratt Institute Manhattan Campus, 6th floor
Who: Students, information professionals, and representatives for a variety of special libraries
Why: Because the post-graduation job hunt doesn't have to be scary

---

Location and Directions

Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science
Pratt Manhattan Campus
144 West 14th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10011

* Security is strict. Non-Pratt registered attendees must check with security and show photo ID in order to enter the building.

See this event on the NJSLA Calendar and add it to Outlook.

A Glimpse at the Rutgers Conference Center (Venue for the April 23 Alice Rankin Lecture)

We hope you can come to hear Peter Bromberg talk Thursday, April 23, on The Value of Leadership, the Leadership of Value: Remaining Relevant in Times of Change. He's the NJSLA's Alice Rankin Distinguished Lecturer for 2009.

Did you know that the venue for the Rankin Lecture, the Rutgers University Inn and Conference Center, is considered one of the university's best-kept secrets, even after 40 years as a conference center?

Don't let Peter's talk be a secret. Register today and tell your friends.

Centennial Showcase, Plus More Photos

Have you seen the SLA's Centennial Showcase? It was unveiled in January at the SLA Leadership Summit in Savannah, Ga. It'll be on display again at the SLA 2009 Annual Conference and INFO-EXPO.

From the SLA's page on the showcase: "This magnificent piece of art commemorates the first 100 years of SLA. From Bretton Woods, NH to Second Life and from quill pens to PDAs, our tools have changed and where we work has changed, but knowledge and networking have not. Experience SLA's past as you look to the future.

"The 3-dimensional Centennial Showcase celebrating the 100th Anniversary of SLA is designed as an open book. For state of the art knowledge in 2009, the centerpiece is the image of a computer monitor featuring the SLA website and a digital frame within the "monitor" for member photos."

You can also see the showcase close up, and "modeled" by NJSLA's Eric Schwarz and Sandra Baker (president and president-elect, respectively), in this Picasa slideshow:

While you're at it, check out some highlights of NJSLA events in 2006 and 2008 in this Flickr slideshow: