Monthly Archives: October 2015

Wasn’t Columbus a “Discovery Service”?

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I know that most people think they know what the word “science” means. But if you ask a person for a definition of the word “science”, the result will most likely make astrology a “science”. Since astrology is definitely not a science, one realizes that we humans often employ words and terms for which we don’t have a complete understanding.

It is my feeling that in the library world, “discovery service” is one such term. I use it, and I talk to students about our “discovery service”; but my general feeling is that we all agree not to ask what the heck that really means.

So this week I’m gonna dissect the McNairy Library website a little in order to provide some insight into our “discovery service”.

The “Mouth” of the discovery service

The most visible part of the “discovery service” is the search box that is prominently displayed on our website:

The mouth of the discovery service in the red circle

The front end of the discovery service looks like Google. Many users use the discovery service like Google, asking it questions. They put entire sentences into the discovery service like “What is the Uncertainty Reduction Theory?” This is not a good idea. [Clarification: The Uncertainty Reduction Theory is a good idea, but entering entire sentences into an academic discovery service usually is not.]

This type of searching is called “natural language” searching. It’s as if you were asking someone a question. It works for Google, because Google employs “natural language processing” for its website. Most academic discovery services do not employ “natural language processing” [That may change in the future, but for the present: be here now.]

Google is like a car meant for the average consumer. You can put any type of gasoline into it; you can put any type of oil into it; you can install cheap spark plugs: it will probably still run.

But academic discovery services are like Ferraris. They’re not meant for the average consumer. You have to use high octane gasoline; you have to use specific oil types; you have to use spark plugs that are miniature light-sabers. If you want the performance of a Ferrari, you have to deal with the fact that there are certain things you need to do. Academic discovery services are like Ferraris: If you want true performance, you gotta bump up your game!

The “Back end” of the discovery service: Search results

When using the discovery service on the McNairy Library website, just enter the terms that are important, in our case: Uncertainty Reduction Theory [which, by the way, is a concept used in Communications studies]. When you perform a search for uncertainty reduction theory, you get the following 10,700 results:

Results of search without quotation marks

Let’s take a look at three things that the discovery service provides here, on the back end:

1- Your search terms are formatted in bold lettering in the search results. This allows you to quickly scan the records and decide if the search results are relevant;

2-  There is a “Research Starter” at the top of the search results. For many topics, the discovery service provides encyclopedia articles that provide a quick overview of the topic as well as other resources to pursue.

3- There are 10,700 items in your search results.

10,700 items are way too many to look through.

When using most discovery services (even Google), put quotation marks around concepts. In our case, the search for “uncertainty reduction theory” results in 768 records:

Getting better results using quotation marks for concepts

By using quotation marks around the three-word concept, we were able to get better targeted search results from the discovery service. In fact, we weeded out 10,000 items.

Still, 768 results are still too many to look through. We need to limit our results. In the left hand column of the search results, there are many different “limiters” that we can apply:

Full-text and Scholarly (peer reviewed) limiters applied

In the image above, you can see that by limiting the results to “Full Text” and “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed)”, we have shaved off 300 search results from our list.

If you look in the “Subject” section of the left column*, you will see that there is an option for “uncertainty reduction theory (communication) (247)”. If you choose that option, you limit your search results to 247 items that have been assigned the “uncertainty reduction theory (communication)” subject heading.

By applying the limiters in the left hand column, the user can get better targeted results.

My suggestions for applying limiters

1- If you’re looking for books in the library -> “Catalog only” limiter- This limits your results to books that the library has in its collection.

2- If you’re looking for digital articles that you can access right away -> “Full Text” limiter- This limits your results to resources that you can access right away, i.e. without using the “Request It” links.

3- If your professor says that your sources have to be “peer reviewed”, “scholarly”, or “from an academic journal” ->”Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals”. Use this in conjunction with the “Full Text” limiter for quick satisfaction.

4- If your professor says that your sources have to be within a certain time period -> “Publication Date” limiter.

5- If you feel that your topic is too broad -> Use the “Subject” section. Click on the “Show more” link in that section to see all sub-topics. Choose the sub-topics and then click the “Update” button. When you get those results, you can do this again. I find that as you drill down into sub-topics, new sub-topics will appear.

The “Guts” of the discovery service: Between the “Mouth” and the “Back-end”

Users often wonder why the discovery service provides them with resources that the library doesn’t have. That’s because the discovery service does not limit itself to items in the library collection, the idea being that the user should be given as much information about what is available on a topic, whether the library has those resources or not [For those users who only want to see what’s in the library’s collection, they should access the library catalog: Go to the library’s webpage at www.library.millersville.edu> Click on “Books, eBooks, and Video”> Click on “Millersville University Library Catalog”].

The “guts” of a discovery service includes records from many different collections and resources. Basically, the discovery service collects the data from most of the databases in our collection (to see the numerous databases available in the McNairy Library, go to our database list at http://www.library.millersville.edu/libguides/all-databases-title) and uses that collection of data as the basis for “discovery”. This vast trove of information from many different sources, each with its own unique data structure, is squished together, hidden behind the simple, “Google-like” search box that seems to say, “This is all so simple.”

And then, once a search is initiated, not only does it have to find the records that match, it also then has to search for the PDF files or the URLs that will take the user to the resources that the library has access to. The whole thing is quite a production. For those of us who used libraries before the “Digital Age”, we find it to be miraculous.

If you need help using the “discovery service”, please feel free to contact me at nathan.pease@millersville.edu. Or you can use the library’s “Ask a librarian” service at http://www.library.millersville.edu/tools-services/ask-librarian.

 

*Full disclosure statement: Although I will often refer to all the sections in the left-hand column as “limiters”, I should tell you that within this discovery service only the “Limit to” section contains official “limiters”. All other sections in the left-hand column are “facets”.

Image:

Lee, Russell. Holstein cow at Casa Grande Valley Farms. Pinal County, Arizona. She yielded 497 pounds of butterfat in 370 days. On test 77 cows of the Casa Grande Farm yielded an average of 386 pounds of butter fat in 365 days. This was the highest in the state for that many cows. 1940. Photograph. Lib. of Cong., Washington D.C. Lib. of Cong. Web. 23 Oct. 2015. <http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000017645/PP/>.

[Nathan Pease is an adjunct Research Librarian at the McNairy Library and Learning Forum on the campus of Millersville University. In his spare time, Mr. Pease digitizes out-of-print vinyl records and plays “European board games” such as Targi, Pandemic, Dominion, among others. He also volunteers and works part-time at LancasterHistory.Org, also known as the Lancaster County Historical Society.]

A white whale ate my leg- Cotkin’s journey with Moby-Dick

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”]
When I first read Moby Dick, I had no idea nor any expectation that there was a musical in the middle of it. The chapter entitled “Midnight, forecastle” [either chapter 39 or 40, depending on your edition] is a short musical number in the form of a play. Sailors dance around, singing while accompanied by a tambourine. The entire chapter is written in standard dramatic format, each character’s dialogue delineated with descriptions of the action:

Azore Sailor
(Ascending and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle).
Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bits; up you mount! Now, boys!
(The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)

(Melville, 1922, p. 156)

It’s this chapter that really turned me on to Moby Dick. It was so unexpected and so “random” and so weird! “What the heck is going on?” And I’ve been thinking that ever since…until today, when I discovered George Cotkin’s exploration of the novel entitled Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick [call number PS 2384 .M62 C67 2012, on the lower level of McNairy Library].

What makes Cotkin’s book so interesting it that he explores each individual chapter of Moby Dick in sequence. Each chapter has its own short essay in which Cotkin usually compares the contents of the chapter with another author/artist/book in order to provide context. For example, in his exploration of chapter one, which contains the famous first line, “Call me Ishmael”, Cotkin discusses the first lines of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy” (Camus, 1955, p. 3). This discussion provides context for Ishmael’s state of mind and his own thoughts of suicide. Cotkin also points out ironically that Ishmael has become a voyager on a “vessel bound for a suicidal reckoning with the White Whale of meaning” (Cotkin, 2012, p. 16). Cotkin’s essays, as they pile up on the reader, create a startling sense of insight for what many readers consider an opaque window that even if you could look through it, one would only find a labyrinth. Such is the reputation of Moby Dick.

Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick displays an industrious attempt at comparative criticism on a granular level. There are 135 chapters in Moby Dick; Cotkin provides the reader with a corresponding group of 135 comparative essays with critical insights as well as historical and literary context. It’s a terrific accomplishment for those of us into Moby Dick [you know who you are].

As for the chapter “Midnight, forecastle”, Cotkin doesn’t have enough time to discuss the “why” of having a musical number in the middle of the most ambitious novel of American literature. But he does pursue an interesting argument, suggesting that the chapter represents the racial tensions tearing apart the United States before the American Civil War:

Perhaps, then, the Pequod is representative of the madness of a nation that had recently ordained a compromise designed to allow Pip and his black brethren to be subjugated, even when they found quiet waters in free states. Pip’s shout is the authentic voice of the slave praying for salvation and preservation from mad white men.

(Cotkin, 2012, p. 79)

Citations:
Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus, and other essays. New York, Knopf, 1955 (1972 printing).
Cotkin, G. (2012). Dive deeper : journeys with Moby-Dick. New York : Oxford University Press, c2012.
Melville, H. (1922). Moby Dick : or, The whale. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1922.

Image:

Rosenthal, James W. View of peg rail and rigging at port bow. – Schooner ERNESTINA, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park State Pier, New Bedford, Bristol County, MA. 2007. Photograph. Lib. of Cong., Washington D.C. Lib. of Cong. Web. 09 Oct. 2015. <http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma1719.photos.574253p/>.

Zotero for document management

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Although I often suggest to students that they use the computer application Zotero specifically for citation management, I personally use it to manage and store all the documents that I create at work.

Besides citations, Zotero can save, store, and relate documents of any kind. When you create a record/citation in Zotero, you can attach the document to its record/citation by right-clicking the record/citation and choosing “Attach document>Attach stored copy of file”. Once you have attached the file, you can retrieve the file from Zotero’s storage space by double-clicking its record/citation.

So when I begin a new document at work…

1- I immediately create a record/citation for that document in Zotero;

2- I close and save the document in my “Downloads” folder;

3- I then right click the record/citation in Zotero and choose “Attach document>Attach stored copy of file” so that Zotero stores the document with the record within its system;

4- I click on the document record/citation in Zotero in order to reopen my document. [It is now safe to delete the document in the “Downloads” folder.]

Once a record has been created, you can add tags to it to associate it with subject terms. Zotero provides the user with a list of all subject headings used. And Zotero provides the user with the capability to associate the record with other records by using the “Related” tab.

Zotero also allows you to create your own file system, just as would in your computer’s file system.

If you forget where you put the document, Zotero provides a search box. But you can also sort the records by its various fields to find it by browsing through the sorted fields.

And Zotero automatically backs up all its records and their associated documents [you have to choose the option to include the associated documents] in a 2GB storage space that they provide free to all Zotero users. All the records and documents are then available to the user from the Zotero website, so it makes it easy to access your documents anywhere you find an internet browser.

Image citation:

Harris & Ewing. How a bill become a law. At the same time that the bill is sent to the committee , it is also filed in the document room, so that interested parties may obtain a copies for inspection. John H. Smith of the House Document room is shown here filing a bill. c1937. Photograph. Lib. of Cong., Washington D.C. Lib. of Cong. Web. 05 Oct. 2015. <http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2009010780/>.