Library employees may find the slides and notes from Brianna Marshall's April 7 presentation at http://www.briannamarshall.com/2016/05/02/library-rdm/
Information on previous Library Futures speakers can be found on the staff drive at U:\LibraryFutures.
Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Surplus of Creativity in the Digital Age
In our Feb. 8 blog post, we discussed how artificial intelligence could impact the library. The post's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that an economy built entirely on creative works could not exist, but in the age of social media could we see the beginnings of such a thing?
In his book, "Cognitive Surplus" Clay Shirky discusses the impact a globalized network has had on human efforts. The Industrial Revolution brought with it our modern work schedule, complete with time off and television to occupy that time. As Shirky observes, a good deal of our free time in the past had been spent gawking at this relatively new invention. However, the Internet has redirected that energy. The internet provides what Shirky describes as the "means, motive and opportunity" to put our energies into seeking, creating and sharing more personal and meaningful content.
Every time something is seen, enjoyed, or shared by us, we participate in a new content economy. Any time we make a modification, which can be something as simple as an accompanying caption or as transformative as a remix, we contribute to its gross domestic product. The new entrepreneurs in this economy are the ones who devote themselves to content creation. It's easy to view the surface of sites such as YouTube and Facebook and see just that sliver as a representative consensus, but the rabbit hole goes much deeper.
New movements within art, music, film and entertainment are being developed as you read this. Globalized genres of music such as vaporwave have emerged within just the last few years and already you can fill weeks' of continuous playlists and never repeat a single song. According to company data cited by the Wall Street Journal, as much as 12 hours of audio and music are uploaded to independent publishing site Soundcloud every minute.
Content creators in 2016 have the capability to publish exponentially more media than those of a just a few decades ago. You'll only ever have the opportunity to see a minute fraction of these publications. This blog happens to be a piece of it. If it exists, there's an audience for it.
For libraries this is a chance to be a hub for those who wish to engage in and expand their role in this content driven industry. Libraries already house many of the means of production. Computers, books, software, and peripheral hardware are all already in most of our libraries. Makerspaces are an example of this. These resources represent Shirky's means, motives, and opportunity for millions of creative people.
With an explosion of new art and culture occurring that is capable of rivaling that of the Renaissance, it is not unfeasible to imagine that a new generation of Rembrandts and Michelangelos are currently in their early youth, living near libraries that could give them the tools they need to discover their genius.
How do you view the library's role in this age of content? What services could the library provide to not only further the creative abilities of its users but also connect and engage with users beyond its doors?
In his book, "Cognitive Surplus" Clay Shirky discusses the impact a globalized network has had on human efforts. The Industrial Revolution brought with it our modern work schedule, complete with time off and television to occupy that time. As Shirky observes, a good deal of our free time in the past had been spent gawking at this relatively new invention. However, the Internet has redirected that energy. The internet provides what Shirky describes as the "means, motive and opportunity" to put our energies into seeking, creating and sharing more personal and meaningful content.
Every time something is seen, enjoyed, or shared by us, we participate in a new content economy. Any time we make a modification, which can be something as simple as an accompanying caption or as transformative as a remix, we contribute to its gross domestic product. The new entrepreneurs in this economy are the ones who devote themselves to content creation. It's easy to view the surface of sites such as YouTube and Facebook and see just that sliver as a representative consensus, but the rabbit hole goes much deeper.
New movements within art, music, film and entertainment are being developed as you read this. Globalized genres of music such as vaporwave have emerged within just the last few years and already you can fill weeks' of continuous playlists and never repeat a single song. According to company data cited by the Wall Street Journal, as much as 12 hours of audio and music are uploaded to independent publishing site Soundcloud every minute.
Content creators in 2016 have the capability to publish exponentially more media than those of a just a few decades ago. You'll only ever have the opportunity to see a minute fraction of these publications. This blog happens to be a piece of it. If it exists, there's an audience for it.
For libraries this is a chance to be a hub for those who wish to engage in and expand their role in this content driven industry. Libraries already house many of the means of production. Computers, books, software, and peripheral hardware are all already in most of our libraries. Makerspaces are an example of this. These resources represent Shirky's means, motives, and opportunity for millions of creative people.
With an explosion of new art and culture occurring that is capable of rivaling that of the Renaissance, it is not unfeasible to imagine that a new generation of Rembrandts and Michelangelos are currently in their early youth, living near libraries that could give them the tools they need to discover their genius.
How do you view the library's role in this age of content? What services could the library provide to not only further the creative abilities of its users but also connect and engage with users beyond its doors?
Monday, February 8, 2016
Symbiotic Intelligence: How A.I. May Create Cooperative Education in the Future
A recent publication in the World Economic Forum titled “The Future of Jobs” asserts that over 5 million jobs may be lost to robotization by the year 2020. YouTube channel CGP Grey, a channel that specializes in discussing various concepts in depth, has created a fascinating video discussing just how technological advances can outpace human efforts:
This video raises many intriguing - and possibly unanswerable - questions. For those of us working in the library space some of those questions might include
As CGP Grey’s video posits, digital entities capable of learning, interacting, and producing creative output can accomplish quite a lot. It’s conceivable that even this blog post could someday be written by a well-educated computer intelligence rather than the intern with a penchant for procrastination. That said, it’s entirely possible these advances could see the creation of more effective libraries, more effective librarians and all around more effective learning experiences.
The path to creating smarter, stronger and more capable machines lies in replicating our own psychological learning needs. The conundrum this presents is that the human learning process is an innumerable sum of different ethereal mental mechanisms.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg describes a bulk of these processes as "unsupervised learning." Zuckerberg has invested a great deal of time and capital into the development of artificial intelligence, making it one of Facebook, Inc.'s largest development projects.
In a recent Facebook status update about his aspirations for artificial intelligence development, Zuckerberg said, “Unsupervised learning is learning how the world works by observing and trying things out rather than being told what to do... It's key to building systems with human-like common sense because it doesn't require a person to teach it everything they know. It gives the machine the ability to anticipate what may happen in the future and predict the effect of an action. It could help us build machines that can hold conversations or plan complex sequences of actions... We fundamentally do not understand how general learning works... Until we solve this problem, throwing all the machine power in the world at it cannot create an AI that can do everything a person can.”
This is to say that the human mind is a vast, complex and unique thinking machine that cannot be defined by sheer horsepower. Understanding all of the mechanisms in which it learns is the key to not only the creation of artificial intelligence, but also more effective learning and teaching practices. A thinking machine can not only learn from human teachers, but also teach human learners.
Imagine the impact such an entity could have on a library. Makerspaces, writing labs, research, database optimization, all manner of workshops, all could see a dramatic overhaul of how they're performed, delivered and absorbed by they're audience.
As for the librarians, certain functions librarians perform such as the analyzing, management and acquisition of materials or information and data processing could foreseeably be delegated to thinking computers in the future, but the more human functions of librarians - those directly involved with enlightening and educating the users of the library - need not be replaced because such functions are best fostered by human relationships.
For example, people like to use Siri, but no one really respects Siri as a person. "She" is not a mentor, or a teacher, or a researcher or a friend. "She" doesn’t recognize her user’s learning process or where it might be stumbling, and can only provide feedback in the form of suggestions of what "she" believes they might have meant based on her programming. Digital intelligence may be able to replicate operational functions, but the human capacity for learning requires a set of intangible qualities. A machine capable of learning and teaching may enhance a human's education to a degree, but it takes a human to best understand a human.
What does the development of artificial intelligence mean to you? How do you foresee it affecting your role in the library? How will education utilize intelligent technologies? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
This video raises many intriguing - and possibly unanswerable - questions. For those of us working in the library space some of those questions might include
- How will robotization and digital intelligences affect the way library services are provided?
- Where will the librarian fit in with all of this?
- How will those people whose jobs have been phased out utilize a library?
As CGP Grey’s video posits, digital entities capable of learning, interacting, and producing creative output can accomplish quite a lot. It’s conceivable that even this blog post could someday be written by a well-educated computer intelligence rather than the intern with a penchant for procrastination. That said, it’s entirely possible these advances could see the creation of more effective libraries, more effective librarians and all around more effective learning experiences.
The path to creating smarter, stronger and more capable machines lies in replicating our own psychological learning needs. The conundrum this presents is that the human learning process is an innumerable sum of different ethereal mental mechanisms.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg describes a bulk of these processes as "unsupervised learning." Zuckerberg has invested a great deal of time and capital into the development of artificial intelligence, making it one of Facebook, Inc.'s largest development projects.
In a recent Facebook status update about his aspirations for artificial intelligence development, Zuckerberg said, “Unsupervised learning is learning how the world works by observing and trying things out rather than being told what to do... It's key to building systems with human-like common sense because it doesn't require a person to teach it everything they know. It gives the machine the ability to anticipate what may happen in the future and predict the effect of an action. It could help us build machines that can hold conversations or plan complex sequences of actions... We fundamentally do not understand how general learning works... Until we solve this problem, throwing all the machine power in the world at it cannot create an AI that can do everything a person can.”
This is to say that the human mind is a vast, complex and unique thinking machine that cannot be defined by sheer horsepower. Understanding all of the mechanisms in which it learns is the key to not only the creation of artificial intelligence, but also more effective learning and teaching practices. A thinking machine can not only learn from human teachers, but also teach human learners.
Imagine the impact such an entity could have on a library. Makerspaces, writing labs, research, database optimization, all manner of workshops, all could see a dramatic overhaul of how they're performed, delivered and absorbed by they're audience.
As for the librarians, certain functions librarians perform such as the analyzing, management and acquisition of materials or information and data processing could foreseeably be delegated to thinking computers in the future, but the more human functions of librarians - those directly involved with enlightening and educating the users of the library - need not be replaced because such functions are best fostered by human relationships.
For example, people like to use Siri, but no one really respects Siri as a person. "She" is not a mentor, or a teacher, or a researcher or a friend. "She" doesn’t recognize her user’s learning process or where it might be stumbling, and can only provide feedback in the form of suggestions of what "she" believes they might have meant based on her programming. Digital intelligence may be able to replicate operational functions, but the human capacity for learning requires a set of intangible qualities. A machine capable of learning and teaching may enhance a human's education to a degree, but it takes a human to best understand a human.
What does the development of artificial intelligence mean to you? How do you foresee it affecting your role in the library? How will education utilize intelligent technologies? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Anne Kenney on "From Defining 21st Century Research Libraries to Implementing 21st Century Research Universities"
Library employees may find the slides from Anne Kenney's April 9 presentation (as well as the materials from our previous speakers) on the staff drive at U:LibraryFutures\.
Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.
Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Mark Sandler on "Building the Library of the Future, One Click at a Time"
Library employees may find the slides from Mark Sandler's Nov. 18 presentation (as well as the materials from our previous speakers) on the staff drive at U:LibraryFutures\.
Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.
Comments and questions on the presentations can be added to the comments section below.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Personality Types for Library Organizations: Part 5- Perceiving vs. Judging
post by Dan Chaney, Humanities and Social Sciences Division
Perceiving vs.
Judging
Of the four dimensions, my favorite is without a doubt is
this one, perceiving and judging. Judging and perceiving is the dimension that
concerns itself with how we choose to live our lives – in either a very
structured way or a very flexible open way.
First, let’s dispel a couple of stereotypes. When people
hear this dimension is perceiving versus judging, the first assumption is that
perceivers are people who are particularly perceptive or observant, and judgers
are people who are judgmental. Not at all.
Judgers are people with a preference for living in an
orderly, structured way and are happiest when their lives are structured and
matters settled. Judgers love to make decisions and seek to control their lives
(and sometimes the lives of others.) Judgers tend to see things in terms of
black and white and they come down on one side or the other. They don’t like
decisions that are left up in the air, in fact, decisions that aren’t settled
actually can make judgers uncomfortable or cause them stress.
Perceivers, on the other hand, are folks that prefer to
make decisions in an open ended fashion. And really, perceivers prefer not to
make decisions at all. They love flexibility. They love to perceive options.
They don’t like to make decisions because, let’s face it, something better
might come along that they’d rather do so they’d just as soon not be pinned
down on anything. Perceivers tend to hate day planners, calendars, to do lists,
syllabi, etc. Forcing a perceiver to make a decision can actually cause them to
feel stress.
So, why is this my favorite personality dimension?
Background: I mentioned when you take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, it’ll
give you a score and a strength of that score ranging from 0 to 40. I also
mentioned that most people fall within the bell curve on MBTI scores for each
dimension, meaning that most people fall within about 10 on the strength scale
for any particular dimension. That is certainly true for me. My Introvert score is a strength of 7, which
means I could go either way, depending on how I answered a particular question.
My Intuitor score was also a strength of 7. My Thinker score was also a
strength of 7. With me so far? A score of 7 in these areas is pretty typical.
My score as a Perceiver is a 39 out of
40, meaning there aren’t many people out there more of a perceiver than I am.
In fact, I would class myself as an archetype Perceiver, there isn’t much
Judger in me. I tell my students that if they are perceivers, I am their king.
Now, why is this dimension fun for me? This is one of the
easiest dimensions to recognize in your coworkers, your friends, you partner,
your children. Want to know how to tell if someone is a perceiver or judger?
Look at their desk. Look inside their purse. Look inside their car. It’s true.
If their desk/purse/car is messy they are a perceiver. If their desk/purse/car is
neat as a pin, they are a judger. Now, you may be wondering why this is so. How
can Dan be sure? Well, it’s in the nature of perceivers versus judgers. Think
about it. Judgers like to make decisions, they like structure, it follows that
their desks are neat and orderly. Perceivers hate making decisions, so we don’t
like clearing our desks. The surest way for me to lose something is to put it
away. Personally, it took me 10 years to file stuff in the filing cabinet in my
office. I’ve filled one drawer with files, and haven’t opened the drawer in
months. The other three drawers are full of stuff that isn’t files. If you ask
a perceiver how we can find anything on our desk, we will tell you we know
exactly where something is, we just won’t promise to be able to find it fast.
We employ organization by stratigraphy, an archeological concept where the
further down the pile, the older the item is.
Here is an example of Perceiver vs. Judger.
Nicole is unquestionably a judger, she loves being
organized and everything on her desk has its place. When I see Nicole’s desk, I
have to fight the urge to take her stapler and turn it a quarter turn, because
I suspect the first thing she’d do when she returns to her desk is turn her
stapler back the right way.
My desk, on the
other hand, contains pens that have run out of ink because I dislike making
decisions like throwing away a pen that is out of ink. As if might start
working again later. There are piles of stuff that I am not working on at
present, but might resume working on later, etc. You could turn the stapler
around on my desk, but first you’d have to find it, and my reaction would be “I
have a stapler on my desk?”
So, you may be wondering what the organizational strength
is of a perceiver, considering we don’t like to make decisions. Well, think
about it. Judgers love to make choices, but they find it hard to relax. Who
loves to relax? Perceivers love to relax, but they have trouble making
decisions. Perceivers and judgers need each other because the judgers run the
risk of scheduling themselves so tightly that they become inflexible and
dogmatic, while perceivers run the risk of procrastinating their lives away
Judging
|
Perceiving
|
|
Librarians (N=1600)
|
66%
|
34%
|
Library Assistants (N=84)
|
64.29%
|
35.71%
|
University Faculty (N=2282)
|
65.91%
|
34.09%
|
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Personality Types for Library Organizations: Part 4- Thinking vs. Feeling
Thinking vs.
Feeling
I will admit, of all the dimensions, thinking/feeling is
one of my favorite, but not for the reasons you might think (pardon the pun.)
Thinking/feeling as a dimension gets at how we make decisions and come to
conclusions.
Thinkers are people who prefer to make decisions
logically, or that make sense, at least to them. Thinkers pride themselves in
their ability to be analytical and objective in deciding things. They make
decisions by analyzing and weighting evidence, even if that means coming to
unpleasant conclusions.
Feelers, on the other hand make decisions based on how
much they care or what they feel is right. They pride themselves on their
ability to be empathic and compassionate. A feeler will weigh the evidence of a
situation and make the choice that is best for the person or people involved,
even when the evidence leads them to think another option might be better. They
strive for harmony in their decisions.
The best way to illustrate the differences between
thinkers and feelers in an organization is to pull an example of each from Star
Trek. I’m hardly a Star Trek expert, but it does provide us archetypal examples
of the dichotomy between thinkers and feelers. Star Trek fans already know where
I’m going with this. Which Star Trek character was known for being logical, cold,
aloof? The character of Spock was a thinker, making decisions based on weighing
the evidence and making decisions even when that decision was uncomfortable.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right? Which character was
the opposite of Spock? Which character was known for his compassion? McCoy was
constantly at odds with Spock over making decisions using logic over feelings.
That is why they were so much fun to watch together – they were on opposite
ends of the personality spectrum and that dichotomy is the gold mine of
character development. But, that comparison isn’t what makes this dimension so
interesting to me.
Let me set a scenario for you. Have you ever had a
difference of opinion with your partner, husband, wife, girl/boyfriend? Have
you ever had an argument where you were arguing to make a decision based on
what it best for the person, while your significant other is arguing that your decision
isn’t fair? At the end of that argument, your partner is in angry or in tears
and you are wondering exactly what you said that was wrong? One of you is a
feeler and the other is a thinker. The best example of this is arguments that
occur between men and women. Research can tell us in scenarios such as this
which of you is a feeler and which of you is the thinker. This dimension is fun
for me because it is the only one that breaks along gender lines. Studies tell
us that if you are a female, you tend to be a feeler, while if you are a male,
you tend to be a thinker. Now, that is not an always, automatic thing. If you
are a male and also a feeler, there’s nothing unusual about that, and
conversely, if you’re a woman and a thinker, that’s not out of the ordinary.
Remember, these are preferences, not absolutes.
Where am I on aligned along this dimension? I’m on the
thinker side of things. When I was growing up as a child, I remember debates with my parents over something not being fair
to me, in particular, and I was always convinced my sisters were getting away
with something because I was also an intuiter. Why was it not fair? Because my
parents didn’t weigh the evidence the same as I did and (most likely) acted
with compassion to one of my siblings. And that still kind of burns me up.
Haha.
|
Thinking
|
Feeling
|
|
|
Librarians (N=1600)
|
Men: 69%
Women: 58%
|
Men: 31%
Women: 42%
|
|
Library Assistants (N=84)
|
34.52%
|
65.48%
|
|
University Faculty (N=2282)
|
53.37%
|
46.63%
|
|
University Students (N=4035)
|
32.91%
|
67.09%
|
|
Females (N=32731)
|
34.60%
|
65.40%
|
|
Males (N=23240)
|
63.55%
|
36.45%
|
With respect to the table above:
·
I did flesh out librarians a little more with
respect to differences between genders. You’ll notice that librarians tend to
be thinkers, and even female librarians tend to be thinkers, but you will
notice that male librarians are more decidedly thinkers than woman librarians.
·
You’ll notice that among men and women, they are
almost the exact mirror of the other.
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