STRAIT to the future

8th Asia-Pacific Specials, Health and Law Librarians Conference

If it isn't broken ...
... break it!

Professor Mickie A Voges
Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology

A fixed image of the future is in the worst sense ahistorical.
Juliet Mitchell (b. 1940), New Zealand author. "Women-The Longest Revolution," in New Left Review (London, Nov./Dec. 1966).

The above is a list (not exclusive) of the 'progress' of information storage and retrieval devices throughout the past several millennia. These represent the improvements, the changes, and the additions to the choices that may be made regarding the appropriate device/medium for a specific purpose. Some of these devices have not survived at all for one or another reason. Many are used in a variety of incarnations. The electronic (magnetic disk) devices are used only in conjunction with specific electronic formatting requirements and intermediate software.

Of course, the commonality is that they are all devices by which information is transferred from one mind to another. All of them transport content from one place to another, from one person to another, from one time to another.

One very notable thing about the list is the fact that only the oldest of the devices are capable of being perceived directly by a human being-that is, without the aid of a 'translating' piece of hardware. Some of the hardware is even then only useful with a corresponding piece of software. The more recent, improved, and vastly more 'in' devices rely-indeed, are quite dependent-upon the technology in order to convey the content, the information itself.

Even with those devices that may be directly perceived by a human being, there quickly arises a need for an 'organizing force' between the content and the perceiver of the content. Most often this need arises merely because of the accumulation of numbers of pieces-as numbers increase, a mechanism of some kind is necessary to bring order to the mass of information/content. At a very fundamental level, librarians have been this 'organizing force' regardless of the device being used. Librarians have utilized a wide variety of specific tools in order to facilitate this organization: catalogs in book, card, microform, and online formats, indexes (also in various formats), abstracts, search engines, classification schemes, to name a few. In short, librarians have provided the interface between the content and the user of the content.

This is no new revelation to librarians, or information professionals, in the current parlance. This is, in fact, what librarians generally believe is their primary focus. However, in an era in which the librarian appears to be less necessary as 'end users' try to interact directly with the pieces of content, it is wise to return to this basic formulation of the role and examine the lessons of the past in relation to the context of the future.

In an era in which the focus is often more on the devices in which the content is provided than on the human relationship to that content, it is desirable to examine the characteristics of the devices themselves and to bring a professional's analysis to the barriers and/or the portals to the content that the devices themselves offer.

Now, when there is more content in more different devices than ever before, it is advisable to analyze what works and does not work about each when trying to match the face of the content with the face of the user.

In a twist on the old saw, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', we particularly want to be in the position of 'fixing'. Specifically, we must break down the devices and examine the pieces to determine which of those pieces demand to be taken into the future and which must be discarded because they are past history and now present a barrier to understanding and/or to the transfer of the content.

Characteristics of the past and present devices

Warm fuzzies: some formats seem to appeal to humans more than others-the 'can you take it to bed?' test

Portability: some devices are portable in that one can take them anywhere-no requirement for intermediate/reading machines that require electrical hook-up, etc.

Stability: some content changes frequently and the device must allow this while for other content a very stable environment is desirable

Ease of use: what is quite easy for some, may be difficult for others-particularly when considering the disabled

Time of delivery: many devices require one to schedule time according to the delivery schedule of the device rather than at the whim of the user

Accessibility: some devices allow random direct access of content and others do not

Provenance: the ability to ensure provenance-that the content has not changed is necessary for some content, may be desirable for all, or may not matter

Everlasting: some of the devices use a storage method that is archival in nature while others do not

Variety of content: some of the devices are flexible in being able to provide content in a variety of formats (print, illustrations, photographs in the same piece), but others do not

Speedy access: the delay between the request for information and the delivery is sometimes constrained by the device itself

Direct relationship: many of the devices currently used to convey content may not be used directly by a person, but require some 'translation', such as the cassette player for an audiocassette-the tape itself is not directly perceivable

Memorability: some of the devices present the content in ways that are easier to remember than others

Speed of comprehension: some devices take advantage of the ability of humans to comprehend multiple input signals (such as print, video, and audio, or some combination of these) simultaneously while others do not

Understandibility: some devices present the content in a manner that is immediately understandable while others require some amount of effort to follow the point

Gives context: the variety of devices provide differing levels of context for the content that is conveyed

Organizability: some of the devices are easily organizable in a physical manner, one that is easily perceived; others can be organized 'virtually'

Encourages creativity: there is a 'serendipity' inherent in some of the devices that allows a level of creativity in the course of its use and a level of creativity as a result of its use

The above are various characteristics that are associated with one or another of the devices listed in the introduction. These characteristics are important to determine the relationship that human beings prefer to information, or to certain types of information.

Why do we find 'little stickies' covering the computer monitor? Why is a picture worth a thousand words-and is it always? Are there more than two dimensions to information? Why do we print more than ever before? Will newspapers continue to be a relevant medium[1]? How do we reconcile the various devices to various needs? Breaking the devices into their distinctive pieces, that is, into their respective characteristics allows us to remember the lessons of history and not to lose these lessons to the pull of ever more interesting and seductive technologies.

Recent predictions regarding the mix of print to web to broadcast media included statements that even with more and more use of the web and more and more information available on the web, a greater number of magazines will be developed and produced.[2] And, although it is expected that 50% of book sales will occur over the Web, there is no suggestion that there will be no continuing sales of books.[3] There must be reasons for the continuing health of many of the print media. This certainly has something to do with the portability of these media, but that cannot be the only reason for their success. It is far more likely that it has a great deal to do with the way in which human beings related to the print media in terms of retention, understanding, and transfer of information.

Choose the pieces...

After breaking down the characteristics, what should be chosen to carry into the future? Some of these seem obvious. Context is very important-humans need to be able to place a piece of information within a structure, within a context.. They need cues in order to do this efficiently. All of those characteristics that provide the cues to context are important. Those cues may be physical placement, type style, physical lay-out, color, auditory announcement. The presence of these cues allows an internal "indexing" of the information that facilitates later retrieval and retention. This addresses one of the often-cited drawbacks of the web-the "porthole" complaint that viewing information on the web is much like looking through the porthole on a submarine and being able to see only that that is immediately in front of one's face. Context is not only imposed on content by an information professional, but it is also brought to the content by the user.[4] Somehow we must incorporate the inherent sense of context that has been a part of the print world into the presentation of electronic documents, particularly those presented on the Web.

Context is very closely related to "dimensionality". The hypertext capabilities that were developed for web presentation have added to the one dimension that had been available using computer technologies. However, even with the addition of linking from one document to another, the result is still linear-movement from one point along a line to another point. Further, that movement is quite likely to be dictated by the method of organization that has been imposed on the documents by someone else. Even with the capabilities of hypertext, it is still difficult to see the dimensions of the content visually and, therefore, keep track of the context.

The use of dimensionality in information can be seen by users who open multiple sources-two windows on a computer, several reference books, a host of "little stickies" attached to computer monitor as well as papers, and the television simultaneously. I believe that this is not indicative of "multi-tasking"[5] as has often been suggested, but rather of a mechanism for building a context for the information by using multiple dimensions. For some people, the background music actually helps retention of the information for the reason of providing context for the memory.

Certainly, the human brain (in contrast to the electronic brain) can manage large amounts of simultaneous input, triggering electro-chemical impulses instantaneously throughout the brain.[6] Most of the devices that have been developed for transfer of information do not operate in this way. Instead, they serially provide the information they contain one bit at a time, quickly, perhaps, but still one bit at a time. The brain nonetheless continues to accept information from the surrounding environment and to process the serial information within the context of the surrounding environment.

A third set of characteristics that is very important relate to portability. Hieroglyphs on clay tablets were not portable and, therefore, not available to people at convenient times and in convenient ways. The personal computer is much like that as well. Although the personal digital assistants move farther into the realm of portability and convenience, paperback books are still what may be seen most often on trains and planes when people are reading (as opposed to keeping a calendar). There are no promises of the demise of print books, only of the addition of electronic alternatives.[7] Today, we can all agree that the presence of hundreds of thousands has only increased the amount of paper that we need to track.

Another set of attributes that have taken on a new level of importance are those associated with accessibility-in other words, there is a greater expectation of flexibility in finding information that has been made possible by stronger search engines and the existence of full text in electronic form. Of course, there is a great deal of debate over whether this availability actually enhances or detracts from accessibility. At a minimum, there is an almost universal expectation that materials ought to be accessible through the use of a good index.

There is much speculation that humans who have been trained to expect the structure of the print world need some of the attributes of that world in order to understand, learn, and retain the content. It may very well be the case that a particular page size, a particular arrangement of margins, and the like are important for "the older generation" that was print-trained. The speculation continues that those members of the younger "internet and electronic" generation have adjusted or will adjust to a different set of characteristics that are associated with those devices rather than with the print devices. At this time, what those attributes may be are purely speculative, but it is quite useful to examine the perception that some of those characteristics are important to carry into the electronic world. For example, West Group is now touting the ability of Westlaw® to act more like the print.[8]

Clearly, there is a great deal of energy being spent by many software developers to more closely mimic some of the attributes of the older devices. The integration of formats is one such example. Information and context are generated in multiple formats simultaneously. Today, the integration of a variety of formats is important too.

Finally, a word about the "warm fuzzy" characteristics-these may actually be the most important to humans trying to gather content. Indeed, these characteristics may actually be the ones that underlie one's perceptions about accessibility, portability, context, and several of the others. Ultimately, it is the "warm fuzzy" characteristics that will cause a device to be retained as an information device.

And, at the Information Center...

So, what have we decided at the Information Center? What of the pieces have we retained and what have we discarded? How have we used the knowledge of the past to inform the directions that we are taking into the future?

We have, of course, continued to convert print materials from the collections[9] to electronic images. We continue to do this at the rate of approximately 30 000 pages per week, using both the regular Information Center staff as well as the inner city high school students in our ExTEND program. This conversion of print materials allowed us this year to return over five thousand square feet of Information Center space to the law school. That represented a little over 7500 linear feet of shelf space. This would not have been possible but for the integration of the "imaging project"[10] into our daily business. We expect that our loss of physical space is not the first; we also expect to see other libraries experiencing the same stresses on space that we have seen.[11]

We believe that some of the print characteristics (such as the numerous visual cues that carry information-font, position on the page, interlineations, etc.) are a strong argument for retaining at least some information in image format. We also believe, however, that it is desirable ultimately to have a greater level of accessibility and look forward to the time when OCR algorithms are powerful enough to accommodate the conversion of many of the images to an associated ASCII text.[12]

We have also certainly felt the growing impact of the internet, specifically of the World Wide Web on the activities of the Information Center. Just last spring, we moved all of the imaged collections to the Web-a total of over 4 million pages that are now available anywhere there is a WWW connection. The entire system is now available in the browser environment, and with the extended capabilities of ExLIBRIS™ we have had available locally across the network.[13]

The use of electronic images continues to provide many of the characteristics that are demanded by faculty and students. These include a sense of provenance (more important for the financial aid office and for courts than for the Information Center, in general), the visual cues provided through imaged information, the warm fuzzies that are inherent in electronic images for clients who might be wedded to the print devices, the ease of access and universal index that provide greater accessibility of many of the items through a single search, and the context created through reference to familiar citation form as well as finding tools.

We have also, not surprisingly, begun to incorporate more and more 'webified"[14] documents. We have taken the responsibility for the CILP pages and have put up a version of the Internet Law Library formerly offered by the House of Representatives. In addition, we have provided numerous documents in HTML format that relate directly to specific programs at Chicago-Kent and the Stuart School of Business. We, as many other libraries, have incorporated considerations of the availability of information/content on the Web into our collection development policies.

Additionally, the Law School and the Business School have become very involved in the current rush to deliver enhancements to the classroom experience over the Web. This distance education element has also had a direct impact on the activities of the Information Center and on the collection of materials in support of these activities.

ExLIBRIS™ is providing the central support for the incorporation of additional "devices" for content acquisition, storage, organization, and dissemination as well. ExERGON International has enhanced the software to provide software that does not deal only with electronic images, but that can store and deliver content of any digitized format. This, then, is providing the ability to incorporate the characteristics of a variety of devices into a single integrated whole. It allows us to retain characteristics that are worth retention while maintaining flexibility for the future.

We expect that we will now be able to store the audio and video clips of faculty members meeting with the press or appearing on radio and television programs; we will be able to incorporate documents that are in ASCII already as word processed documents or as spreadsheets; we will be able to acquire HTML documents to be retained as part of the collection; we will be able to take snapshots of databases for future reference-perhaps of admissions data prior to purging and starting a new cycle. All of these various formats will be available through a single system, using a single organizational mechanism, but still allowing each type of document to be used within its own environment.

The indexing capabilities now provide a much richer and much more flexible approach to these documents/files than has been possible in the traditional digital world. That single capability is an example of bringing some of the traditional characteristics of accessibility of old devices to the new.

This intermixing of document/file formats actually presents some interesting opportunities to study the characteristics that have been associated with the various information devices. In the past each device had limitations on format such that study tended to focus a great deal on the characteristics of the devices themselves rather than on the content as it was made available by the device. For example, we examined the pros and cons of _", _", or 1" videotapes as distinct from videodisks or DVD rather than the relationship of the content to being transmitted as video at all.

The full integration that we are looking forward to now has demanded that we examine the characteristics of the various information devices. We have the opportunity to pick and choose among these characteristics as we interweave the information itself and as we organize it for use. We must not be caught in the dizzying capabilities of the technologies such that we lose sight of the factors that should inform our decisions.

The implementation of electronic enhancements for the educational processes, whether local or remote, demands that we be especially aware of our roles in support of these enhancements, whether it is in the mere provision of the content for the enhancements or whether it is in the thoughtful articulation of the subject matter itself.

So, who cares about any of this?

If this seems to be an intellectual exercise with no practical value, consider the following. Libraries are still in jeopardy-our very name makes us targets for obsolescence because the device that names us is not perceived to be the preferred device for gathering information today.

We are being warned again and again that unless we provide some added value, our clients will go directly to the publishers for content/information and we will, indeed, be obsolete. It is in our own best interests for us to look critically at the content and at the delivery devices to determine where to put our efforts with our clients. We must do this if we want to provide the added value to clients through new and creative indexing, organization, access interfaces, filtering tools, and human intervention and education.

Finally, we must do this because it is good business. We have a responsibility to provide services to our clients that reduce their costs and increase the value of their product-we can only do that if we understand what we are dealing with. We can only do that is we perceive the underlying processes in which our clients engage. We can only do that if we so completely understand the universe of information that we can ourselves reduce our costs and increase the value of our product.

Endnotes

1 Sally Forth, Chicago Sun-times, August 8, 1999. In this Sunday cartoon, Sally suggests that she enjoys reading the news in a paper newspaper because it feels more like leisure-reading the same story on the computer feels more like being at work.
2 Michael J. Wolf and Geoffrey Sands, Fearless Predictions: The Content World, 2005, 2 Brill's Content 112 (July/August 1999).
3 Id.
4 See generally, Gould, Stephen Jay, Questioning the Millennium, (1997).
5 Today computer terms seem to be applied as much to humans as to computers.
6 Buzan, Tony, The Mind Map® Book, 26-33 (1996).
7 Wolf and Sands at 116.
8 West Group is currently in the midst of an advertising campaign that illustrates the print-like characteristics of information on the computer monitor, actually using pages of books. However, even the new interface does not actually look like print pages. The point that West Group is making is that their new interface retains the best of the print devices in the electronic environment of Westlaw®.
9 The Information Center is actually three libraries which have separate identities, but that have been functionally integrated for ease of use, the Chicago-Kent Law Library, the Library of International Relations, and the Stuart Business Library.
10 Although many people still refer to the conversion efforts of the Information Center as an "imaging project", this really misses the impact of those efforts on the way that the Information Center goes about its business and plans strategically for the future. The conversion effort is a central part of what the Information Center is-it effects and informs selection decisions, service decisions, staffing decisions, and the physical lay-out of the collections.
11 It is interesting to note that many of these stresses come not from the growth of a physical collection, but rather from the strain of accommodating more and more various technical devices for the transfer and storage of information. Clearly, it takes more room for people when they are using some of the newer technologies. Even the small-scale incorporation of multimedia online exercises creates a need for additional space around each computer workstation so that the noise does not bother the person seated at the next workstation.
12 We have found that the accuracy rate for conversion using the current optical character recognition algorithms is not adequate for efficient and effective conversion of the materials from the Information Center that are being scanned into image format. In fact, much of the print material that libraries contain does not lend itself to OCR conversion-lead type was just not as uniform as laser printers.
13 The functionalities available on eLOISe as a result of the underlying ExLIBRIS™ Information Showcase software far exceed most of the images available on the Web with zoom, highlighting, panning, and many additional alternatives for viewing, printing and fax capabilities for document delivery. ExLIBRIS™ is available through ExERGON International.
14 This is a term first heard by our staff when Dean Henry H. Perritt, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, spoke informally with the Information Center staff.