Adventures of an InfoMage in Training

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Donald Case wins ASIST's 2003 Best Information Science Book Award Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior This is the book I'm reading for LIS 510 / Information Behavior (University of Washington) "About the Book: Looking for Information presents examples of information seeking and reviews studies of the information-seeking behavior of both general and specific social and occupational groups: scientists, engineers, social scientists, humanists, policy experts, the aged, the poor, and "the public" in general.  It also discusses general research on information seeking, including basic research on human communication behavior as found in the literature of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines." [Read More @ ASIS&T Mailing List Archive] 2:39:50 PM      comment []    trackback []

Sunday, September 28, 2003

LIS 510 Information Behavior So I've survived my brief residency for LIS 510 (most students were there for two or three classes) fairly intact :-) I find the format of the class pretty interesting -- it's almost self-perpetuating in that the students (in nine groups of 4) will be providing 1-hour online presentations over the course of five weeks to be veiwed by all of the other students each week. This way, the professor doesn't have to come up with any ;-) We're also doing the typical grad student thing and gathering data (through face to face surveys and interviews) for the professor's research :-) Actually, the professor's enthusiasm is quite contagious and since I'm fairly interested in how people search out and use information, I expect I will enjoy the class overall and I'm looking forward to having new team mates to work with online. Our group is going to focus on the information behavior of students ages 17-22 that have a computer with an Internet connection. Should be interesting to say the least! There is, of course, tons of reading -- I'm just barely through the first five chapters of "Looking for Information" and now have to get through about two per week on top of all the project work. Oh, and before I forget, the professor mentioned the ISIC conference -- now that'd be a fun one to go to! She also mentioned that she has additional graduate work available for a lot of the research and presenting she's doing. I'm actually going to keep that in mind for the first of the year! 4:20:04 PM      comment []    trackback []

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

(Grad School) Surprisingly bad article overall So we were assigned "Accountability in a Computerized Society" (pdf) by Helen Nissenbaum to read as part of this week's module on "accountability and liability." While Nissenbaum makes some very valid points about how the current process of software development (or any large corporation) obscures (partially or totally) the lines of accountability, she really misses the mark in other areas. Early on she proposes that "A general culture of accountability should encourage answerability ... even for the malfunctions that cause individual losses of time, convenience, and contentement." You mean every time in not content with some product or other I should be able to hold somebody else answerable!? Her one (and only pertinent) example of a serious software flaw that caused bodily harm in three cases and death in three other: the case of the Therac-25, a computer-controlled radiation treatment device. Beyond this one incident, she provides no other examples of software causing serious harm. Instead, she veers off course, brings up Apple's disclaimer from a 1990 Macintosh Reference Manual ("In no event will Apple be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from any defect in the software or its documentation..." blah blah blah). Of course, the first thing that pops into my head is, "Who in their right mind would use Apple, Windows, or any other 'consumer software' for something as life-critical as a radiation treatment device?" No one. Certainly no one that is mentioned in her article. She further proposes that "serious consideration be given to a policy of strict liability for computer system failure, in particular for those sold as consumer products in mass market." Unfortunately, nowhere in this article does she ever prove or even present a case for the need of such a policy. Now, don't get me wrong -- I think corporate America has figured out how to get away with way too much. I couldn't agree more. And I certainly think that there ought to be more stringent control over software that is developed and released in the areas that could cause serious harm to individuals (medical, air traffic control systems and the like) but good luck in ever showing real harm from Windows where due diligence was performed by 9:41:40 PM      comment []    trackback []

Sunday, September 07, 2003

Initial Thoughts As of today (9/7)  I have completed two key parts of being a new grad student: I completed the residency (8/12 - 8/16) and this past Sunday I submitted my (short) final essay for LIS 500 (The Information Lifecycle). So I thought this would be a good time to blog about some of the highlights so far. The Residency Five days spent at the beautiful UW campus. Lots of information crammed into a short period of time, not the least of which was the brief 90 minutes of instruction from the Head Librarian at the Suzallo Library (which is a beatiful building). Not enough time to bond with other members of my cohort (I'm slow to make new friends as it is). And yet, you leave with an excellent sense of what the program is about: it's heavy on the theory yet manages to come back around well thought-out practical applications.   LIS 500 A   11:51:44 AM      comment []    trackback []

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