The Library Channel

[Bo Simons]

I responded to Deirdre Woodward post on The Library Channel offlist with
a copy to Karen Schneider.  I tested The Library Channel for The Filter
Assessment Project (TIFAP).  I wrote an e-mail summing up my thoughts on
the product to Karen, and that is basically what I sent on to Deidre.  I
was not sure whether Karen wanted us TIFAP volunteers to keep our
thoughts to ourselves until she got her book out, but Karen urged me to
share my impressions.  So below is a somewhat edited version of what I
sent Karen regarding the Library Channel.


The product itself looks spiffy and slick, once you get the psychedelic
effects under control.  The copies that Karen Schneider and I received
had to
have some tweaking done to make them look and behave as they should. 
Once tweaked, the production values on the graphics, if not the
aesthetics, were impressive.

TLC consists of a main page listing 16 "Worlds," e.g. "Careers and Jobs
World,"  "Sports and Recreation World," etc.  Click on a "world" and you
get a submenu of choices within that "world."  Usually one or two
submenu choices gets you to a set of "Cybershelves," which are a listing
of WWW sites displayed as a bank of nien video screens.  

The product I tested came with a basic set of about 12,500 sites
selected by librarians in Ohio.  You may add sites to the various
worlds.  You may operate The Library Channel either as a locked down set
of links, or as a wide-open way to get at the web.  That is you can set
so your users can either get to only TLC included sites, or they can go
anyplace.  You can also build you own stoplist of sites you would prefer
your users not visit.

This seems like a massive front end to put on a library's window on the
web.  You want a good set of links, open on Carole Leita's page, or
Yahoo.  The librarians in Ohio did a good job of selecting a lot of
sites. These are some great sites, and there is a lot of variety.  I
have heard that there set out to do 20,000 and would up with only
12,500.  To me, just by a gross rule of thumb, a web site is less than a
decent book, fiction or nonfiction, in terms of the thought behind it,
and the information a user may extract from it.  But just for argument's
sake let's say a website is equal to a book.  A general, non-specialized
collection of books that is only 12,500 volumes (or even 20,000) is a
pretty thin branch public library, an underfed high school library.  The
universe of sties on the Library Channel is a limited one.  I
could answer only about a third of the test questions on Phase two with
the sites on the Channel.  

When an appropriate site is there, the Channel works well if you can
figure out which of the "worlds"  was the appropriate one. This is not
always easy.  Cooking, recipes and drinking are under 'Family World.' 
(An aside on the choice of names for parts of the Channel:  they
bothered me.  I felt like I was in a cheesy shopping mall or amusement
park.  Just the name of the subject or subjects without the "world"
appended to it would have been much better for me.  I don't know what
they'd call the "Cyber-Shelves" to make them less offensive, but they
might try representing them as something other than a bank of 9 video
screens.  It reminded me of Hollywood Squares.)   

You would think you would saved by "Search World," where you can put in
a search term and find out if the term is in any of the Worlds or on any
of the "Cyber-Shelves," but the indexing is really terrible.  Exact
matches only please.  No multiple terms.  No tracings.  No discernible
hierachy.  We know in the library profession that indexing is
everything.  Without the ability to get at a site other than by trapsing
around the various "Worlds" until you stumble upon the appropriate set
of "Cyber-Shelves."

So, if you lock down your Library Channel to only the sites included on
it, and you have something, but you don't have the web.  It's somewhat
akin to the religious fundamentalist who hands you a Bible and says
"Everything worth knowing is in there."  There's a lot in the Bible, and
there's a lot on the Library Channel, but it neither are the whole
enchilada.  

So if you turn off the lockdown (in the Newspeak of the Library Channel
turning the restrictions off is called turning "Domain Surfing" off) you
have a big clunky front end that is not much good because it is
inadequately indexed, and then you can go out to just about anyplace on
the Internet, using the modified Microsoft Internet Explorer that is
part of TLC.  So why bother?  I can get a better set of links from
Yahoo.  Or the Librarian's Index to the Internet.  both of which have
good search engines.  But say you wanted this product for its filtering
capability.  

Well, unlike other products, TLC lets you look at its stoplist.  And
guess what?  There's nothing there.  You are supposed to build the
stoplist and customize it for your needs.  So be careful what you wish
for, those of you who want complete selection/deselection,
collection-development-type control of an Internet filter, your wish has
been granted.  Now all you have to do is spend your life looking for
bestiality and cumshots and snuff videos and hate groups and
build-your-own-bomb sites and build a list to fit your perceived notion
of your community's standards.  Sometimes you almost think it's easier
to get some CyberCensor-sort of thing, let them do the filth skimming,
and who cares if it's just a few ACLU sites, some gay stuff, a few
recipes with chicken breasts that get skimmed with all real nasty
stuff.  

But back to reality.  TLC lets you build your own stoplist.  Does it let
you download, update and edit the one that is used by the libraries in
Ohio?  If it does, the product becomes marginally appealing.  Put some
good indexing or a decent search engine on the "Worlds" and the
"Cyber-Shelves" and it becomes a bit more attractive.  Fix the indexing
and have some way to efficiently manage the filter building and
maintenace, and then and only then would I recommend the Library
Channel, and only
then to a library that wants to have a graphically intense front end on
its web window, and wants to do quite a bit of work to make that front
end work.
-- 
Bo Simons		bo at sonoma.lib.ca.us		Third and E Streets
Internet Librarian					Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Sonoma County Internet Branch Library			Tel 707-545-0831  ext 525
http://www.sonoma.lib.ca.us				Fax 707-575-0437