[Web4lib] AI answering, IBM Watson, whatever...

[Marc Davis]

Well, it all comes down to what we are teaching in our libraries, doesn't it?  When we first deployed our discovery layer, objections came from the librarians that we were "making it too easy for students."

Ultimately, I understood this simply to mean that our orientation wasn't toward rapidly finding and using information but was -- instead -- to teach students to do research in the same academically approved ways that our librarians had learned to do academic research 10 or 20 or 30 years before.  And it is *academic* research -- doing things in the style and modalities that lead to academic recognition and academic success.

That objection eventually faded as the service proved its value. Slowly though, because the academic library was designed to support the rituals and methodologies of of a 18th century institution and a publishing model based on print scarcity. Obscurity and complexity were the friend of the Librarian, his defense against the world, his insurance of relevancy.  Openness and simplicity -- for all our protestations -- are not yet the core values of the academic library.

Just my opinion, of course, and reflecting not at all on the fine people I work with here.  Still as I see the end of my 30 year career in libraries approaching, I think a failure to reconceptualize the academic library will be fatal as we are bypassed by services that are not bound to the Academy and it's elegant -- but increasingly useless -- adherence to the methodologies of previous centuries.

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Marc Davis | Systems Coordinator | Cowles Library | Drake University 
Mailing: 2507 University Avenue | Des Moines, IA 50311 USA | 515-271-1934 
Shipping: 2725 University Avenue | Des Moines, IA 50311 USA 
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Ernest Perez" <ernest.r.perez at gmail.com>
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 7:28:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] AI answering, IBM Watson, whatever...

Howdy, Webbers,

I'd made my original post on the tail end of the IBM Watson/AI-answering
topic in hopes of hearing more reactions about, "Exactly what is it that we
want a mythical Answer Wizard to do, anyway?"

I offered the information about my company's Web service, and their approach
from the view of linguistic analyzing, summarizing, condensing, and
organizing pertinent information relevant to a user query; of giving the
user the ability to stop when enough and appropriate information had been
delivered.

I have heard from one nearby academic library staff, where I asked the
Reference Director to examine our application. He responded that he and 5 of
the senior Reference staff tried out "iResearch Reporter," and felt they had
to give me negative feedback.

Their comments:

   - Felt that this made it "too easy" for the user.
   - That it would not be effective in teaching them evaluation of
   resources, in the proper methods of research, etc.
   - That it was questionable, maybe a bit like "buying a college degree."
   - That it didn't seem like a proper approach.
   - That because of this, they ethically couldn't give a positive reaction
   to this kind of text-mining application.

Whoa! Am I missing something here? I first associated with development of
our product after my long library career of helping people and organizations
find information, answer questions, solve problems, etc. Or as Mike Keonig
has phrased it, "Putting something away and being able to find it again."

In the past, I'd published two separate articles in Online Magazine about
this kind of software technology, describing this linguistic analysis
approach, and outlining the benefits as I saw them.

Coming from that view, I was surprised by the reactions of these six
academic librarians. I thought the purpose of what we've all been doing was
helping people effectively get the information we need.


Surprise...! Perhaps we may all want to raise ethical objections to such
questionable smoke & mirrors as IBM STAIRS (& Watson), Dialog, BRS, Google,
Bing, Information Access, Ebsco, etc.      8-)

Can't make things too darned easy, after all. Eh?

Cheers,
  --ernest
 ---------------------------
Ernest Perez, Ph.D.
Power Text Solutions, Inc.
http://www.irr-usa.com
ernest at irr-usa.com
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