Organization Monkey

when i look at my bloglines account i see that i’ve saved many posts from information aesthetics.  it’s the most interesting blog i’ve looked at recently.  so much of what researchers do is look for effective ways to convey what they’ve learned, and visualizations of data are for me the most engaging.  this web site consistently displays vibrant, exciting visualizations of data.  i’ve saved many of the posts so that i can consider using them for future research.  also, by reading this blog, i feel as if i’d like to know much more about social network analysis.

we’re weeding the collection here at the library, withdrawing lots of old books.  this is great because we keep buying new books.  soon the shelves will be full and we will begin this process anew.  this is the delicate balancing act of collection management.  you don’t want to withdraw something still relevant even if it’s old, so each book is considered.  this process takes time.  but that’s not why i’m writing this post.

once we decide to withdraw the book we delete our holdings in oclc so that people won’t ask to borrow the book we’ve just tossed away.  this process used to involve opening each record and clicking on “delete holdings,” but no longer.  now we batch delete our holdings.  i feed a text file into oclc and it runs the process in the background and takes under a minute, depending on how many lines are in the file.

if you haven’t used this feature yet, give it a try the next time you have a whole bunch of books to withdraw.  here are my notes on how to do it:

1. Create a text file in Notepad of the OCLC numbers you wish to withdraw.  Put each OCLC number on its own line, like the numbers listed below these instructions.
2. Save as a .txt file on your desktop.
3. Open OCLC.  In the top menu, choose “Batch”,”Holdings by OCLC Number.” Import the file that is saved
on your desktop.  Click “Delete Holdings.”

That’s it!

46315858
48472285
50852813
21247479
21247438
21245527

i was just sifting through my bloglines account, a web-based software program which very neatly organizes the latest posts on all the blogs i like to read.  i got to the posts at open access news and saw a link to an article that appeared to be about metadata.  i clicked on the link, read the article, thought i’d like to know more, clicked over to the site being discussed, see that the url is from usc.edu.  i scrolled around on the site and saw that it is indeed a project going on RIGHT AT MY OWN UNIVERSITY, and i wouldn’t have known anything about it without the blog post.  it’s about connections, serendipity, and potential collaborations.  that said, i’m on my way to email the creators of the project just to say hello.

http://www.curehunter.com/public/dictionary.do
check this out! type in a disease in the search box and hit ‘enter’ on your keyboard. select the disease by clicking on it. in the middle frame you’ll get a hierarchical view of your search term in tree form, and in the right frame you’ll get the term at the center of an information explosion. click on the exploded terms to see how they relate to your search term.

p.s. i’m sorry i’ve forgotten who pointed me to this sweet resource.  if it was you, thanks!

for a few years now i’ve been interested in how everyday people describe images as opposed to how image experts describe them, and how the difference in vocabulary may affect the way search engines for images are constructed.  i did my master’s paper on such a topic.  i keep up with what’s going on in image indexing research, and it’s all very serious, focused, and academic.  and then i stumbled upon google’s beta image labeler, which is also about image indexing for retrieval, and it’s all very fun, whimsical, and competitive.  you’re paired with someone unknown and you type in words to describe an image on the screen.  you get points when you and your partner use the same words.  you’ve got 2 minutes to get through as many images as you can, but you only move on to the next image when your word matches your partner’s.  this may be more addictive than weboggle.  go now, give it a try.

so many high quality images out there on the ‘net lately. here are links to a few image collections i’ve recently enjoyed:

• nsf’s and the journal science’s science & engineering visualization challenge 2007 winners
• covering photography (“a web-based archive and resource for the study of the relationship between the history of photography and book cover design”)
• nikon’s small world contest 2007 winners (“photography through the microscope”)
• the micropolitan museum (note: check out the botanical garden section –beautiful!)
• national library of medicine’s historical anatomies (i blogged about this collection before)