University of Washington

Last week, thanks to ASIS&T UW, I visited the University of Washington iSchool, where I shared the stage with my old friend, Joe Janes, also known as the Internet Librarian and founder of the Internet Public Library.

Joe discussed the past 50 years of searching (PDF). I talked about the present and future of findability (PDF). We had a great discussion with the audience, and then went out for drinks. A podcast should be available soon (see below), and in the meantime you can read my Silverfish interview.

I also made my requisite IA pilgrimage to the Seattle Public Library, where I had fun climbing the Dewey Decimal Books Spiral. Lou will be there tomorrow for Enterprise IA, and then IDEA starts up on Monday. I wish I could make it!

Update

Unfortunately, the quality of the UW Podcast isn't great, at least at the start. If you want to hear my voice, this Library of Congress Webcast sounds better.

Finding Findability

Yesterday, I received an unusually high volume of fan mail about Ambient Findability. I already posted one message. Here's the other:

Mr. Morville:

I’ve had various roles in the computing business since the mid ‘80’s and am now in the business of acquiring marketing and customer satisfaction information for bank executives. Ambient Findability is the most important book on information I have ever read. It’s helping me personally and professionally. I can hardly believe how many good ideas are in the book. It’s incredible. Thank you very much for writing it.

I am recommending it to everyone I work with in the computing and information business, and keep a copy of it handy at my desk so I can show it to people.

I thought you’d like to know how I came to find Ambient Findability: About a month ago my 9th grade son started a school science project, and part of the required work was to prepare a bibliography. When I asked to see his work I was aghast to see that all of the references in the bibliography were found on the Web using Google. He had not even considered using a library for this task. I insisted that he needed to find sources that were known to be authoritative and that we would go to the library at once to research it. The library had not opened yet, so we went across the street to Barnes and Noble and went to the Science section to start looking for references. While there, I wandered into the Engineering section and found your book by happenstance, started reading it, and bought it before we left.

Because his subject was a bit unusual, I explained the importance of reference librarians and how they can help find materials to support research. We went to the library, introduced ourselves to the reference librarian, and subsequently found good quality information that he needed. Although he found the critical information he needed to form his hypothesis in a book, I don’t believe he took that exercise seriously, and seems to think it’s odd that Google isn’t sufficient for academic work. Our next conversation on this subject will be about how free technology isn’t a complete answer, just partial, and needs to be augmented by a variety of other media, including for-fee online services.

Best regards,

Rudy Smith

Ham Lake, MN

I love hearing how people found the lemur book, and it's good to hear a first-person story about the challenges of selecting sources and evaluating authority. So, keep those email messages coming. Cheers!

Room to Read

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World tells the interesting and inspiring story behind John Wood's mission to bring books, libraries, schools, computers, and educational scholarships to the children of Nepal, Cambodia, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and South Africa.

It's a wonderful story, and Room to Read, the nonprofit organization he founded to promote literacy and education in the developing world, appears to be having a real impact.

Library of Congress

I'm headed to Washington, DC next week to speak at the Library of Congress.

My talk is free and open to the public, so please share this flyer with anyone who might be interested. Thanks!

Bookless Libraries

Today, NPR's Talk of the Nation will discuss the Bookless Library. Karen Schneider provides details and a pre-show perspective. In related news, George Monbiot warns that RFID implants are creating libraries of people.

Google Book Search

Mary Sue Coleman delivered an inspiring address yesterday to the Association of American Publishers. Here's a snippet:

I have spent 45 years in higher education, from being a freshman at a small liberal arts college in Iowa, to leading of one of the premier research universities of the world. I have been involved in groundbreaking medical research, have worked alongside some of the brightest minds in academe, and have dined with Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates.

Google Book Search is the most revolutionary enterprise I've ever experienced. It has the potential to transform the flow of knowledge, and there is no greater gesture a university can make.

Now that puts Google Book Search in perspective!

Marginalia

I stumbled across the social card catalog at the Ann Arbor District Library this weekend. Then, thanks to Superpatron, I found John Blyberg.

It's good to see librarians are learning from retail and embracing Jenny's vision of libraries as social machines. Does this mean we can write in books?

Endeca in the Library

The NCSU Libraries have announced the first library deployment of Endeca ProFind with Guided Navigation. I expect many libraries will follow suit. It must be an exciting time to be at NCSU. Not only do they have the coolest catalog. They also get to zip around on a Segway Human Transporter.

No wonder everyone wants to be a librarian these days. Speaking of which, I had lunch yesterday with Superpatron (the alter ego of Ed Vielmetti) who's been playing with Ann Arbor's catalog. I especially like his visual wall of books.

You Are Here

Welcome to findability.org: the next generation. In case you haven't noticed, it's a borg. I mean, it's a blog. Yes, after years of quiet resistance, I've succumbed to the call of the blogosphere. I've been assimilated.

In blogging, my most transparent and prosaic goal is to promote my new book, Ambient Findability. I've poured blood, sweat, and tears into this strange text, so I won't be shy about inviting folks to read it.

That said, I'm hoping this blog will go beyond the book. As my classification scheme hints, I'll be writing about authority, business, culture, design, search, ubicomp, etc. And let's not forget the oft-maligned category of miscellaneous. I very much reserve the right to write about seemingly random topics.

So, if you want the original findability, it's there but not here. And if you like this new place, please come again, or better yet, leave a piece of yourself behind.