Solving Information Puzzles

By Melody Smith | September 8, 2011

All the talk is about big data, but what about changing data? If a knowledge domain doesn’t change, it becomes stagnant. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls are changing as more and more is discovered about them by different scientists and researchers. Change was the topic recently when, Access Innovations’ president, Margie Hlava, sat down with Steve Arnold, a technology and financial analyst, owner of ArnoldIT and writer of Beyond Search.

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Font Awareness

By Melody Smith | September 5, 2011 |

Shelf Awareness is a Web-based resource for readers and those in the book trade. It was brought my attention by Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness’s book review editor. (Full disclosure, Marilyn is my cousin.) I bring this wonderful resource to your attention for a variety of reasons not the least of which is their free email newsletter service for readers and one for professionals in the book trade. Twice a week I get an email containing reviews of a wide variety of new, recent, and sometimes classic, fiction and nonfiction works.

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Changing Search Into Found

By Melody Smith | September 1, 2011

With the volume of data doubling every four to six months, findability within that data has never been more important. Many are looking to indexing as the solution to this problem.

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The Information Age-less

By Melody Smith | August 29, 2011

In a blog post last week, I discussed Robert Darnton’s recently published article in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “The Chronicle Review”, where Mr. Darnton identified and debunked, “5 Myths About the Information Age.” The first myth he debunked was the notion that the book is dead. Not only is the book not dead, it is thriving. I commented on the relationship between the printed page and how it can be supported by digital content and vice versa. One can drive greater usage of the other, if the digital content is effectively designed.

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From Paper To Digital

By Melody Smith | August 22, 2011 |

Reading anything on digital devices has many physical, behavioral, and psychological limitations as well as advantages. At the very least, eye fatigue sets in even before the battery warning light starts scolding you. A digital summer read at the beach becomes fraught with hazards as sand starts creeping into your iPad and the glare has given you a crushing headache. Will your pursuit of a great vacation read drive you indoors? Under the porch? Into the deep woods? Will you become a pasty white, reclusive figure forever lurking in the darker recesses of society in search of shadowy environs so you can catch, glare free, that illusive, perfectly crafted phrase? Digital readers are getting better at handling varied lighting conditions, but there are still challenges.

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Coordinating Platform and Taxonomy Implementations Intelligently

By Melody Smith | August 8, 2011 |

Why is it that people seem to feel that they need to get the platform and the technology in place and tested before they ever work on the organization of their information and cleaning up the data? They do not look at the data and what the data needs to be best used by the user community. I am repeatedly getting told that the DTD/Schema for the data and the taxonomy
implementation have been pushed back because they are working on implementing the platform. What do they think the platform is for? Without well organized and well formed test data how will they even begin to know that the system will be able to work well for their information? How do they know that the user can find anything in the proposed system if they have no idea what the data is like? Where are the taxonomy terms going to go in the database or the record or the system? How are they bound to the information they reference? Building the platform first is like buying a pair of shoes without knowing either the size of the foot or the occasion for which they are to be worn. Rant! Rant

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