-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- michael.alberti on Google Search Tips
- YUNA on New Video from Google about Evolution of Search
- YUNA on Google Search Tips
- maria.pafitis on Google Search Tips
- Stephen Francoeur on Revised Research Question
Archives
Categories
Meta
Author Archives: Stephen Francoeur
Posts: 41 (archived below)
Comments: 42
Discussion Topics for 19 September 2011 Class
If you didn’t get a chance to speak up in class today, you can earn points for class participation by writing your own blog post here or by commenting on a recent post written by me or one of your classmates. If you’re looking for something to write about that was discussed in class, here are some provocations to respond to here:
- Good research begins with a question and ends up with new ones. What does this mean exactly?
- What is a data dump and in what ways is not the same thing as real research?
- In the article by Weaver and Bimber we talked about today, where you can see evidence of existing discourses that they authors were tapping into?
Posted in Class Discussions
Comments Off on Discussion Topics for 19 September 2011 Class
How to Gets Blog Posts Delivered Daily by Email
- Go to Feed My Inbox
- Where it says “Website or Feed URL” copy and paste this in: http://feedstitch.com/7771/lib-1015-fall-2011-posts-and-comments.rss
- Where it says “Your Email Address,” type in whatever email address you use the most.
- Click the “Submit” button.
- You should receive an email in a few minutes from the Feed My Inbox service. That email will have a confirmation link that you must click to authorize the service and make it actually start up.
Posted in Announcements
2 Comments
Google to Answer Questions This Week about Antitrust Issues
This week, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt will be in Washington answering the questions of a Senate committee investigating antitrust issues around Google’s business practices. Details on this story can be found in this New York Times article from 18 September 2011.
Lohr, Steve and Clair Cain Miller. “Scrutinizing Google’s Reign.” New York Times. New York Times, 18 Sep. 2011. Web. 19 Sep. 2011.
Posted in Notable Articles
Comments Off on Google to Answer Questions This Week about Antitrust Issues
Comments on the 5 Books about Google Assignment
I’ve now graded everyone’s homework that asked you to list five books about Google and break down the call number using the outline of the Library of Congress Classification system. If you go into Google Documents and find your homework, you should see my comments on the side of the document, including your grade. As with all homework assignments, you can earn a maximum of 50 points. For this assignment, I was making sure that each book was actually about Google (a few of you selected books that weren’t really about Google) and that you had broken down the call number into the broad and narrow topics that are indicated by the number.
These are the things I hope that you noticed as you worked on the assignment:
- all the books on Google are not in one place in the library and are instead scattered around in different subject areas, such as:
- HD28 – HD70: Management. Industrial management
- HD9680 – HD9714: Mechanical industries. Including electric utilities, electronic
industries, and machinery - HF5801 -HF6182: Advertising
- K85-K89: Legal research
- LB1025 – LB1050.75: Teaching (Principles and practice)
- TK5101 – TK6720 (Telecommunication. Including telegraphy, telephone, radio, radar, television)
- Z674.7 – Z674.83: Library information networks
- the full call number indicates what is usually a fairly narrow topic
- there are a wealth of topics related to Google that you may want to investigate further for your final project in the class
Posted in Announcements, Homework
Comments Off on Comments on the 5 Books about Google Assignment
Clarification about Reading for September 14
In looking at the list of items on reserve for our class, I can see that there might be a disconnect between what the syllabus tells you to read for September 14 (Wednesday) and what is actually listed on reserve. Please read the following two items listed on the course reserve page for my section of LIB 1015:
- Watts, Margit Misangyi. “I Wonder If…Doing Research,” in College: We Make the Road By Walking. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007. 221-226.
- Watts, Margit Misangyi. “Understanding Scholarly Conversations,” in College: We Make the Road By Walking. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007. 209-210.
These two items are the 3rd to last and the 2nd to last ones on the list. Do not read the last item on the list, which is from a previous semester and is taken from an older edition of the book.
If you are going to the course reserve page from off campus, clicking on the link should first present you with a login page from Baruch that says “Newman Library – Baruch College / Remote Authentication” and asks you to type in your Baruch username and password. Once you get past that login page for the course reserve system (it’s a white page that says “LIB1015 – Information Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (Fall 2011) – Francoeur.” I gave out the password for this page in class; please email me or a classmate if you have forgotten it.
Posted in Announcements
Comments Off on Clarification about Reading for September 14
Dangers of Auto-Complete
A researcher at Microsoft, danah boyd (yes, she intentionally spells her first and last name all in lower case letter), recently wrote on her blog about how a clever feature that Google introduced a while ago can lead casual searchers to make erroneous assumptions. At issue is the auto-complete feature in the Google search box, which starts to suggest terms to complete your search query as you are typing it in. Those suggestions can be quite helpful as you try to think through just what it is you are trying to search for and how to spell your search words. But boyd argues that the naive searcher might be led to believe that the phrases that Google’s auto-complete suggests to you are somehow connected to statements actually found on websites.
Here is a scenario that boyd offers as an example of what can happen:
You’re a 16-year-old Muslim kid in America. Say your name is Mohammad Abdullah. Your schoolmates are convinced that you’re a terrorist. They keep typing in Google queries likes “is Mohammad Abdullah a terrorist?” and “Mohammad Abdullah al Qaeda.” Google’s search engine learns. All of a sudden, auto-complete starts suggesting terms like “Al Qaeda” as the next term in relation to your name. You know that colleges are looking up your name and you’re afraid of the impression that they might get based on that auto-complete. You are already getting hostile comments in your hometown, a decidedly anti-Muslim environment. You know that you have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but Google gives the impression that you do. And people are drawing that conclusion. You write to Google but nothing comes of it. What do you do?
What do you think? Do you think people might really jump to unreasonable conclusions based on what suggestions auto-complete offers?
boyd, danah. “Guilt Through Algorithmic Association.” apophenia, 12 Sep. 2011. Web. 13 Sep. 2011.
Posted in Notable Websites
Comments Off on Dangers of Auto-Complete
Discussing the Documentary about Google
In class today, we watched “Inside the Mind of Google,” which was originally broadcast on CNBC on February 9, 2010. We then compared it to the entries in Wikipedia for “Google” and “Googlization.” Here are some questions you can respond to either as a comment on this post, or as a comment on another post that one of your classmates has published about today’s discussion, or as your own original post.
- What are three things that you learned about Google that you think are essential to understanding the company? Defend why those things are important to an understanding of Google?
- If you could make an updated version of the video, what content would you add?
- If you were about to start a research project that involved Google in some way, which source would give you a better overview: the video or the Wikipedia entry on Google?
Posted in Class Discussions
Comments Off on Discussing the Documentary about Google
First Homework Assignment: Due September 12
The first homework assignment which asks you to find five books about Google in the library catalog, copy down their call numbers, and break down the topics in the call number, is fully described on the course website in this box on the homework page.
Posted in Homework
Comments Off on First Homework Assignment: Due September 12
Class Activity: Using the Catalog to Find Books
Write a blog post in class today (7 September 2011) that addresses these two things:
About the catalog
Tell me what types of materials can be found the catalog AND what kinds of materials can’t be found in the catalog. You’ll need to explore the catalog a bit to answer this. Take no more than 5 minutes.
Key information about a book
Search for a work of fiction that you know about (a novel, a collection of short stories, a play, etc.) and then tell me the following info about that book:
- Title of the book
- Author of the book
- Call number for the book
- Location for the book
- Status of the book
- Due date
Posted in Class Activities
Comments Off on Class Activity: Using the Catalog to Find Books
What Is Easiest and Hardest for Me When Doing Research
Please write a blog post for next Wednesday about what is easiest and hardest for you when you are doing research.
Posted in Class Discussions
Comments Off on What Is Easiest and Hardest for Me When Doing Research
