Presentation Transcript

1. Electronic Literature (E-Lit)in Public Libraries

   Presented by MA student in LIS (Library and Information Science) from HIOA (Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus) AlexandrBelov
2. MA Thesis Curating, Facilitating and Archiving E-Lit in Public Libraries’ physical and digital spaces
3. Research Questions Howdo the public libraries manage organizing information infrastructurefor E-Lit information artifacts, both creative and critical, for both physical and digital library environments? Whatpreventsormakes it difficult to realize this information infrastructure fully? Why are E-Lit information artifacts and conversations around them are still largelyabsent from the libraries’ collections and facilitation process? What are the existing ways of implementing them into the public library physical and digital space? What are the potential possibilities to improve facilitation of E-Lit visibility, use and knowledge creationin public libraries?
4. What IS so special about Bergen Public Library? Close proximity and relation to local E-Lit community Local E-Lit community’s work on the richest database of E-Lit, ELMCIP Knowledge Base, Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice Local E-Lit’shigh level of internationalization through various partnerships and collaborations outside Norway ELMCIP’s inclusion in CELL (Consortium of Electronic Literature) Regular site visits, conferences, workshops, exhibitions, scholars exchange on knowledge, student involvement etc.
5. ELMCIP, Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice Positive reactions about the ease of use, quality and richness of information on E-Lit: The depth of descriptions Contextuality Cross-reference Generalness of content Possibility to use the platform as pedagogical material Special research collections to deepen the knowledge Digital space for sharing research on E-Lit ELMCIP Knowledge Base of E-Lit
6. Where else to find E-Lit? A lot of open access resources online Free ≠ Without value Eastgate Publisher vs. WWW Focus on “communitizing” than “monetizing” Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 Electronic Literature Collection Volume 2 Electronic Literature Directory
7. What IS actually E-Lit? “electronic literature is like a library written in invisible ink, vanishing before our eyes” (Scott Rettberg) “works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer” (ELO, Electronic Literature Organization) field of artistic and literary practice born-digital artifacts labirinthine arrays of genres and types
8. Hypertext fiction Interactive fiction Flash and Kinetic Poetry Email, SMS and Blog novels Literary performance Chatterbot Codework Game Poetry
9. Examples of E-Lit 88 Constellations by David Clark The Sweet Old Etcetera by Alison Clifford Textopia by Anders SundnesLøvlie From Ireland with Letters by Judy Malloy Entropy Edition by Johannes Helden
10. Marginality of E-Lit No public demand Lack of knowledge Weak system of publishing Vanishing journals and publishers Obsolescence of electronic platforms and programs The disadvantage of being an electronic writer and teaching electronic writing
11. E-Lit Community vs. Poetry Community
12. Electronic Literature Reading Series and Events at Bergen Public Library The most successful local collaboration of Digital Culture and E-Lit research groups: Monthly E-Lit readings, events, performances, presentations, workshops and discussions International artists, scholars and guests Varied program of events Unique opportunity to connect E-lit community in Europe The library’s enthusiasm and support in making E-Lit more visible in Norway Possibility to experience first-hand E-Lit works
13. E-Lit Readings and Events: What IS the problem? Narrow circle of the visiting audience Weak marketing and advertising of the event: Catch-attention approach 1 (smarter posters, brighter colors, E-Lit logo/brand) Uncertainty of what to expect at such an event: Catch-attention approach 2 (permanent screen installations with E-Lit collections/temporary exhibitions/interactive purpose-made works in visible physical places) Lack of varied discourse on E-lit in library’s digital spaces: Integrating most interesting E-Lit resources and collections into the library’s web-site and blog (ELC, ELD and ELMCIP) Lack of preparation and pre-event/event information facilitation: Introduce the event’s theme, rhetoric and ideas Link them to the existing knowledge and find relationships to more popular concepts and print-based culture
14. Focus on children and young adults as audience for some events
15. Evaluate the library users’ expectations, thoughts, wishes and uncertainties through surveys
16. Find parallels with print-based literature, computer games, films, music videos and other more traditional information resources and mediate these to the audience
17. Provide native language works (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) and easier English text works for some events to engage the simpler-minded audience
18. E-Lit Literacy Both librarians and their patrons have difficulties to understand the concept of E-Lit It is important to provide conceptual framework , background, idea of storytelling and changing nature of literature Demonstrate the various tools literature used in order to be created and expressed historically(stones, woods, papyrus, hand-written manuscripts, various prints, silent films, textual art etc. ) and in digital age (e-mails, social media, blogs, e-books, forums etc.). Create storytelling workshops to draw parallels to oral traditions, for example
19. Avoid print-centricity in your library
20. Conversation Theory Learning and Knowledge come via Conversation Artifacts are just tools to serve the Conversation
21. Language L₀ used to negotiate conversation used by conversants with low pre-existing knowledge L₁ used to further and develop conversation used as long as conversants learn more and more about the domain
22. Bring the patrons to the L₁ is the dominant approach by contemporary libraries realized in classic information literacy instruction
23. The Systems Approach …….
24. The user design approach Value-Added model of information systems by Robert Taylor: If a system does not make a user’s life better, no matter how good the technology is, it is still useless But “Users have no idea what they want, and they are lousy at telling you what they need” (Andrew Dillon)
25. Moreover, the system serves diversity of population: everyone uses L₁, but not all of them use the same L₁
26. User Systems, or Participatory Systemssuggested by R. David Lankes Patrons build the systems themselves Tuning towards the patron’s understanding and language use Applications of functionality: Want to search for databases? Add an app. Want to search for E-Lit works? Add an app. Etc…
27. Invest in Tools of Knowledge creation, not in Tools that collect artifacts Don’t start with what you have (collections), but with your community needs (if they need rather a workshop or a blog, make them instead). You cannot collect everything in a massive WWW-dominated world of information: How will you catalog a facebook page, a blog, a webpage?
28. Memory To keep track of previous agreements and make them available in new situations We remember and think relationally: tangled web of ideas and their contexts: “OMG” stands for Oh My God, Object Management Group, and a dozen of other concepts
29. Scapes or Digital Tables Give patrons a big table from which to work They begin to pile artifacts As they find more information they begin to build piles (pile A and pile B), which they connect with strings and note what the relationship is
30. Scapes or Digital Tables They can invite friends in to help or experts to consult with In the end, if nothing helps, they can invite librarians to help
31. Scapes and Digital Tables Now the librarian has not only the question, but also can see the table of what they have already looked at and how they are conceptualizing their worldview The patrons can add other people’s scapes, collaborate and link things The more explicit your scape looks like the more chance you have to find people who share the common relationships
32. Means of Facilitation as set of new digital divides Access Knowledge Environment Motivation
33. Access Open access publishing Online conversations Providing access as a two-way street: From patron to patron, from one community to another community and vice versa Making the community’s content accessible Acquisition as a matter of production, not purchasing Librarians as publishers of community
34. Access Information organization Core librarianship skills are not enough Contextualized knowledge with focus on relationships (“more like this” approach as a holy grail of new librarianship) Addressing Massive scale Go beyond artifacts and items Structure beyond metadata Change at the core of the library Integrated Library System (ILS) problem: Need to abandon all ideas about next-generation catalog and build instead a set of modular functions that can be replaced and combined
35. Access Library as the collection of member collections Librarians collecting the expertise Need for hybrid meeting spaces: Online environment is not only a place to fetch information, but a place to facilitate knowledge and conversation Facilitating access to the online dissemination of scholarly work
36. Knowledge Access is not enough to increase someone’s knowledge One needs to know how to use the resources, in short to be information literate
37. Knowledge Big 6 Information Literacy Skills by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz: Task Definition Information Seeking Location and Access Use of Information Synthesis Evaluation The need to expand the notion of information literacy as individual empowerment Social literacy beyond Social media: privacy issues, communication skills, authenticity, credibility and social good
38. Environment Facilitating equal safety (physical, intellectual, cultural) and participation Supporting patrons’ memory in physical and digital space
39. Motivation We need not only bring people to the library, but bring library to people Be aware of people’s extrinsic and intrinsic motivation If we want our patrons to come back we must recognize and reward their reasons to use library services
40. Combining E-Lit events, installations and activities with other famous festivals and events: Roskilde Library bringing E-Lit installations and performances to Roskilde Music Festival and to other public libraries of Denmark
41. Roskilde Library Poetry Hall at Roskilde Music Festival as a room for reflection and a place specific literary activity : Roskilde Dream Poetry Bingo Interactive Poetry Wall Librarians and project workers engagement in marketing the project
42. Roskilde Library Focus on collective and social experiences involving multi-user possibilities Focus on making E-Lit interesting to average public How to facilitate the understanding of the E-Lit’s interactive, processing and programmable nature? Make people think more on media change Reading stations with Macs and Ipads Blæk or Poetry machine Nettlitteratur Web, Blog and Catalog
43. Electronic Literature and Its Emergent Forms Exhibition at Library of Congress Dene Grigar and her colleagues’ enthusiasm and full engagement in the project The most representative creative works Space and audience as central background ideas: Five E-Lit reading stations in the center Five Context stations with print works on the left Creation stations on the right Works of art experienced in relation to one another Keynote speakers – important scholars and artists in the field Bringing Early E-Lit on older computers and technology
44. Modern Language Association (MLA) E-Lit Exhibit in Seattle 2012 Exhibit divided by medium: Works on desktop Mobile and Geolocative Readings and Performances Student assistance in curating the project Web Archive for MLA E-Lit Exhibit Curating vs. “Anthologizing” E-Lit The concept of curare
45. What do we need? Facilitating connection between E-Lit communities and their audiences in a two-way street The libraries promise the permanent institutional support and leadership Continuous update with knowledge and upgrading LIS life education through training, workshops, insightful meetings: Look towards Semantic Web and Linked Data nationally (NTNU Trondheim University Library) and internationally Hybrid profession of a librarian: curator, facilitator, knowledge organizer, marketer. Collaborate at the core, not on the surface
46. Give access to both physical and digital channels of information Give access not only to artifacts, but to conversations Facilitate knowledge how to create knowledge Let them know that more knowledge gives power Give safe and attractive environment Support their memory Motivate Be there with your patrons, don’t just call them to the library Contextualize Collect the patrons’ collections Collect expertise Think in ontologies, strings of relations
47. Questions, suggestions, disagreements, advice are welcome
48. References “Electronic Literature Organization.” Accessed March 10, 2014. http://eliterature.org/. Borras, Laura, TalanMemmott, Rita Raley, Brian Stefans, Electronic Literature Collection. Volume 2. Massachussetts. Electronic Literature Organization, February, 2011. http://collection.eliterature.org/2/. Grigar, Dene. “‘On Evolving and Emerging Literary Forms: A Curatorial Statement for “Electronic Literature & Its Emerging Forms.” HASTAC, March 27, 2013. http://www.hastac.org/blogs/dgrigar/2013/03/27/%E2%80%9C-evolving-and-emerging-literary-forms-curatorial-statement-%E2%80%98electronic-lit. Hayles, N. Katherine, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, Stephanie Strickland, Electronic Literature Collection. Volume 1. Maryland. Electronic Literature Orgnization, October, 2006. http://collection.eliterature.org/1/. Hochrieser, Sabine, Michael Kargl, and Birgit Rinagl. “Curating Media/Net/Art: Extended Curatorial Practices on the Internet.” CONT3XT.NET, October 2007. http://cont3xt.net/blog/?p=266. Kirschenbaum, Michael. “Electronic Literature as Cultural Heritage (Confessions of an Incunk).” Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, April 2013. http://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/electronic-literature-as-cultural-heritage-confessions-of-incunk/. Lankes, R. David. The Atlas of New Librarianship. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2011. http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/. Pask, Gordon. Conversation Theory: Applications in Education and Epistemology. Amsterdam; New York: Elsevier, 1976. Rettberg, Scott. “Communitizing Electronic Literature.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 3, no. 2 (2009). http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000046/000046.html. Roskilde Bibliotekerne. “Litteraturen Finder Sted - Ideer Til Formidling.” Issuu. Accessed March 10, 2014. http://issuu.com/roskildebibliotekerne/docs/idekatalog. Roskilde Bibliotekerne. “Litteraturen Finder Sted - Idekatalog Til Interaktiv Og Begivenhedsorienteret Litteratur På Biblioteket.” Nettlitteratur. Accessed March 10, 2014. http://www.netlitteratur.dk/.