Category: Uncategorized

Museum of the City of New York

Due to a friends recommendation, I recently visited the Museum of the City of New York to learn more about the city I’ve been living in for the past 4 years.  New York City is so rich with history and culture, that mentioning NYC to anyone can bring up a different range of emotions, feelings, and thoughts.   The Museum is filled with close to 450 historic physical objects and images as well as contemporary video, photography, and interactive digital experiences that give an insightful and intimate look of New York City from it’s early beginnings to now.

As I walked into the museum I was immediately introduce to an exhibit called “New York at Its Core”.  This exhibit, in a nutshell, answers the question of “What makes New York New York?”   

The exhibit covers the history of New York from 1609 through 2012 with various sections dedicated to specific timeframes each with supporting artifacts.  Framed around the key themes of money, density, diversity, and creativity, New York City’s history and future come alive in this first-of-its-kind exhibition, through the stories of innovation, energy, struggle, and the vision of generations of immigrants, politicians, tycoons, dreamers, master builders, and ordinary New Yorkers. [MCNY].  I specifically liked how this exhibit used both physical and digital objects to illustrate and inform visitors of the rich history of NYC.  More on the use of interactive screens later.

A few floors above, I was excited walk through the Jackie Robinson exhibit, “In the Dugout with Jackie Robinson”.   

The avid baseball fan in me was excited to see the various memorabilia and rare footage (video and photos) of Jackie Robinson and his family, as well as the published magazines covers and articles from popular publishers outlining his career and life story.  The collection of materials gave an intimate portrait of a baseball legend struggles, challenges, obstacles, and success on and off the field.  This exhibit in some ways made me think about how each person has a story and it can be documented by the person and people around them that gives a glimpse into the past.

As I walked through these museum, I noticed the variety of people (races, ages, gender, etc), exhibits/collections and how they intersected and connected us (as people and visitors). It reminded me that even if you aren’t an avid baseball fan or from NYC, museums bring together people from different backgrounds, forms connections, and educates (or informs) them about topics that they may not have known or interested in.  Museums are unique in that they tend to offer a neutral place for discussion, thought and experience; similar to libraries they can serve as a platform for promoting innovation within our communities.  Of course the degree of education by these institutes are based on how well they are curated, the type of content they contain and the more, importantly, willingness/openness the visitor is to receive information. Not only is it important to enable the passing of information but also enable the reception/receiving for it (i.e. via technology or learning how to interpret/process information as a user/visitor).

Reinforcing Bucklands ideals, museums are a great example of Information systems and the physical objects within them are great examples of Information-as-thing.  Moreover the Museum of the City of New York itself is a document.  But what is a document, according to Buckland, by definition a document is any source of information, in material form, capable of being used for reference or study or as an authority.  [Buckland]  The concept of “document” opens up a broader perspective, which creates, rather than limits understandings of the human relationship with information. This expanded concept of “document” as sign/semiotic helps us understand user experience in ways not previously explored in the convergence of museums and information studies. [Lantham]

Neither information-as-process nor information-as-knowledge are considered tangible because they cannot be measured or touched. [Buckland]  In order to use, manipulate or handle information, we must communicate it.  Information can be so large and vast, no matter what form it takes whether digital or physical, that it can be quite overwhelming when viewing or consuming it, regardless of the setting (library, museum, book, internet, etc).  

Museums, specifically, are curated in a way that allows information to be accessible without overbearing the user/visitor.  I never really though of User Experience in the field of libraries or museums as I naively thought of UX only in the field of computers.   An example of how technology is changing the way museum and visitor engagement is changing is with the introduction of interactive screens.  In the “New York at Its Core” exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York, there are interactive elements that introduce visitors to 70+ historical figures who represent New York City’s characteristic diversity such as Jean Basquiat, Patti Smith, Joel Ross, etc.  See image below for reference.

As described by Don Norman in the Design of Everyday things, these interactive elements are extremely effective and its use of affordances, signifiers, immediate feedback, and mappings presents a strong example of user-centered design.  They are easy to use and understand for people of all ages and abilities and has a simple design that enables discoverability of the countless amount of information.

In closing, as technology changes and how people consume information, so will industry and institutions change. Museums are having to adapt to these changes not necessarily out of reluctance but necessity and are beginning to embrace new forms of communication, storytelling, and engagement. 

Bibliography

Museum of the City of New York, Available online: https://www.mcny.org/nyatitscore [Accessed on April 10, 2019]

Micahel Buckland, Journal of the American Society of Information Science48, no. 9 (Sept 1997): 804-809

Kiersten F. Latham, “Museum object as document: Using Buckland’s information concepts to understand museum experiences”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 68 Issue: 1, pp.45-71,https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411211200329

Posted on by Armon Burton 0

The World Between Empires

I recently paid a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Middle East. The show covers art from about 100 BC to 250 AD, an era during which the Roman Empire in the west and the Parthian Empire in the east ruled the region. It occupies the museum’s largest exhibition space which has been subdivided into about a dozen galleries, each focusing on a particular area or culture within the region as a whole. Objects in the show were overwhelmingly ‘artifactual’ in nature — pieces of architecture, sculptures, coins, and decorative arts — with a handful paintings on plaster.

These galleries are arranged in a linear fashion, such that every visitor proceeds through the show following the same path, which conceptually follows the trade routes from southwestern Arabia, up through the Levant, and into Mesopotamia. By ‘guiding’ viewers through the show with a predetermined order, the curators are able both to enforce a narrative as well as draw out similarities and distinctions between bordering cultures.

As with most exhibitions at the Met, the primary source of information is in the form of the artworks themselves, wall plaques which describe and give context to the works, and supplementary commentary usually introducing a particular gallery and thus a particular culture.

Visitors are first greeted by a large wall text that introduces the show. This is the one bit of text which nearly every visitor stopped to read — perhaps due, in part, to the fact that it is nearly the only thing in the gallery — and thus must do a lot of the heavy lifting for contextualizing everything else that they will see. It also means that the design of that space is one of congregated people staring at a wall for a few minutes each. It’s something of an odd sight but it emphasizes the power that these few paragraphs will have in priming visitors’ engagement with the show.

Having entered the exhibition proper, one of the first things I wanted to focus on was the ‘speed’ with which visitors moved through the galleries. How many were looking at each object? How many were reading the wall plaques? &c. I sampled these patterns at three points in the show: in the first gallery, about midway through the show, and in the final gallery. Interestingly, it was in the middle gallery where people were most engaged with the works and with the texts. The final gallery saw the highest percentage of visitors ‘just walking through’, and the early gallery was between the two, but closer to the high level of engagement of the middle gallery. I suspect that part of the reason the early gallery saw less engagement was because it was also the most crowded, so either consciously or unconsciously, more ‘skipped’ this gallery to space themselves out, rather than waiting behind crowds to view objects. Curiously, the percentage of people reading wall texts (i.e., the general context-setting texts in each gallery, not the plaques for particular works) was about the same in each location: only ~15%.

The second thing I wanted to observe was, of those who engaged with works’ plaques, how did those plaques interleave with their viewing of the object myself? For example, I myself usually take a brief glance at the work, read the plaque, and then returning to the work. About two thirds of visitors engaging with the texts, however, essentially did the reverse: view the work, turn to the plaque for a varying amount of time — sometimes skimming, sometimes reading the entirety — glance back at the work briefly, and then move on to the next work. This variation in the order of engagement will inevitably shape how the plaque interprets the work and vice versa. ‘What did I just see?’ versus ‘What am I about to see?’ Understanding how people move between object and text might in turn inform what text should accompany a given work.

Finally, I wanted to observe the effect of object placement within the galleries. For example, objects along a wall, rather than in the center of the gallery; or objects in the middle of the wall or in a corner. On the whole, placement in this regard largely did not seem to matter. The one exception to this is that objects furthest from the ‘flow’ of a gallery were viewed slightly less than those in the mainstream of that ‘flow’; and this was regardless of how large or small the out-of-the-way object was or whether against a wall or in the middle of the room.

There were, however, individual visitors with identifiable viewing patterns. Several people — most often those moving through the gallery most quickly — primarily engaged with objects not against walls (which often tended to be larger ‘feature-size’ objects). On the other hand, one visitor stuck close to the walls, and for the entirety of the time I observed him, never approached an object not against the wall. From the general observations, however, it would seem that placement is more flexible than I would have thought, leaving curators free to use placement as a means of relating objects to one another without having to worry much about an object being in a ‘prime location’.

There was not much digital information throughout the galleries, with the exception of one gallery dedicated solely to a 12-minute video. Preceding the galleries on Palmyra, Dura-Europos, and Mesopotamia, the video is an interview with three archaeologists discussing the recent destruction of many monuments and artifacts in these regions by Islamic State and others. I was curious to see how many visitors would watch the video and for how long. Nearly everyone (~80%) stopped to watch for at least some time. About 60% watched for only a few minutes, while the remaining 20% watched all, or nearly all, of the video.

I would be curious to know how this compares to video installations in other exhibitions. Unlike many installations, the gallery is not ‘off to the side’, such that one must actively choose to entire the installation space, nor is it a small screen alongside other works. This is the only thing in the gallery, it is projected against an entire wall, and one must pass through in the course of making one’s way through the show. These gallery features, along with its darkness between other brightly lit galleries, serve both to ‘confront’ viewers with the interviews, easing their way into watching it, while also convey that this is something important, which the curators want everyone to watch, and not just another work alongside the other 200 in the show.

All in all, though a museum exhibition like this is largely, to the passive observer, a largely non-interactive experience for visitors, there are nonetheless clear patterns of interaction which develop as visitors engage with the works, with descriptive plaque texts, and context-setting wall texts and maps. By consciously looking for these patterns, one can see ways in which a curator might draw special attention to an object, such as was done with the video gallery.

Posted on by smitch21 0

Event: Cyber Talk: The Future of Smart Cities

According to United Nations, 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050, adding about 2.5 billions new urban dwellers in the already overloaded cities in the next 30 years. Aiming to enhance citizens’ experience and promote better city decision-making, Smart City has long be anticipated as the next generation of urban evolution. However, the concerns around data privacy and security can not be ignored. On March 25th, I attended “Cyber Talk: The Future of Smart Cities”, an event curated by SOSA NYC, featuring two keynote speakers: Ana Arino (Chief Strategy Officer, NYCEDC) and Yaniv Harel (General Manager Cyber Solutions Group of Dell EMC) and a Smart Cities Panel with Micah Kotch (Managing Director of Urban-X), Sasson Darwish (Managing Director RBC Capital Markets) and Ohad Snir (General Manager – US of Nexar), focusing on the on-going Smart City projects and cybersecurity.

Although very much unnoticeable, as the city mostly remained the same at glance, NYC was awarded the “Best Smart City” in 2016. In fact, the density of infrastructure and the scale of educated workforce makes NYC an ideal experimental field for innovative solutions. On top of that, the vulnerabilities of the current aging infrastructure creates severe challenges, forcing the government to work in partnership with the private sector and academic institutions (Arino, 2019). Numerous smart cities projects, including BigBelly (a smart waste management system) and LinkNYC (free WIFI and phone hotspot kiosk with 911 emergency button and charging outlets) has been deployed across the city. In addition to upgrading the existing infrastructure, NYC also showed its ability to take on new challenges. Hudson Yards, as the biggest private real estate development in the history of United States, is integrated with innovative smart city technologies and showcased how those technologies can benefit local residents. Another way to implement Smart City strategy is to build a city from scratch, as what Sidewalk Labs currently working on in marshlands near Toronto, Canada. The project allowed them to experiment their vision of a city operating system, build infrastructure, connected buildings, connected transportation and digital overlay above the city. Even though the vision itself can not be replicated to existing cities as a whole, but it might be partially adopted in any new buildings and neighborhoods within those cities. 

Since there is no regulation regarding information collected by private businesses, those ambitious technologies solutions coined in the city have raised concerns around data privacy and security, as most of them are led by private companies due to the massive cost which public entities can not afford. For many companies the current business model is based on monetizing data, and it is surveillance capitalism which “preys on dependent populations who are neither its consumers nor its employees and are largely ignorant of its procedures”(Zuboff, 2016). However, even we are aware of the procedures, we can not avoid being tracked by the sensor on the phone or CCTV monitoring the streets especially living in a city like New York. What is more, in the future city where everything is connected, an unconnected individual may be exposed in danger, or be overlooked by certain city services since other devices can not detect your existence. How much information does the technology solution need to ensure the individual is being take care of without knowing too much? The line between privacy and safety is yet to be defined.

Another interesting question need to be further discuss is the boundary between public and private. As we are all citizens, does the data generated by us, which contains no personal information,  be seen as public resources? If our data was eventually pulled into a data lake own by the government, do we have the obligation to share our data? Or does the government has the right to force the companies holding data generated by individuals to share and expose those information, so other developers could build public welfare applications on top of it? 

In conclusion, I think our society is not yet ready to move on to the next evolution, both technologically and ethically. The panel made me realized advanced technology is not a solution for every issue and a new business model need to be create in order to eliminate the information privacy concern. But to start the process, maybe government and private companies need to convince the public that those smart solutions benefit the average person and one way to achieve that is involving the community in early stage of the project to build trust. 

INFO 601-02 Assignment 3: Event by Xin Su

Zuboff, Shoshana (5 March 2016). “Google as a Fortune Teller: The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism”. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616.html?printPagedArticle=true. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

Israel in New York (2019, March 25). Cyber Talk: The Future of Smart Cities [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzyA8KNPiNE

Posted on by xinsu 0

Creating Inclusive Digital Spaces Through Information Architecture

INFO 601-02 ASSIGNMENT 3 : EVENT ATTENDANCE BY UMANG ARORA

Information Architecture (IA) is defined as “simply a set of aids that match user needs with information resources.” (Davenport, 1997). In essence, it enables access to content by providing a systematic and primarily a visual approach to the organization of content and thus facilitates the quest for information. It aims to organize content so that users can navigate and adapt easily to the product’s functionality and find everything they need without much effort.

Logic Dept is a team of Information Architecture consultants, who provide research-based guidance to companies, using research to identify problems and finding functional solutions to build a better website and user experience.

On April 8th, 2019, Logic Dept hosted a webinar on the topic “Creating Inclusive Digital Spaces Through Information Architecture”, addressing the challenge of sharing different types of information with different audiences in a single space, especially when one of those audiences is underserved. Countless efforts have been made to create accessible content on the web for the differently-abled, but the conversation about creating accessible content for the LGBTQ+ populations is just beginning. The webinar was hosted by Sam Raddatz, CEO and Lead Information Architect and Clair Rock, Junior Information Architect.

Before, explaining how language and hierarchy can make a site more accessible to different audiences with varying levels of understanding and sensitivity using the example of The National Center for Transgender Equality, they briefly explained what is  Information Architecture by quoting Abby Covert and stating a few examples, such as alphabetical cross-references system in the dictionary links in a website navigation, section labels and names of things in a restaurant menu, links in a website navigation, and the categories and labels used in software programs and applications. The speakers then mentioned and defined the common terms that will be used in the webinar.

The main focus of the webinar was links in a website navigation and how that IA affects how we use interfaces and websites. Clair went on to explain the idea behind this project, the process, and his decision of finding a website that focuses on LGBTQ+ issues. He wanted to address this project from an information architecture standpoint and wanted the website that served multiple and very different audiences. At the start of the project, he defined a few research goals : (1) How to make sensitive content inclusive to multiple audiences with very different backgrounds and entry points, (2) To help the trans community through improvements to a specific website by neutralizing the language and in turn normalizing the population.

Keeping in mind these goals, he started researching and exploring multiple websites and decided to use The National Center for Transgender Equality website since it had great content both for educational purpose and legal purpose but lacked aesthetic, and had a troubling kind of mash-up of content which made it difficult to navigate and find the required information. He stressed upon the fact that the findings through this research can be used in any other type of research as well. The multiple different audiences using The National Center for Transgender Equality website are trans folx, advocates of the LGBTQ+ community and folx from outside the community.

For research, they conducted two types of card sorting tests – moderated and unmoderated using the tool Optimal Workshop. Card sort is a method used to understand the organization of content on the website, it gives insight on how the users would expect to see the content and under which label. The moderated card sort allowed them to get a lot of qualitative data whereas the unmoderated card sort gave them a broader understanding of how people were interacting with the data. While doing the research they encountered a few things that can be broadly considered when doing any research with stigmatized audiences, such as recruitment. It is the trickiest part of any research, getting people to respond, volunteer their time and give their honest feedback. Especially with an extra layer of barrier, where one is trying to reach out to a community that’s been somewhat ostracized, it makes it even harder. They worked through safe outreach channels, internal advocates and made sure that they were clear about the intentions of the research. Lastly, they also considered the safety, confidentiality, and anonymity of the participants and gave them an option to stop the conversation or back out from research at any point they feel uncomfortable.

The hosts further explained the results of the card sort research and how they analyzed and came to a conclusion regarding labeling and navigation of the website for better user experience. In the end, the floor was open to question and answers and a lot of people had interesting questions such as what was the most interesting thing that you learnt? What would be the next steps into the project? How do you reach out to people who are difficult to reach like stigmatized communities? How has this work changed or will change your day-to-day work? Do you share your findings with the study participants, if so why or why not?

Some of the points to keep in mind while doing research especially with stigmatized population are (1) Use care, consider the safety and anonymity of both moderators and participants. Work with members of the community to boost the reach and trust. (2) Be inclusive, avoid stigmatized labels and language. Ensure tools and methods used are inclusive too.

References :

Toms, E.G. (2002). Information interaction : Providing a framework for information architecture.  https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.10094

https://uxplanet.org/information-architecture-basics-for-designers-b5d43df62e20

www.logicdept.com

Posted on by Umang Arora 0

Observation: The Fairway on E 86th

INFO 601-02 – ASSIGNMENT 3 – OBSERVATION – MADDY NEWQUIST

The first item on my list was lemons and I found them easily; then I turned up another aisle, and there were more lemons—ostensibly the same kind, but a different price. And although it was easy to realize that I had simply been moving too quickly and had initially grabbed organic lemons by mistake, it did make me start thinking about signage (and consumer traps!) and how the shoppers in a grocery store interpret that signage, and so the setting felt appropriate for this blog post about the observation of an information environment. I returned to the store a couple weeks later to view it as both a shopper trying to make the most efficient use of their time and an observer taking notes on how well I was able to accomplish that task.

Physical Layout

Constraints on the environment are perhaps owed to the fact that this is a two-story store with the check-outs and the exit existing only on one floor—the same as the entrance. And while this is an unchangeable feature of the space, it is absolutely necessary point out how well the internal staircase is camouflaged. (Three elevators line the back wall, but who has the time?) There is one sign and it is easy to miss, especially as it is positioned well above most people’s line of sight and is only marked on one visible side. It also only makes note of the meat and fish departments being downstairs, ignoring two larger details: (a) that it is pointing to/at stairs and not just informing people that somehow they need to get downstairs, and (b) that all departments save those for produce and cheese were located downstairs.

Consumer Navigation

I couldn’t find the peanut butter. I’d waited too long to ask for help and I wasn’t going to fold now—for whatever reason, I needed to prove that I could do this in spite of my resistance to ask for or seek out help at the beginning of my search. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process, although primarily applied to students in a paper-writing capacity, felt like an apt lens through which to view my, and really anyone’s, travels and travails through a grocery store:

At initiation, I recognized the need for new information so that I could complete my shopping: I had to know where things were in this particular store. At selection, I picked items on my list to begin searching for as a way to become familiar with general navigation. Exploration and formulation were the biggest obstacle for me, as well as for Kuhlthau’s original study subjects, and I could only reach stage five’s collection after asking an intermediary or finally locating signage directly relevant for my search. I achieve search closure at both the location of each object on my list, and in the check-out line.

Although upon looking back it maybe shouldn’t have surprised me so much, but I did find it surprising how little interaction there was between user and digital technology, unless it’s through an intermediary—cashiers, or employees weighing meat or fish behind counters. Intermediaries were available during the shopping experience and it was at the discretion of the shopper-user to seek them out. And although there were more employees (and all willing to help) visible than at other grocery stores, none were there just to help direct users.

But with the sheer amount of signage, despite whether or not each sign actually imparted information, it felt like the store was saying to its shoppers: Why would you need us to help you? Can’t you figure it out yourself? Look at all the signs we made to make it easy for you!

Suggestions

My general difficulty with navigating this information environment came from the overwhelming proliferation of signage. Without sacrificing the necessity of grocery stores to send their users on a bit of a wild goose chase in order for them to stock up on items they may not have on their original shopping lists, I would suggest a focus on these three action items to start:

  • A better typographical system: while real estate on an individual sign is limited, it is even more difficult to decipher when categories are formatted as run-in lists, separated only by commas, rather than by columns which are easily deciphered visually.  The size of the font is also difficult to read, and it felt that the aisle number was given superficial importance over this.
  • Often supermarkets will have a general index attached to the end of each (or every other) aisle, which serve as a quick guide for both employees and users. An info guide such as this, or a blueprint map by department (similar to the ones they have in IKEA stores), would be a helpful addition to a user’s experience.
  • A clearer labeling of store staples with a typography setting it apart from the other signage would help call out the stairs, elevators, checkout lines with restrictions (e.g. “15 items or less”), and even the entrance and exit.

Reflection

This observation setting could explore Buckland’s information-as-process (reading and interpreting signs to varying degrees of success) definition, but it is also an interesting look at how an information environment assumes certain inherent knowledge or ability to navigate its internal system from its users. While I’m not sure I can quite claim “hard-to-reach users” as a factor here, there are some barriers to entry (or at least to efficient use of the space), with increasing specificity: (a) knowledge of how grocery stores are generally laid out (i.e. produce near the entrance); (b) knowledge of how Fairway (or other chain brand) stores are generally laid out; and (c) knowledge of this specific [Fairway] location. This relates back to the first two stages of ISP, and can further be applied to suggestions for improvement. Through this observation, I gained a greater appreciation for the balance retail businesses must maintain between helping and leading astray their users; and I am convinced that there is a way to stabilize that balance without sacrificing one or the other.

References:

Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as Thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5).

Kuhlthau, Carol (2004). Seeking Meaning: a process approach to library and information services. London: Libraries Unlimited.

For further reading on grocery stores as information environments:

Ocepek, M. G. (2017). Passive information behaviors while grocery shopping. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 54(1), 507-510. doi:10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401058

Posted on by Madeline Newquist 0

Event: “The Techonomic Cold War With China”

DESCRIPTION I attended an event hosted by Intelligence Squared. It was a debate on the topic “The Techonomic Cold War With China”, and it addressed questions about which country will host the future technology stronghold.

INFO 601-02, Assignment 3. By: Erik Hannell

Technology is one of the most important elements of our modern society. Major technological developments have generated e.g. better healthcare, a cleaner environment, and more lucrative businesses, which in most cases have led to an improved world. The country with the most accelerating and advanced technological environment holds a great advantage, in regards to societal, as well as economic measures. There is a rather unanimous agreement of that the current technological mecca is located in the US, more specifically in the well-known area of Silicon Valley. However, there are split opinions on how much longer Silicon Valley will maintain its glorified status. Some are arguing that the future technology stronghold could possibly be situated in China.

WHAT HAPPENED? On February the 25th, 2019, Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on the topic “The Techonomic Cold War With China”, which addressed the split opinions about the future technological mecca mentioned above. Five experts within technology, economics, and politics presented their opinions for three questions, succeeded by an argumentative discussion. The participants were; Ian Bremmer (founder & president, Eurasia Group), Michèle Flournoy (co-founder and managing partner at WestExec and former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy), Yasheng Huang (professor at M.I.T Sloan and author), Parag Khanna (founder & managing partner, FutureMap) and Susan Thornton (senior fellow, Yale University, and former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs). The questions were; will the next Silicon Valley be located in China? Is the belt and road initiative a trillion-dollar blunder? Will the U.S. and China both lose the trade war?

All participants gave profound arguments and contributed to interesting discussions. They were all united about the fact that China is superior in one specific matter; they possess a lot of data. Furthermore, all debaters agreed upon Bremmer’s (2019) statement that “data is one of the most valuable assets in today’s society”. Another strong argument in favor of China was when Huang (2019) pointed out that China is a heavy investor in artificial intelligence, which is expected to in many ways revolutionize our society. Considering the significant investments in artificial intelligence, as well as the vast possession of data, China should be regarded by the USA as a severe threat in the competition for hosting the future technology capital of the world. However, as the debate unfolded, Thornton (2019) argued that China’s heavily restrictive policies prevent them from surpassing the US. She implied that, as long as China operates in a closed ecosystem, they will have a difficult time catching up with Silicon Valley. In addition to the disadvantage of having a lot of restrictions, Yasheng (2019) meant that China’s nature of being an authoritarian state is also a counterproductive factor in the race for becoming the new technology stronghold.

REFLECTION Data makes the foundation of the DIKW-pyramid (Ma, 2012). It is the main source of what becomes information. Hence, considering China’s vast possession of data, they have strong opportunities to generate wisdom. For wisdom is generated from knowledge, which is generated from information, which is generated from data.

The statement that Thornton (2019) made in regards to China’s difficulty of surpassing the US because of their restrictive policies made me think of how Lessig (1999) points out the advantages of open code, i.e. allowing everyone to participate in the development of running code by maintaining a transparent system. Applying the theory of open code to Chinese governing would, in other words, be beneficial and increase their opportunity of becoming hosts of the future technology stronghold. Restricting the work of scientists and researchers, in the frame for what is legal and morally acceptable, is never going to be a success factor for generating growth and positive development.

Adjunct to the restriction discussion above, McChesney (2013) states that media problems in authoritarian states are solved by making the media present news in favor of the dictator. Media is probably the most efficient tool for affecting the opinions of large amounts of people. Although not directly connected to technology, the authoritarian governing generates an indirect impact as it reduces interest from talented individuals and forefront technology companies to work and perform research in China. Democracy is essential for any thriving society in today’s world. This supports Yasheng’s (2019) statement of China’s harmful authoritarian governing. To add to this reflection, an authoritarian way of operating the media generates a situation where people receive biased news and information. Hence, residents and citizens of China could be defined as information outsiders (Chatham, 1996). Clearly, adding up to the contradictory arguments for a possible future Chinese “Silicon Valley”.

Conclusively, attending this event and reflecting upon it, made me realize the importance of open code and democracy in a society, not only in regard to its obvious benefits, such as equality but also in terms of competition as to who will become the next technological power.

REFERENCES

Chatham, E. (1996). The Impoverished Life-World of Outsiders. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47 (3): 193-206

Intelligence Squared. 2019, February 26. Techonomic Cold War with China. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/unresolved-techonomic-cold-war-china

Lessig, L. (1999). Open code and open societies: values of internet governance. Chicago Kent Law-Review 74, 101-116.

Ma, L. (2012), Meanings of Information: The assumptions and research consequences of three foundational LIS theories. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63 (4): 716-723.

McChesney, R.W. (2013) Digital Disconnect: How capitalism is turning Internet against democracy. New York, New York: The New Press.

Link to event: https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/

Posted on by ehannell 0

Digital Life Seminar Event: Microsoft President Brad Smith on Facial Recognition

INFO 601-02 ASSIGNMENT 3: EVENT ATTENDANCE BY MICHAEL LEWIS

Having an interest in inclusive design by Microsoft, I decided to go to the Digital Life Seminar event curated by Cornell University. The topic of the seminar is Facial Recognition: Coming to a Street Near You. The special guest that will be talking in this event is the President of Microsoft, Brad Smith. The Digital Life Seminar is a weekly event produced by internal members of Cornell University, which also invites different special guests every week.

Source: https://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/blog/brad-smith-facial-recognition

The Seminar started with one of the faculty of Cornell introducing the topic of the day and welcoming Brad Smith to the stage. Brad began the seminar by explaining the very basic definition of facial recognition. He believes that facial recognition to human, is a natural skill that developed over time since the very first day of our life in this world. Facial recognition is also one of the examples of information behavior, preferred term used to describe the many ways in which human beings interact with information, in particular, the ways in which people seek and utilize information (Bates, 2010). A human does not need technology nor an algorithm to recognize different faces every day; however, it takes decades for a human to create a technology that can catch up with human and able to do facial recognition.

Facial recognition is possible today because of the technology development like improvements to 2D and 3D cameras, increased computational power in the cloud, increased availability of data and AI algorithmic advancements. Brad mentioned that technology today could mimic facial recognition ability because innovators realized that facial features could be calculated by the mathematical equation, e.g., the distance of our pupils, the shape of our nose, and the bend of our smile.

Australian Bank has already created a prototype to test this feature by using automated teller that can do facial recognition so that customers do not need to go to the bank to verify their identities. The police department in India also has been using this technology to help find missing kids. Microsoft themselves also have invented ‘Microsoft Seeing AI’ which can recognize an object/ a person, what kind of object/ who that person is with a single camera to aid people with visual disabilities.

In looking at this, Brad also explained to the audience that there is always a downside to this emerging technology. He mentioned that there are broad potential issues caused by facial recognition which are the violation of privacy and risk of bias. He stated, “If society does not think harder and take real steps to manage this technology, there will be no way to avoid the commercial race to the bottom. Everyone will sell everything to everybody, everywhere in the world, and we will come to regret it.” He realized that we as a society have to be aware and not taken for granted due to this development of new technology.

In terms of privacy, Brad forecasts that facial recognition will level up its game where it is possible to walk in a retail store, and have a camera facial recognized customers throughout the store in the future. It will be able to follow customers where ever they go and see everything that they picked up to analyze their behavior. One way to tackle this is for retailers or space owners to notify customers when their pictures are taken and used for facial recognition purposes.


Although facial recognition technology has been growing exponentially, it still has its flaw and error rates. “Almost every computer system has error rates,” he explained. In looking at this, it is known that the error rates on facial recognition weights more on women and people of color. This has something to do with the fact that most of these technologies are created by men, who are mostly not aware of these issues. Furthermore, customers are avoiding products that are not universal and has a bias element to it. The potential solution to this issue is to enable third-party testing to make sure that facial recognition is accurate and unbiased.

To shed some light, Brad believed that technology companies should help to address these issues. He promised that Microsoft would participate with this movement and apply six principles towards facial recognition technology which are fairness, transparency, accountability, non-discrimination, privacy protection, and lawful surveillance.

After attending this Digital Life Seminar, it made me realize that I have to put more attention on the technologies and data that I provided to the technology. Data means “things that have been given.” It is, therefore, an apt term for the sort of information-as-thing that has been processed in some way for use (Buckland, 1991). In looking at this, I believe that we as a society should be smarter in managing our information and data that is being used in technology, to avoid any violations of privacy.

References:

Bates, M. J. (2010). Information Behavior. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition, 2381.

Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as Thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 353.

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Event: Precarity and hope for digitally-disadvantaged languages (and their scripts)

Description:

On March 28, I attended the digital life seminar at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island. The topic was Precarity and hope for digitally-disadvantaged languages (and their scripts).

What happened at the event:

Isabelle Zaugg, the guest speaker, who was from the Institute for comparative literature and society, Columbia University, gave the audiences a brilliant speech on her topic: mass languages extinction(figure1) and her case study: what can be done to close the digital divide through an instrumental case study of Unicode inclusion and the development of supports for the Ethiopic script and its languages, including Ethiopia’s national language, Amharic.

Language extinction:

Figure 1

Mass languages extinction has been happening worldwide for a long time. In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. The extended meaning is when the language is no longer known, including second-language speakers(“language extinction”). The reasons why it happens are colonization, globalization, urbanization, oppression, and digital communication technologies(Zaugg). As we all know, knowledge can be stored in people’s mind and books or databases. However, we can retrieve important information from the books and databases more easily than from people’s mind. If we do not record the knowledge in people’s mind in time, the knowledge will all be gone eventually as the years passed. Language and scripts are the precious wealth our ancestors left us, and we must protect them from disappearing. Nowadays, people get plenty of insights from ancient books or archives to create literary works, artworks, music, even scientific inventions. Here is a very convincing example to show why we should care about the language and scripts extinction: Tu Youyou, the winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015, is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and educator. She discovered artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, a significant breakthrough in 20th-century tropical medicine, saving millions of lives around the world. The plant she found the chemical comes from, Artemisia annua L. (sweet wormwood), was used to treat fevers perhaps caused by malaria as early as the third or fourth century CE (Totelin, Laurence). Tu discovered the properties of artemisinin (qinghaosu in Chinese) after reading ancient Chinese texts from The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies that dated back to 341 B.C. listing medicinal herb preparations. If the book did not survive during the thousand years, a much longer time would be needed to find the insights and exact Artemisia to treat malaria.

Case study: Ethiopic language and script

Figure 2

From Zaugg’s speech, I learned that language is a system of communication used by a particular community. A script is written characters. Languages and scripts do not always have a one-to-one relationship(Zaugg). Some scripts are gradually becoming obsolete. The invention of Unicode helps to record and save the scripts. Unicode(figure2) is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world’s writing system(“Unicode”).

Figure 3

In Zaugg’s case study(figure3), mixed methods have been used in the Ethiopic language and script research. The common language of Ethiopia is Amharic, with 345 letters. Its history can be traced back to the 4th century A.D. and it is one of the oldest words in the world today. Because the alphabet contains far more letters than the 26 letters in the Latin alphabet and is complex and difficult to distinguish, it is difficult to be compatible with modern science and technology communication networks. In 2004, with the participation of linguists and scientists from Ethiopia and the United States, and professors from the University of California, researchers reduced the total number of letters from 345 to 210, and then further reduce them into 28 basic alphabetic letters in Unicode. With this development, it has become possible to use Amharic to communicate in text on mobile phones, and Ethiopia’s communications have entered the 21st century rapidly.

Figure 4

Zaugg oversees Unicode and ISO subcommittee working group, interviews with Ethiopic digital pioneers and linguists, and analyzes the non-traditional content of Ethiopic script and languages choices on Facebook, Wikipedia and .et country code top-level web domain. Some recommendations are put forward to save the Ethiopic language and script(figure4): Linguists should collaborate with IT professionals. Governments should optimize the Ethiopic keyboard standard and produce products that implement a free, open-source standard. International IT companies should support language diversity as part of corporate social responsibility(Zaugg).

Reflection:

Technology can mitigate language/script extinction and help to preserve culture heritages. Thanks to technology, scientists can save scripts by converting them to Unicode and spread it through the internet. However, technology is a double-edged sword. While it is helping to preserve languages and scripts, it can harm them in a way. When we were kids, we did not have so many digital devices as the kids have now, such as phones, pads, and laptops. We wrote our research paper on actual paper. We write a lot. Nowadays, most of the keyboards have the character/word suggestion function. A lot of young kids do not need to write by hands and they sometimes do not know how to write actual words because the keyboard suggests them the correct words all the time. In some cases, new immigrants in America cannot communicate with their grandparents smoothly in their native languages. Their grandparents come from the countries which English is not their mother tongue. The young generation cannot inherit the speaking and writing ability of their own languages from their parents or grandparents, therefore, native languages cannot be passed on. The young generation will lose their identity in a way and lose a sense of community and belongingness. In the article Digital Cultural Heritage: Concepts, Projects, and Emerging Constructions of Heritage, Marija Dalbello says: “The significance is related to cultural motion and public endorsement; significance processes are the basis for cultural inventions and collectivist traditions”(1). Only when the public realizes the severity of languages extinction and the significance of cultural heritage, can the technical professionals and the society take actions together to make progress on preventing the language extinction and the loss of cultural heritage.

References:

Zaugg,Isabelle. ‘Precarity and hope for digitally-disadvantaged languages (and their scripts)’. 2019. Lecture.

Wikipedia contributors. “Language death.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Mar. 2019. Web. 31 Mar. 2019.

Totelin, Laurence. “Could Ancient Textbooks Be the Source of the next Medical Breakthrough?” The Conversation, 13 Sept. 2018, theconversation.com/could-ancient-textbooks-be-the-source-of-the-next-medical-breakthrough-48612.

Wikipedia contributors. “Unicode.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 31 Mar. 2019. Web. 31 Mar. 2019.

Dalbello, Marija. (2009). “Digital Cultural Heritage: Concepts,Projects, and Emerging Constructions of Heritage.” Proceedings of the Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA)conference, 25-30 May, 2009.

Xi Chen INFO 601-02 Assignment 3 Event

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Fellows Colloquium—Tracing Objects: Translation and Transmission

The Met Fellowship Program draws leading and emerging scholars and practitioners from fields such as museology, academia, archaeology, education and scientific research. Since the program’s inception in 1951, the fellows’ research has deeply examined The Met collection and have significantly added to ongoing discourse in their fields.

This spring, current fellows present their research and explore related scholarly topics in a series of nine colloquia. I attended one of these sessions with the topic “Tracing Objects: Translation and Transmission” on 15 March 2019. The colloquia featured fellows Krisztina Ilko, Tommaso Mozzati, Max Bryant, Brian Martens, Georgios Makris, Maria Harvey and Chassica Kirchhoff.

New Evidence on the Original Materials, Former Construction, and Late Collecting History of the Patio of Vélez Blanco

Tommaso Mozzati, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved March 21, 2019, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/199003. Image in Public Domain.

Mozzati’s research examines the marble patio originally part of the Castillo de Vélez-Blanco, now housed in the entrance of The Met’s Thomas J. Watson Library to showcase the museum’s Italian Renaissance statues. The Patio of Vélez Blanco was built at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Pedro Fajardo y Chacón and remains a matter of conjecture today. Mozzati’s archival investigation led him to an unpublished drawing from 1805 that shows the patio’s original composition, in situ in the Spanish fortress. Reflecting on this drawing, Mozzati highlighted questions of authenticity as with little to no archival records before, the changes made over time with the movement of the patio can only be supposed. The drawing differed significantly from the patio in The Met with various additions and shifts, emphasizing the compromised state of the original and the mutability of art to fit the whims of the owner. Mozzati thus brought up the idea of ‘trans-content’ with regards to the patio’s importance in the context of early modern Spanish architecture and its new meaning and significance now that it is situated in Fifth Avenue.

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To complement the comprehensive art-historical study started in 2017 by Tommaso Mozzati, Andrew W. Mellon fellow in the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, petrographic and stable isotopes analyses are now being used to pinpoint the provenance of the marbles, identify later replacements, and reconstruct the complex history of the patio since it left Spain in early 1900 for Blumenthal’s house in New York City. Image 1. Velez-Blanco patio photographed at the Met in 1964, when it was first opened to the public. 41.190.482, Bequest of George Blumenthal, 1941. Image 2. Two samples of marble from the patio, imaged using a petrographic microscope. #metscience #themet #metscientificresearch #Europeansculptureanddecorativearts #velezblanco #marmolmacael #almeria #castlesofspain #whitemarble

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In addition to archival research, Mozzati examined the provenance of the marble used in the current iteration of the patio seeking to use scientific analysis to determine the structure of the courtyard before its sale in 1904 to French dealer J. Goldberg. I found Mozzati’s research particularly interesting in his multifaceted approach in studying the history and authenticity of the patio. Mozzati lamented that the patio is now a mere reminder of the original though still prized for its sculptural and architectural value in the context of the Spanish Renaissance. It is often taken for granted the role of museums to present authenticity and truth. There is much to learn in constantly questioning the information I am presented with even with respectable organizations and institutions.

Imported Art and Design in the Early Practice of the Adam Brothers

Max Bryant, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Dining room from Lansdowne House, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved March 21, 2019, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/32.12/.
Tapestry Room from Croome Court, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved March 21, 2019, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/58.75.1-22/.

The Adam brothers created exemplars of design, composite period displays that were an important stage in the development of modern museum culture. Bryant studied two of their displays from late-eighteenth century London: the tapestry room from Croome Court and the dining room from Lansdowne House, now being reconstructed in The Met’s new British galleries. Period rooms afford the museum visitor a chance to experience the furnishings, objects and decor within as related to each other in time, place and style in a way that isolating them cannot. Though many such rooms were originally designed as a proof of opulence, the objects within might not be curated well but fulfilled the aesthetic requirements.

Museums now question the contemporary resonance of such period rooms, if aesthetic quality or historic quality takes greater precedence. A moral element has now emerged that raises issues of populism, imported luxury and the attachment to the past.

To Conclude,

Many of the fellows had brought up issues of the transmission and translation of art between cultures in their presentation, befitting the overarching theme of the event. Their research took in depth studies of The Met’s collection in relation to various themes, locations and histories. As such, misinformation seems a underlining hindrance to their research with either little archival resources or when the translation of art could have had more verification.

Adorno states the authentic is a judgement of value and a manichean one that pits unobjective concepts against each other and leads to constant hairsplitting (Adorno, 1973). The criteria of authenticity is not necessarily objective where the museum seems an inauthentic device trying to frame ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ objects and ideas within contexts determined by them. Museums might argue that they are the last guardians of the past, in possession of relics for the benefit of scholars to study and people to view, where their reconstruction of historical sites can now be easily marveled all under one roof.

The event has opened my eyes to various museology and art history issues that I think also apply to information science where information verification and authenticity have become large issues in the community.

References

Adorno, T.W. (1973). The jargon of authenticity. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Bruner, E. M. (1956). Cultural Transmission and Cultural Change. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 12(2): 191-199. https://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.12.2.3629114

Hede, A. & Thyne, M. (2010). A journey to the authentic: Museum visitors and their negotiation of the inauthentic. Journal of Marketing Management. 26(7-8), 686-705. https://doi.org/10.1080/02672571003780106

Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2000). Museums and the interpretation of visual culture. London: Routledge.

INFO 601-02 (Assignment 3 / Event Attendance) – Jamie Teo

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Arts in the Libraries

On March 9th, METRO hosted an afternoon symposium entitled Code, Craft & Catalogues: Arts in the Libraries. The symposium featured three separate panel discussions addressing the relationship between libraries and the world of art and design. This post will discuss the first two of those panels — in part for reasons of space, so as not to short-change the discussion of those panels’ relevance to information science, and in part because the third panel’s tie between art and libraries/information struck me as much more attenuated, with significantly heavier emphasis on one and the other on the periphery.

Panel 1: Privacy in Public

Greta Byrum of the Digital Equity Lab at the New School opened the first panel with a presentation about Privacy in Public, a multisite exhibition which took place at nine libraries across New York City this past winter. Each library hosted an artist’s work commenting on issues of data privacy. After she spoke, two of the participating artists, Toisha Tucker and Salome Asega, briefly presented on the works which they contributed to the exhibition, followed by a Q&A.

As Byrum noted, the issue of data privacy has become an important contemporary matter for public debate and discussion — from the various data breaches at organizations like Experian to questions of privacy on social media. As purveyors of information and as institutions which themselves collect data on patrons, libraries would seem to make an excellent public venue for exhibiting ideas and questions of data privacy. And by bringing in artists to create works, rather than publishing books or hosting lectures, it allowed both library and artist to speak about data privacy in a way which was interactive, rather than didactic; fun, rather than frightening. And because the exhibit had no online component and no social media hashtag, the exhibit itself became refuges of data privacy, in a way — one work using a Faraday cage to block all radio signals, literally so.

To provide an example of the type of art exhibited, Toisha Tucker created a scrolling marquee whose text is entirely composed of captions from Instagram posts geotagged or hashtagged in ways particular to the library where the work was sited, thus demonstrating the wealth of information, and breadth of seemingly private details which people freely hand over to Instagram and share with the public. In speaking about the genesis of her work, she shared a conversation she had with her brother in which he uttered the following: ‘I didn’t tell anyone. I posted it on Facebook.’

In a nutshell, that anecdote about how confused our assumptions can be about what is public and what is private, and the artwork it led to, is exactly the sort of message that an artwork might be able to convey that a lecture or statement of fact might not. When one sees a scrolling marquee of possibly personal Instagram posts scrolling by in your neighborhood public library, that has the potential for greater visceral impact than might a public lecture or presentation of numbers and statistics about data on social media. Other artworks in the show took similar but different approaches to privacy, allowing the aesthetic element of art to communicate, though in the familiar venue of the library, in ways we might not expect from libraries.

Panel 2: Helsinki and Library Design

The second panel discussed how we think about the design of libraries. Those who have spent time in university libraries have probably experienced vast, dim halls of dense stacks. This design, though perhaps off-putting, does serve a certain purpose: storing as much information in the space provided, while allowing students and scholars the ability to easily access resources. These stacks are not places where these researchers are drawn to out of aesthetics, but for task-oriented purposes.

Anni Vartola, a Finnish architecture critic, opened by presenting an exhibit she curated studying the design of Finnish public libraries as public spaces, demonstrating the ways that Finland has taken an approach different from the task-oriented one above. Rather, inspired by the writings of Valfrid Palmgren, Finland sees libraries as ‘a meeting place for all societal classes alike . . . which says “welcome” . . . and makes them feel at home,’ and as some of the last non-commercial interior spaces. 1

Laura Norris, Service Manager at the new Oodi Helsinki Central Library, then built on Vartola’s theoretical foundation, presenting how this newest of Finland’s library continues that approach, integrating information, architecture, and art into a singular user experience which makes the library a place that patrons want to be. In addition, Ilari Laamanen presented how three works recently exhibited at Oodi themselves provoke the library’s patrons to examine our institutions of knowledge, even while they themselves are present with one such institution, augmenting the library’s role as an institution encouraging thoughtful engagement with knowledge and information: as Vartola’s exhibit called it, ‘Mind-Building ’.

File:Central Library Oodi in Helsinki 04.jpg
Source: Wikimedia Commons by Ninaras is licensed under CC BY 4.0

This approach squares with Pratt’s ‘iSchool’ approach to the information sciences. How libraries provide information through an inviting experience — accessible not just intellectually but aesthetically, in order to ‘support active citizenship, democracy, and lifelong learning’ — is a thoroughly user-centered approach to information design. Designing for users is not just about organizing information, or providing easy and ready access to information resources.

Conclusion

The success of the Finnish library system, and Oodi in particular, and the use of libraries as an exhibit space for art about information, demonstrates that designing for users also entails first making information and information spaces a place that users want to enter and want to engage with. If they never get in the door, if they never want to stay once in the door, their access to information is effectively more limited. And once they are in the door, the Privacy in Public exhibit gives us a way of rethinking the way libraries invite their patrons to engage with, and think about, information.

1 Compare to May & Black’s description of libraries-as-social-space in Nova Scotia: May, F. and Black. (2010) The life of the space: evidence from Nova Scotia public libraries, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 5(2), 5-34, available at https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/eblip/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/6497

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