On March 9^th, 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 ’.

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

INFO 601-02 – Assignment 3 – Event Attendance – Maddy Newquist

On February 1, 2019, I attended an event at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus called “1 Librarian 1 Reference,” which was hosted by ASIS&T @ Pratt Institute and sponsored by Educators for Wikipedia at Fordham, Wikipedia Library, and Wikimedia Affiliates. The event’s tagline was: “Imagine a World Where Every Librarian Added One More Reference to Wikipedia.”

1 Librarian 1 Reference, or as it is referred to on their social media, #1Lib1Ref, is a global campaign organized by Wikipedia and its university workgroups to inspire librarians and other information professionals to contribute to Wikipedia articles—except that, instead of editing or writing articles, they would be providing citations for the content within the articles.

Why It’s Needed

Every Wikipedia user, from the casual interest reader to a researcher looking to flesh out a bibliography, has seen it. Instead of brackets containing a superscript number linking to a footnote, there is a bracket that looks like this: [citation needed]. The user has no way of knowing if the sentence(s) that precede this bracket are accurate, and the task of corroborating it is daunting—if the editor who added the fact couldn’t find it, when so many others had not hit obstacles in citing their own facts, how deep and challenging of a dive would it be to the user? The 1 Librarian 1 Reference campaign uses that lack of reliable sourcing as its base mission, hoping that both the immediate and long-term effect will be a benefit to Wikipedia users around the world.

The event began with a brief description of the goals of the event and the campaign at large, as in the paragraph above, as well as a wink and a nod to the fact that information professionals are the ones best suited to this task (more on that below). Attendees were then given a tutorial on general article editing and more thoroughly on the guidelines for adding citations. Afterwards, we were provided with a list of web-based databases that aggregate all the [citation needed] instances across Wikipedia, either by category, article, or even paragraph, and then were effectively set loose.

Our Responsibility to Transparency

Beyond the surface layers of providing an essential component to a reference encyclopedia, its users, and community, this event feels strongly, albeit subtly, relevant to the information field and the challenges it faces as digital resources become more available and library users increasingly value their independence and personal agency in finding the resources they need on their own.

Having librarians interact with Wikipedia is especially important because it continues to teach them about how the public/users search for information. The decades-long debate around information literacy is interesting to look at in conjunction with this campaign. If librarians and information professionals are meant to rethink the “’one-size-fits-all approach’ to information literacy” as Pawley suggests (446), why not treat Wikipedia as worthy of our time and effort in teaching users how to access information? Not only can we learn more about the ways in which users go looking for information, especially on a site that is, by design, user-controlled and user-organized, but we can lean into users becoming active agents in their search. Tewell points out that librarians are becoming increasingly invisible in the process—if we take opportunities such as this event to bolster information literacy from behind the scenes, we are helping the move away from the “traditional banking system” of education, so that students may teach themselves from equally trustworthy sources and be able to verify the path of information for themselves (27).

Share the Power

It also felt interesting to take a look at this event and its goals through the concept of the neutral librarian. As we’ve discussed in class, as well as seen in the Schwartz & Clark 2002 article “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” librarians, and their institutional counterparts, cannot afford to be neutral—their interaction with historical documents and the people who interact with them makes it nigh impossible. Although Schwartz & Clark are referring to archives when they note that archivists have “enormous power over memory and identity,” their call for the power of archives to “no longer remain naturalized or denied, but opened to vital debate and transparent accountability” feels especially transferable in the context of the 1 Librarian 1 Reference campaign. Librarians are gatekeepers, in both its positive and negative connotation, of information, and by taking part in the verification and validation of a public access resource in one really strong and clear way to begin the process of transparency of information creation, not least by linking to accredited sources that the public cannot find on its own.

A Final Takeaway

The leaders of the event emphasized that we didn’t have to solve every citation problem that came up first in a database search—we were instead encouraged, if we wanted, to look for missing citations in the categories we had personal interest or backgrounds in. And while, yes, you could argue that this is more bias, I think it further helps bridge the gap between information professionals and the communities they serve, when we can experience the personal stakes that the users feel when searching for information.

References

Pawley, C. (2003). Information Literacy: A Contradictory Coupling. The Library Quarterly, 73(4), 422-452. doi:10.1086/603440

Schwartz, J. M., & Cook, T. (2002). Archives, records, and power: The making of modern memory. Archival Science, 2(1-2), 1-19. doi:10.1007/bf02435628

Tewell, E. (2015). A Decade of Critical Information Literacy: A Review of the Literature. Comminfolit, 9(1), 24. doi:10.15760/comminfolit.2015.9.1.174

Located at Lower Manhattan, The Oculus is the new transportation hub connecting The NJ PATH train to 11 NY subway lines; a must-see tourist attraction with marvelous architecture design; and an enjoyable shopping center with over 50 stores. As a multi-functional building serving users with diverse purposes, the information environment could be overwhelming. In March 18th, I experienced The Oculus as a NJ-NY commuter, to see whether the necessary information is clearly delivered to me, and observe how other users interact with information under their specific goal.

Layout of The Transit Hall

The Transit Hall is a 3 stories, 350 ft by 115 ft column-free elliptical space, with #1 train and PATH Station at the west end, E train station and the passway to Fulton Center at the east end, as well as two entrances and viewing platforms at street level.

Upon exiting PATH station from underground, you could see ticket machines and printed information boards on both sides along the walls, and the #1 train entrances on the Oculus level. Walking up the stairs in front of you to the Oculus level, you would see several small kiosks, a sitting area, and the huge stairs leading you to the lower Mezzanine Level, for the exit to Fulton Center (A/C/4/5/J/Z/W/R lines) at the other end of the Transit Hall. The spatial structure was very obvious and easy to understand. I think the architect created an intuitive information environment, guiding different user groups in unnoticeably-designed separated circulation routes. Commuters walked straight down the hall for transition. Shoppers tend to stay closer to the curving edges where the stores are located. Most tourists entering from street would exit immediately after taking photos at the platforms.

Ticket Purchasing

There were 5 kinds of ticket machines outside The PATH station, 2 for both MetroCard and SmartLink (card and cash/card only), and 3 for SmartLink only (blank card/2 trips/10 trips with card), which make it a bit complex for first time users. During my observation I saw several people failed at their first attempt, because of the language barrier or trying to use cash on a card-only machine, or wandered around the area trying to figure out which machine to use. There was no information booth nearby so they eventually had to ask other passengers for help.

The MetroCard/SmartLink ticket machines provided 8 different language interfaces, which was intended to help foreign visitors to purchase ticket by their own. However, for me the overall English-Chinese translation was poor and some of the vital information, for example “trips” and “Unlimited Passes”, was not translated at all, which means passengers with no English knowledge can not complete the process without additional help. Furthermore, although PATH accept both MetroCard and SmartLink, the information was not displayed until you entering the ticket gate with you tickets purchased.

Suggestions:

• Reduce the types of ticket machine to avoid confusion and failure
• improve the translation to better serve foreign users
• Notified the users that both MetroCard and SmartLink are accepted by PATH on the information boards and ticket machines

Maps

3 types of map were available in the Transit Hall. PATH/Subway System Maps, both printed and electronic, could be found inside and outside the PATH/Subway station. Floor Plans for vertical transportation and transit direction were placed at every entrance/vertical circulation core, on the wall or as mobile stations. A Directory of Stores outside the PATH station occupied a whole wall.

Stores and transit information were illustrated separately, all the maps were positioned at “decision points”, and “perpendicular to the view’s line of movement and sight”, which made it convenient for different users group to acquire information (Calori & Vanden-Eynden, 2016, p103). However, maps at the less crowded places provided incorrect “You Are Here” information. And none of the maps showed whether the subway entrance have access to both directions or a single direction. In addition to that, printed 2D maps might be difficult for some users to interpret and create a “mental map of the site”(Calori & Vanden-Eynden, 2016, p6). Printed and electronic Subway System Maps in the station were placed next to each other,  providing duplicated information. The electronic Maps were in low resolution and can not be enlarge, so many information were unreadable.

Suggestions:

• Ensure information on the map is correct
• Add detail information regarding the subway line direction
• Provide 3D and interactive maps for users to explore the direction

Signage System for Wayfinding

Similar to the Floor Plans, identification and directional signs could be found at every decision points, on the wall or under the ceiling, and were organized in hierarchy to allow users quickly scan through. Several directional signs with same content were placed along the route, so users could confirm their decision and verify the arrival at the destination.

However, during the observation I saw visitors asking staffs for direction after they read through the signs and I believe there were a few reasons. First, some signs offered “contradictory” information which in fact was accurate. For example, at one decision point, the upper sign on the wall displayed the 1 train entrance was to the left while the sign right underneath it showed that the entrance was to the right. There were indeed entrances at both direction, but anyone who was not familiar with the area would definitely feel lost after reading the signs alone. And this kind of “competing” information can be seen all over the place. Second, signs provided incomplete information. The train entrance for single direction was not indicated on the signs and will lead users to the wrong way. In addition to the permanent signs, mobile sign stations were placed at multiple location, which may cause anxiety. I saw about 10 signs upon exiting the PATH station, leaving me a very negative impression.

Suggestions:

• state only the nearest entrance at one decision point
• Add detail information regarding the subway line direction
• Reorganize the information to reduce the total amount of signs at one decision point

Staff

There was only one concierge desk located at Oculus level, which may not be sufficient considering the daily traffic. And the location was neither illustrated on the maps nor listed on the signs. You could find staffs at every decision point and gate. Although I believe that is due to the security concerns, they would offer help when being asked. However, at crowded spaces they might not be visibly in their dark uniform.

Suggestion:

• Add more information booth, and provide the location information on maps and signs
• Change the uniform color to make staffs more visible when needed

Reflection

The experience illustrates how information works as thing (eg. ticket machines, signs, maps), process (eg. reading instructions, signs and maps) and knowledge (eg. successful completing the task) (Buckland, 1991). However, due to its quantity and complexity, it would be useful to introduce the fourth state – interactive information (eg. interactive map, multi-language interface) into the information system, allowing users to freely explore and acquire the information they need (Marchionini, 2008). These four stages are interconnected, any tiny mistakes occur in one state will cause error in the next one.

The insights and lessons I learned from its information-communication designs can be applied in my future work as users follow the same process to navigate in physical and virtual world. “The virtual worlds of software are worlds of cognition: ideas and concepts presented without physical substance” (Norman, 2004, p80). A clear and communicable information system design is especially essential in virtual world, since the users cannot get clues from anything other than your design, and as they are not physically restricted in a space, they can easily switch to other available options.

INFO 601-02 Assignment 3: Observation by Xin Su

Reference:

Calori, C & Vanden-Eynden, D (2015). Signage and Wayfinding Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Norman, D.A. (2004). Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. New York, NY : Basic Books.

Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as Thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351-360.

Marchionini, G. (2008). Library & Information Science Research, 30(2008), 165–174.

For more information about The Oculus