Crash Course: Data and Infographics

Young, Christina

CrashCourse. (2019.February 26) . Data & Infographics: Crash Course

Navigating Digital Information #8 [Video file]. Retrieved from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiND50qfCek

Summary: This is the eighth episode of the current Crash Course series,

“Navigating Digital Information”. It looks at data and infographics to

show how data can be represented and misrepresented. It is geared to

a high school audience.

Major takeaways:

-data needs to be accurate & relevant

-sources need to be reliable

-data needs to be represented honestly and contextually

Evaluation: I have really been enjoying the new Crash Course “Navigating

Digital Information“ series and this week’s episode seemed especially pertinent

to our class because we will soon be working on visual representations of our

collections. This youtube video discusses how visual representations can be used

to enhance or obscure an information consumer’s understanding of data.

One example is the National Review and the Washington Post using the same

NASA data to represent climate change.

(CrashCourse, 2019)

   The chart on the left, billed by the National Review as “the only climate change

chart you’ll ever need”,makes it look like the climate hasn’t been warming by

using a y axis of values between -10º-110º.  On the Washington Post’s chart’s y

axis goes from 55º-60º. Crash Course also emphasizes that context is important.

For example, if you know that small shifts of even a degree of global temperature

are unusual and can impact climate, the Washington Post’s chart seems more

relevant than the National Review’s although both are technically correct.

As I develop infographics for my collection I will have to make sure to

provide context and guard against misrepresenting my data.

Cartoons?! Digitizing and Cataloging Challenges...

Nguyen, Jennifer

 

Citation:

Dyer, M. A. (2014). Full Speed Ahead: The Challenges of Cataloging a Historic Editorial Cartoon Collection. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 33(2) 279-294.

Summary/Notes:

This article is about the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries digitizing [the Charles Henry Sykes Cartoon Collection] of original editorial or political cartoons from the 1940s. Multiple library departments and staff involved in the project included the digital collections systems librarian, the digital specialist, the Digital Scanning Unit, and the metadata catalog librarian. There were cataloging issues due to missing or lack of information about cartoons donated. Image cataloging issues surrounding what the image is of versus what image is about. Scholars scrutinize the lack of cultural context provided with image digitized. And Dyer, wants us to note importance of text used in cartoon, as there aren’t many text used to begin with. Some solutions found were to obtain original newspaper and editorials the cartoons were printed in, document and note front pages of newspaper that contains cartoon to figure out the context of the cartoon. Only with context would we understand the humor of the cartoons drawn by Sykes’.

 

Reflection:

I was looking for ways and how librarians digitize images while researching for presentation 4. I tried to understand the process of digitization so that I can mention it in the digitization of a collection at the academic library I have been studying all semester. This article showed a whole other dimension of digitization that I hadn’t thought of before: cataloging and digitizing dated materials. It wasn’t as simple as I had thought of it. Apparently, it isn’t as easy as scanning and inputting the metadata information. Dyer does a great job explicating how cartoons work, the context and information to catalog, and additional research needed to fully catalog one cartoon image.

This makes me think about how Instagram functions. Images are often posted, but the source, creator, or information isn’t mentioned, just a partial caption underneath the image. Instagram will make it hard for information professionals to categorize or search for images there. But Instagram has hashtags. Some hashtags often used have nothing to do with the image, but more about what the person posting the image has done. Heck, even I have had trouble searching for a restaurant or place I randomly found an image of on Instagram. It takes me an extra 2 to 20 minutes following hashtags, tagged profiles, and locations to find an art exhibit.

            Overall, read this article if you’re thinking about cataloging, digitizing, and working with images during your librarianship. Dyer writes an easy and coherent article about VCU, Sykes, and the struggles of cataloging historical editorial cartoons.

Ebooks, data collection and privacy concerns

Christopher Fluetsch

Andromeda. (2014, October 8). Ebook choices and the missing soul of librarianship. [Blog]. Retrieved from https://andromedayelton.com/2014/10/08/ebooks-choices-and-the-missing-soul-of-librarianship/

As electronic, online resources become more popular as library provided content, librarians cannot ignore the privacy issues that come with such materials. The author of this article points out that information gathering is considered best-practice in computer programming, and our patrons may unknowingly expose a great deal of the private information with using online resources. The author is particularly concerned with information about reading habits that may be gathered automatically by ebook programs, information that all the ethics of the professional say should remain private.

The article offers few solutions, but the author is adamant that librarians insist on privacy rights from ebook vendors. Librarians must force ebook publishers and vendors to change the status quo of their business before we fully adopt an ebook paradigm.

I am not sure how realistic the author’s proposals are. At this point, services like Overdrive have become so ubiquitous that we may already be past the tipping point on electronic privacy. However, I do believe that libraries have a responsibility to their users to ensure that everyone understands what privacy rights they may be giving up in when using ebooks.

As a teacher librarian, this is particularly concerning to me. I want my students to know and value their right to privacy, and I want to ensure that I am not accidentally exposing their data. Partly this is accomplished by educating our district ITS department on the importance of judging programs and vendors by their commitment to student privacy. Another important part, though, is educating the students about their rights and responsibilities.

This article was written 2 years ago, so some of the technical aspect may be out of date, but the overall thrust is an important reminder for all librarians that our the theoretical ethics of the profession may, at times, be in conflict with current practices as we adopt a greater online presence.