Social media insights from Zena Applebaum @ the SLA 2014 conference

Day 2 of SLA social media insights

Day 2 of my first Special Libraries Association (SLA) conference and I'm thinking to myself, "this is where I belong". Here I am, attending several presentations where information consultants have similar assumptions regarding using social media tools to find information as I do. Mining blogs, Twitter and other social media platforms for insights seem to be the norm in the information consulting industry. To information consultants, social media presents a very important and free information source in addition to paid commercial databases.

Zena Applebaum, Director of Competitive Intelligence at Bennett Jones LLP, was one such presenter that gave a talk on this subject. Two things fascinated me from her presentation entitled "Social media-Turning noise into action":

1.     The assumption that social media can be information sources from which information should be collected 

2.     That one can develop a social media collection and acquisition policy (or procedures) to make decisions about what social media data or information one could collect.

It is these points that I want to briefly review and talk about here in this blog entry.

First and foremost, Applebaum argues that social media sits between the spectrum of primary research and secondary research. She further argues that social media provides access to people essentially talking about themselves and others without the researcher eliciting those responses. She further suggests that on social media, there are both individuals and institutions that provide information. Her questions are not so much whether or not such information can be trusted or what's the value of such information, but how do we get at that information. This is in contrast to my discussions with some academics and in academia (including a few librarians), who are suspicious of social media information and ask can the data be trusted and how can we know whether or not the social media information is authentic or meaningful. Further, I've found that from informal discussions within limited academic circles, that there are doubts about collecting and storing such information, as social media information is deemed to be either too trivial, ephemeral or lacking the authority of traditionally published/secondary sources and primary sources.  

The second thing that impressed me about Applebaum's talk was that she laid out what seemed to be guidelines for getting or acquiring social media data. In her presentation, she discussed the need for competitive intelligence specialists to have a framework for monitoring and collecting relevant information from social media. This begins by determining what she refers to as "key intelligence topics". According to Applebaum (2014)

Key Intelligence Topic - (KITs) are those topics identified as being of greatest significance to an organization’s senior executives, and which provide purpose and direction for Competitive intelligence operations. 

How do we determine these topics? Applebaum suggests that we conduct a series of interviews of a representative group of users from which we ascertain the relevant topics to monitor media and social media for. Then we are to grouped these topics into appropriate categories and get our stakeholders (the senior organizational executives/users) to allocate a priority to the same. Hence to begin the process, Applebaum recommends that we analyse who are our stakeholders (or users) and what decisions do they make. In addition, we must also ask:

•What knowledge do the users need?
•What intelligence can we provide?

The second step in the process is to define what she terms the "collection plan" (Using my collection development training, I would call it the collection development/acquisitions policy/procedures. However, her term may indicate less formality in the process). This involves determining the producers of the information that one needs and how to locate them. In Applebaum's presentation, this analysis of the sources that need to be monitored involves asking:

•Who has the information you need?
•Who is their audience?
•What social media will they use?
•How do you search those platforms?

In my own experience as a librarian, the first two steps are similar to the process that I go about when identifying and determining which publishers (and vendors of commercial databases) to contact for what materials are needed for my library. The last point relates to how do I find those publishers (or vendors) in order to make those purchases (nowadays, we just deal with agents rather than contacting the publishers directly. Unless we are collecting rare books or items). 

So when I examine this, I conclude that the skills of collection development are as relevant to social media information as they are to books and other items collected by libraries. In basic collection development policy we decide the purpose of our collection, its scope (and or limitations) and the types of decisions that we will make as to what sources to acquire or omit from the collection. Further, while we may not write it into our policy, we may implicitly establish procedures or a process to go about acquiring items for our collection. All this reinforces the idea to me that librarians can apply their skill sets (acquired from experience with traditional media and library sources) to new media and information sources/resources. The issue is whether or not we deem social media to be sources that we must collect, store, preserve and provide for our users to access.

References:

Applebaum, Z. (2014). Social media – Turning noise into action. Presented at Special Libraries Association 2014 Conference, June 8-10, Vancouver, BC. Retrieved from http://sla2014.sched.org/event/db8c0c4fe1b010468310ab57b62d9eda#.U5aEzfldUrW.

The state of LIS as a discipline and its "research"

One of my course readings for the research methods course was on an article by Budd and Hill entitled "The Cognitive and Social Lives of Paradigms in Information Science". I must say that the reading by Budd and Hill makes me motivated to read Kuhn's work on the nature of scientific paradigms and revolutions for myself to form my own opinions about its relevance and application in Library and Information Science. The following reading was posted or submitted as part of my weekly reading reaction report

In this blog entry I want to discuss 3 main points:

1. How disciplines/theories/paradigms are formed?
2. Trends in LIS research
3. How can changes be made to LIS as well as how changes are stifled?

Most importantly for me, the reading caused me to reflect on how school of thoughts, theories disciplines and sub-disciplines are formed or emerge.These are all socio-economic products and constructs. In the previous class we concluded that research problems must be rooted in the social and situated in society, as well as in a discipline. This reading, was however not as normative, but more descriptive about the process.

Irwin Sperber is cited in Budd and Hill as indicating that funding impacts the development of science, as does politics in the case of political appointments to important, well-funded  and powerful agencies. Sperber is also cited as indicating that the audience to which a scientist must communicate and be accountable also impacts on science. This brings me to a critical look at LIS research trends in its publications and literature in general.

In the case of librarianship, I see where the audience, the practitioners and pragmatic professionals impact on the research of the field. The issues of practitioners or professionals do not necesarily overlap with the issues that academics want to study. Practitioners want research situated in practice, and in my view, academics question and criticize the nature of the practice in the first place. Practitioners are looking for ways to do their jobs better and improve their practice, while academics may question, what is it that is practiced and why?

With regards to funding, I see where vendors are sponsoring, partnering or encouraging librarians to present papers and to research their products and its use by library users. I have been to conferences where vendors and practitioners are co-presenters, and have seen in the LIS literature numerous publications that focus on technology products and how these were either implemented in libraries or are being received by library users. Can these be legitimately termed “research” and “scientific research” at that. Aren't these what we call “market research”?

Another issue to discuss is how can LIS change. From my reading and understanding of Kuhn through Budd and Hill's writing, because science is social (Sperber expands it to political and economics), if  young scholars and academics such as myself and my peers in the PhD programme want to change LIS and its direction as a discipline, then it begins with us making a strategic alliance and agreeing to principles, research methods and what constitutes the problems of LIS today. That is if we accept, as I do, the definition of a paradigm as a 'state of collaboration, agreement, attention to a specific set of problems, and co-citation...' (p.4).

At the same time, we are scientists bred after our own kind, by faculty. Our beliefs, principles and methods will be inherited from our socialisation with faculty members at FIMS UWO. FIMS will shape us and our scientific approaches to researching and thinking about LIS. We will see the problems of LIS through their eyes.

The reading has definitely caused me to reflect that LIS is an immature science, in danger of being subverted by politics, economics and pragmatism. Pragmatism according to Budd and Hill are the major forces that shapes science through funding sources and departmental faculties, an issue which I see aptly applicable to LIS. LIS is shaped by funding sources- whether government, corporate or private bodies in my view, and I am yet to see the extent of the influence of departmental faculties.

For LIS, with the evidence based practice movement, I see where more and more, LIS research and theories will be chosen based on social and economic pragmatic reasons, rather than by LIS community identifying the gaps in our current research and theories, and intellectually, rationally and objectively filling those gaps.

Reference:

Budd, John M. & Heather Hill. (2007). "The Cognitive and Social Lives of Paradigms in Information Science." Paper published in the proceedings presented at the Conference of the Canadian Association of Information Science. Information Sharing in a Fragmented World: Crossing Boundaries. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. May 10 - 12, 2007. http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2007/budd_2007.pdf

Why blog? The benefits of blogging

As a research student getting ready to go into PhD studies, I have decided to use the online writing tools of  blogging to allow for personal development as a writer. What I love about blogging is the opportunity to keep track of my thoughts and notes with keyword searching. I also love the opportunity for the public to give feedback and comment on my thoughts and ideas.

Blogging helps to preserve a record of my intellectual development on a subject in a format that can be easily retrievable. In the past, I kept written notebooks and even note cards, that I had to flip through all the pages to locate a specific record of what I had written. Blogs however allow me to locate specific information through keyword searching making retrieval of written ideas faster than skimming the pages of a notebook or indexed note cards.

Audience feedback helps me to know what gaps I have left in my writing and what I need to do further research on. Peer review has taken on a special meaning to me as a published writer (of scholarly papers). Many eyes are needed to see common spelling mistakes, or to discover unclear and ambiguously constructed sentences, ideas or concepts. As a writer, you know what you are thinking and what you mean to say, and you believe that what you are saying is clear and very convincing. However, that does not mean that your audience will get the same message and understand it clearly as you do. Just the other day I posted a note and someone was able to point out another item of interest that could be included to make my argument/communicated ideas stronger or more persuasive. Even now, I have an article that I wrote being critiqued by the editorial team, which has helped me to sharpen my communication for reaching my intended audience.

Apart from these reasons professional blogging can have an impact on your career dreams and hopes.

What is the impact of blogging professionally?

It can definitely lead to you getting a job:

Meredith Farkas:

"I can't say this 100 percent, but I believe that it helped me get a job. There are more new librarians than there are library jobs out there, and I didn't have a lot of experience, so what did they have to go on?… With a blog, they can see that she's passionate about the profession. She's tech-savvy. She has thoughts in her head. It made me a known entity." (qtd. in Kenney and Stephens)

It can also lead to you getting speaking and training engagements and to publishing opportunities

Laura Smart: "Professionally, it's been really great. It has led to a lot of speaking engagements and training and publishing opportunities". (qtd. in Kenney and Stephens)

Further, Asgedom recommends that in order to launch a career in the writing/speaking business, one needs to begin by blogging, rather than by writing a book.

Works Cited:

Asgedom, Mawi. "How to Start a Writing/Speaking Business"  Mawi Develop Greatness. July 13, 2011. Web. 14 July 2011. <http://mawiasgedom.com/how-to-start-a-writingspeaking-business/>.

Kenney, Brian and Michael Stephens. "LJ Round Table: Talkin' Blogs: Library Bloggers Discuss the Impact of their Work."  Library Journal. 1 Oct. 2005. Web. 14 July 2011. <http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6261414.html>.