Opinions ...

If content is king it looks like the king is dead (or at least not feeling very well).

I recently had the opportunity of fielding many requests for building and modifying websites. It came as a surprise to me that in 2008 there was still such little emphasis on the business purpose of a website and the role that content plays in its whole reason for being.


I had requests for tag clouds, rss feeds, forums, rotating images, flash technology, things which moved and changed colour, etc, etc, etc.


On closer questioning it became clear that many of these requests were unrelated to any identifiable benefit to the user or to the business purpose of the website.


I was supplied with information architectures for content which did not exist and in all probability would never exist so that sites were either published without meaningful content (happy pages – such as ‘how nice of you to visit this page – its lovely to see you – do you like my rotating image – would you like to subscribe to this page?) or part of the IA was pulled leaving the site derelict in design and purpose.

On closer inspection of available content it was evident that much of it was:

• Out of date


• Badly written


• Of questionably value


• At odds with information given elsewhere on the same or related sites


• Not written for the web environment

When web owners create information architectures and web pages they should ask themselves the following content related questions:

• Do I have any content?


• Will I ever have any content?


• If the content needs regular updating to be useful will anyone be updating it?


• Will the content be written by experienced website writers? If not will style guides be provided and publishing approval processes set in place?


• Is the content suited to templates? If so can I, to some extent, enforce standards and consistency?


• If the content is suited to templates can it be reused, exported, imported?


• Where does the content sit in the overall information environment of the organization? Can this content be leveraged off content which exists elsewhere?


• Can content updating be used to trigger secondary actions such as changes to content on other content pages?


• Is the content of any real value to a reader, for example, does the reader actually care that you are ‘An organization going forward with solutions logistics priorities’. If you found the page through an external or internal search would you be underwhelmed?


• How granular should the content be? By this I mean do you want 1 page about 10 things or 10 pages about one thing each. This has an impact on the site IA and therefore content find-ability. It also impacts on readability.


• Does the content deliver or facilitate the expected outcome? For example, if you list upcoming events do you make it easy for users to attend the events? This relates to the content writer’s knowledge of how best to present different types of information such as instructions, policies, concepts, etc.


• If content does facilitate an outcome does that outcome match your business goals?

Most importantly the content needs to be user tested. Much is made of testing the information architecture, of making sure that accessibility and usability guidelines are followed and this is of course very important. But all is for naught if a user can’t effectively use the content.

Labels: business requirements, website content

I recently attended two presentations on 'taxonomies in the digital environment', presented by respected information management specialists.

Both presenters viewed classification as practised by librarians as a quaint anachronism unsuited to the digital world. The tone was patronising.

There appears to be a misconception that librarians practise a simple, strict taxonomy which doesn't allow for information to be described from multiple perspectives.

In a strict taxonomy an object can only occupy 1 position in that taxonomy. You only get one instance of a penguin in a scientific taxonomy of animals and that penguin is well and truly fixed within the hierarchy of that taxonomy.

An idea gaining currency at the moment is that librarians take this taxonomic perspective. The misconception is that, to a librarian, a book on penguins will always be, and only be, a book on penguins. Librarians are well aware that information, and particularly the use of information, is far more complex than that.

The myth seems to be based on the observation that libraries deal with physical objects and that as a physical object can only sit in one location on a library shelf, it must therefore only occupy one position in the hierarchy of descriptive terms.

This view is wrong, and an understanding of how library classification works will lead to an understanding of the relevance of library classification in the digital world.


Subject headings

Librarians have a structured approach to assigning subject headings. It is important to understand that a structured approach doesn't infer inflexibility.

Using structured thought processes librarians dismantle pieces of information into constituent facets, and then match these facets to subject headings. The subject heading below illustrates three facets.

Real estate business - Accounting - Problems, exercises, etc.

We have the subject matter (Real estate business); the activity associated with the main subject matter (Accounting); and the nature of the information (Problems, exercises, etc).

A disciplined process of thinking ensures that all of the important aspects of an information resource are exposed. As you can see, far from describing the information from a single facet or point of view, the subject heading is multifaceted.

It is this process of analytical thinking that brings quality to information managed by librarians.

Librarians also assign combinations of subject headings to describe information comprehensively, as shown in the sets of headings below:

Administrative agencies - United States - Accounting
Chief financial officers - United States

and

Education and state - Australia
Finance, Public - Australia - Accounting
Educational accountability - Australia

I have used the above examples to generate the following descriptors, or tags:

Real estate business
Accounting Problems, exercises, etc
Education and state
Finance, Public
Australia
Educational accountability
Administrative agencies
United States
Chief financial officers

This list translates quite well to the digital environment as tags for website searching as illustrated below:



These tags would also be useful in an index of topics, as the basis for RSS feeds, and in many other applications depending on the requirements of the particular digital environment.


Classification numbers

It is true that librarians assign a classification number to a physical object so that it can be found. This has proved to be an extremely useful practice. The number usually looks something like this: 363.7360994.

It is incorrect to state that a particular information resource is always assigned the same classification number in every library. The number can, and does vary from library to library depending on the perspective of the library.

For example, in one library a collection of photographs of formal gardens might go to the number for photography because the parent organisation has an interest in photography, but not formal gardens. Another library might assign a number for formal gardens because it is more useful from their perspective.

As with subject headings, the allocation of meaningful numbers depends on the analytical skill of the librarian and their understanding of the relevance of information in different contexts.

Classification numbers present different views of the same information. Translated to the digital environment they could be equated to the mindset of publishing from one source up through multiple presentation templates within a website information architecture.


Library model in a digital world

The library model of classification operates effectively in the digital world as demonstrated by the following:

• The digital resource equates to the physical resource in that it is a discrete entity which is (ideally) stored in 1 location
• Multiple publishing from a single source corresponds to multiple classification numbers
• Tags equate to subject headings

Here is an example of how this might translate to an intranet.

The content of the digital resource:

• LegalConsiderationsWhenExportingDangerousGoodsFromAustralia.html

could be published through the presentation templates of the following areas of the intranet:

• Australian intranet view
• Export channel
• Legal channel
• Goods channel

and assigned these tags:

• Australian exports
• Dangerous goods
• Flammable goods
• Explosives
• Radioactive materials
• Infectious materials
• Export of dangerous goods Act 2007
• Hazchem Code

Conclusion

It is wrong to assert that library classification is unsuited to the digital environment on the basis that it is simple and one dimensional. Quite the opposite is true. Library classification provides a rich source of tagging, and multiple perspectives, which are ideally suited to the organisation, manipulation and retrieval of information in digital environments.

Librarians have developed skills which enable them to effectively and systematically analyze information and these skills should be more, not less, frequently utilized in the digital environment.

Labels: cataloguing, information organisation