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The Association for Information Science and Technology

Pacific Northwest Chapter Annual Meeting

The Impact of Ubiquitous Information

May 14 & 15, 2004
University of Washington, Husky Union Building (HUB), Room 310
Seattle, Washington

We are thankful for the generous support of the following organizations: ASIS&T, The University of Washington, Ebsco

[Program] - [Accommodations and Local Info] -- [Online Registration Form] -- [Questions?]

Keynote speaker: George Dyson, historian, futurist, and author

THEME: Now that most everyone is on the web, are our former assumptions about how the public's interactions with information resources still valid? Is the web still a place where people broaden themselves, a la the idea of an information commons? Are people any better at information literacy than they were pre-web? Does the average user actually use the tools developed through our body of knowledge and practice? What should our profession be focusing on today?

Conference at a Glance:

Friday May 14^th, 2004

Saturday May 15^th, 2004

Presentation Details:

Sessions will be held in Husky Union Building (HUB) Room 310. The Banquet will take place in HUB Room 108.

Friday May 14^th, 2004

8:00 – 8:30 AM
Check-in: HUB Room 310

8:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Workshop: Personal Information Management in Theory and in Practice

William Jones is Associate Research Professor at the University of Washington Information School; Harry Bruce is Associate Dean of Research at the University of Washington Information School. William and Harry are co-principal-investigators on the Keeping Found Things Found (KFTF) project (http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/), funded by the National Science Foundation.

This workshop provides an overview of Personal Information Management (PIM) both as a field of inquiry and as an activity that all of us of necessity perform every day. The workshop will include background review and group discussion on the following topics:

1.      A historical overview of PIM with special emphasis on developments over the past 20 years.

2.      An analytical breakdown of PIM with respect to key problems, stages of information management (search, acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval, disposal, etc.), and domains of information management (e-mail, web, e-documents, etc.).

3.      An assessment of the current state of PIM as a field of inquiry. The workshop will review promising lines of empirical inquiry, theoretical development, and tool development.

4.      A practical review of enduring do's and don’ts of PIM. An effective practice of PIM will vary from person to person according to the various roles a person must perform (in the workplace, at home, and elsewhere).

5.      An overview of the many tools that promise to help in PIM.

11:30 AM– 1:00 PM
Lunch

On your own. Cafeteria available in the HUB. Area restaurants available within walking distance.

1:00 – 1:10 PM
Introductions and Opening Remarks

 1:10 – 2:00 PM
Session 1: Connecting the Docs: Integrating Information from Multiple Documents Powerpoint Presentation

Mark Wasson is a research scientist in computational linguistics and information processing with LexisNexis.

 Information about a company, person, or subject can appear in many different forms across a number of documents. Information retrieval tools return a number of texts and web pages in response to a user's query, but it is generally up to that user to find and combine the relevant information in those documents. In this session I will show how document classification, information extraction, record linkage, and other technologies are being used in research prototypes and production applications to find information in such document sets, and organize and package it into multidocument summaries, report products, directories, and other aggregations.

 2:10 – 3:00 PM

Session 2: From Metadata to Music

From Metadata to Music
Powerpoint Presentation

 Susan Golden's company, the Golden Information Group, specializes in knowledge management projects for organizations with a mission. Until November 2003 she served as project manager and information architect for Smithsonian Global Sound. She holds a Bachelors degree in African-American studies from UC Berkeley and a Masters degree in Librarianship from the University of Washington.

She began her public library career as a children's librarian and ended it as head of reference for a large business library. She then went on to found Golden Information Group, serving in the 1990's as an early advocate for the Web - seeing it as a conduit for the exchange of knowledge, be it commercial, cultural or political. She worked on content-rich projects for Microsoft and eventually joined the staff of Hewlett-Packard to build DeepCanyon, a Web site that aggregated market research. Following DeepCanyon's demise she joined the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage to build Global Sound.

Dave McKeague is currently responsible for brand strategy and information architecture at Slam Media Inc., Dave's visionary approach to projects inspires his teams to dream of ideas that may not have otherwise been discovered. While at Cursive Code he led brainstorming sessions with many tools, including his personal favorite the Mindmap. Documentation of strategies using gray-models and wireframe prototypes take the burden off the visual team, allowing them to focus on creating engaging UI designs that make sense.

Prior to Cursivecode, Dave was with marchFIRST. His role was VP of Brand Building and User Experience. While with marchFIRST, Dave completed web projects for: Microsoft, HP, Dell, 3COM, International Space Station, Starbucks, eHome, Anthro, FlukeNetworks, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Providence Hospital Medical Center, Virginia Mason, Northwest Hospital, Discovery Channel, Petstore.com, Adidas, Miller Brewing, and many others. Dave has received industry recognition for his efforts through numerous awards for visual design. Dave teaches Information Architecture at the School of Visual Concept, and holds degrees in Visual Communication and Graphic Design.

At Smithsonian Global Sound, Susan Golden was given the opportunity to turn ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger's vision for a world music Web site into a reality. The challenge was to take music recorded over a period of sixty years - music recorded in the field and rarely heard outside of the host archives, and make it "findable" to a new group of listeners. She will discuss the creation of the content management tool used to catalog and assign metadata to the music and then address how the requirements and sitemap were translated by the design firm, Cursive Code, to create a tool that enabled academics, educators, students and world music fans to discover and learn about the music as they navigated the site. Dave McKeague of Slam Media, who was the IA with Cursive at the time, will join the discussion to share his experience from the designer's perspective.

 3:00 – 3:30 PM

Break

 3:30 – 4:20 PM

Roundtable Session: What Can ASIS&T PNC Do For You? Powerpoint Presentation

ASIS&T PNW Officers

It’s time to revitalize our chapter! We’ll discuss what you want from this professional organization, what programming you’d like to see, and what you can do for the chapter. Also, we’ll take a look at the new chapter bylaws. Come loaded with ideas!

4:30 – 5:20 PM

ASIS&T PNW Business Meeting

 6:00 – 10:00 PM

Banquet: Cocktails and Keynote Address: Von Neumann's Universe

HUB Room 108

 George Dyson is a historian of technology whose interests have ranged from the development (and redevelopment) of the Aleut kayak (BAIDARKA, 1986) to the evolution of digital computing and telecommunications (DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES, 1997) and nuclear bomb-propelled space exploration (PROJECT ORION, 2002). Dyson, who lives in Bellingham, Washington, is currently compiling an account of the confluence of people, technology, and ideas surrounding John von Neumanns Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study, 19451958.For more information, see http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/dysong.html. 

Saturday May 15^th, 2004

8:30 – 9:20 AM
Session 3: Perspectives on Metadata Management in Context

Panelists: Michael Crandall (Presentation) is Technology Manager for the Libraries and Public Access to Information Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Carol A. Hert (Presentation) is a researcher and consultant specializing in user information seeking behavior and related metadata and information system design; Peter Hallett (Presentation) is responsible for marketing strategy, product management and marketing communications at Schemalogic, which develops software for enterprise metadata management and taxonomy reconciliation.

The critical importance of metadata for facilitating a host of business and library processes is widely recognized. Without metadata, search engines could only search keywords, call centers would have difficulty categorizing problems and managing their problem tracking systems, human relations staff would struggle with establishing pay scales and compensation systems, and so on. Structured metadata are necessary for a robust information infrastructure.

While metadata’s importance is generally accepted, most organizations are still challenged with identifying, prioritizing, structuring, and maintaining that metadata. This panel presents several perspectives on those challenges and suggests that understanding the contexts in which metadata are created and used, and supporting and maintaining a dynamic view of those contexts is essential for metadata management that supports business goals. More specifically, the panelists will consider the business drivers to deliver services and products using metadata, the importance of building change management and maintenance features into metadata systems, and how the success of metadata systems might be evaluated.

The panel participants bring a wealth of expertise to the panel having years of experience in metadata management, metadata research, and metadata system design.

9:30 – 10:20 AM

Session 4: Do You Really Know What Your Customers Want? Architecting Assistance Content in the Age of Infoglut (Presentation)

 David Billick is a data analyst in Microsoft's user assistance organization working on Longhorn, the next version of the Windows operating system.

Collecting data about customers’ problems is no longer the biggest challenge confronting user assistance organizations. Likewise, sophisticated applications greatly facilitate the authoring and content management functions. The next major obstacle in building best-in-class help and support systems is the effective and timely analysis of users' expressions of their problems and intents. Customers communicate their issues in newsgroups, via support center phone calls, chat and e-mail, and through queries submitted to general and specialized search engines. This presentation describes how Microsoft's Longhorn user assistance organization is addressing the problems presented by the quantity and variety of formats and media in which user feedback is collected.

 10:20 – 10:40 AM

Break

 10:40 – 11:30 AM

Session 5: Conscientious Design for International Audiences (Presentation)

 As a MLIS student at the University of Washington Information School, Melissa Weaver has been able to combine her interests in non-profit and international technology with the study of public librarianship and knowledge organization – emphasizing an interest in information technology and teaching.

Images, icons, photographs, movies, charts, graphs, the color of hyperlinks, all of these and more are examples of visuals swiftly becoming a part of everyday technology. From camera phones to touch screens, the ability to create and publish visual media is now more affordable and desirable than ever.

Visuals in documents, websites, and software interfaces are just as important as text in communicating ideas, organization and functionality. As information professionals are increasing involved in the visual organization and content of products for international consumption, they need literature and research that goes beyond stereotypes and market segments to help design and analyze effective visual presentations.

Are there principles of design that make some websites and interfaces more popular than others? Can these theories be tested using user-centered practices? This session examines the interplay of visual communication in information design and proposes several areas where empirical research could validate theories of visual design.

11:40 AM – 12:30 PM

Session 6: Tools to "Think With": A Content Management System in Teaching and Learning
Powerpoint Presentation

Aaron Louie (MLIS, University of Washington) is the Information Architect and William Washington (MS, Technical Communications, University of Washington) is the User-Centered Designer for the University of Washington Program for Educational Transformation Through Technology (PETTT).

By following a multidisciplinary approach that leveraged LIS knowledge and practice, we have developed a web-based content management system (CMS) for use in the classroom that feeds into a public information resource. We examined the information commons that emerged from the use of this CMS through implementation of the tool in a variety of learning environments. We found that this information commons was a place where students could enrich themselves in a multitude of ways. In this session, we will discuss how a CMS may be used as a tool to "think with" and present our findings on the wide variety of opportunities for teaching and learning afforded by the CMS, including guided writing through the use of templates, collaborative learning with commenting and workflow features, and formative domain analysis using thesaurus construction and faceted classification.