Noticed this article about UK libraries and I thought the mentions of Wikipedia would be of interest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12340505
The Andrew Dalby mentioned there is presumably:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Dalby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dalby
Author of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_and_Wikipedia
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Does anyone here (particularly in the UK) use libraries regularly for Wikipedia work?
What about public libraries in the USA and other countries? Are they well-funded or not?
Carcharoth
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 7:33 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
I have got it, but haven't finished it yet. Andrew spoke at the recent GLAM-Wiki event last year, which has audio available [1]. There are lots of good talks at that event (including one from Cory Doctorow), if you are interested in the intersection of galleries, libraries, archives, museums and WIkipedia.
I work at the US Library of Congress where we've been slowly materials and putting them online since the Web was just being born in the mid 1990s. Like most Libraries we use web metrics software to track what's getting used, but recently I've started thinking that it could be interesting to show how library, museum, archive material is used in Wikipedia, to demonstrate how important it is that GLAM institutions continue to put content online. So I started working on Linkypedia [2].
Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4].
I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment.
Sorry to hijack your thread, but I would be interested in hearing if any feedback on the idea of Linkypedia, and if anyone had any experience with what sorts of projects are possible in the toolserver environment. Perhaps that question is best asked on their discussion list though...
//Ed
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GLAMWIKI_UK_Fri_26_14.00_Stevenson_-_Andre... [2] http://linkypedia.info/ [3] http://linkypedia.info/websites/1/pages/ [4] http://linkypedia.info/websites/1/pages/feed/ [5] https://github.com/edsu/linkypedia/wiki/linkypedia-v2
Around here (here being Evansville, IN, U.S.), the public libraries all put a 15-minute cap on your computer usage and also require you to have a valid library card. The reason is because the libraries don't have enough computers to support everyone. (Keep in mind that the clients aren't just people doing research-- this includes people with no Internet at home trying to pay bills or do online banking).
I'm not sure how well-funded the public libraries are (it could simply be that libraries don't have enough/space/ to put more computers), but the ones around here don't seem to cater well to adults with computer needs, as it's very difficult to find an open computer with access to the Internet (several of them are limited to library catalog browsing, and these are rarely occupied)-- though if you're a kid, they've got a large section roped off simply for kids to play games online.
Interestingly enough, my university's library sports several hundred computers, most of which are occupied all day long. Again, a student ID is required to use these computers, but the activity on them is relatively unrestricted (ranging from homework to Farmville). Additionally, the campus has about ten other labs hosting about 40-50 computers each, providing students with all the time in the world to play Farmville.
I've done a large portion of my editing in the university library in the past simply because the time restriction on computer usage was absent. I'd never even consider it at the public library simply because I wouldn't even have time to check my watchlist.
Bob
On 2/8/2011 6:33 AM, Carcharoth wrote:
Noticed this article about UK libraries and I thought the mentions of Wikipedia would be of interest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12340505
The Andrew Dalby mentioned there is presumably:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Dalby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dalby
Author of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_and_Wikipedia
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Does anyone here (particularly in the UK) use libraries regularly for Wikipedia work?
What about public libraries in the USA and other countries? Are they well-funded or not?
Carcharoth
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Wi-fi is the obvious solution for libraries. We've made the entire downtown area of Crestone into a hot spot, not by plan, just by natural growth of cafes and other nodes. The result is lots of people who gather and use their laptops to stay connected.
Fred
Around here (here being Evansville, IN, U.S.), the public libraries all put a 15-minute cap on your computer usage and also require you to have a valid library card. The reason is because the libraries don't have enough computers to support everyone. (Keep in mind that the clients aren't just people doing research-- this includes people with no Internet at home trying to pay bills or do online banking).
I'm not sure how well-funded the public libraries are (it could simply be that libraries don't have enough/space/ to put more computers), but the ones around here don't seem to cater well to adults with computer needs, as it's very difficult to find an open computer with access to the Internet (several of them are limited to library catalog browsing, and these are rarely occupied)-- though if you're a kid, they've got a large section roped off simply for kids to play games online.
Interestingly enough, my university's library sports several hundred computers, most of which are occupied all day long. Again, a student ID is required to use these computers, but the activity on them is relatively unrestricted (ranging from homework to Farmville). Additionally, the campus has about ten other labs hosting about 40-50 computers each, providing students with all the time in the world to play Farmville.
I've done a large portion of my editing in the university library in the past simply because the time restriction on computer usage was absent. I'd never even consider it at the public library simply because I wouldn't even have time to check my watchlist.
Bob
On Tuesday, February 08, 2011, Carcharoth wrote:
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Yes, here's my summary:
Numerous Wikipedian vignettes and debates are used to explore issues including reliability, verifiability, neutrality, and criticism. Also includes historical parallels. Very charming and detailed, but does not advance any particular theories. \acite{Dalby2009wah}
Most of our libraries here (triangle area of NC) allow for 2 60 minute sessions a day, and they also tend to have 1 or more machines designated as "express" machines, with only 15 minutes allowed. By dividing it up that way, they keep the people that just need to check email really quick moving, while still accommodating people that need to do more than that. As Fred suggested in his reply, WiFi helps the situation, since a lot of the people that would use library computers end up on their own computers instead.
I've yet to see a library make use of linux to be able to redeploy old hardware though, which could give them a way to cheaply use hardware even if it's not homogenized enough or fast enough to put Windows images on.
-Stephanie
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikipedian@gmail.com wrote:
Around here (here being Evansville, IN, U.S.), the public libraries all put a 15-minute cap on your computer usage and also require you to have a valid library card. The reason is because the libraries don't have enough computers to support everyone. (Keep in mind that the clients aren't just people doing research-- this includes people with no Internet at home trying to pay bills or do online banking).
I'm not sure how well-funded the public libraries are (it could simply be that libraries don't have enough/space/ to put more computers), but the ones around here don't seem to cater well to adults with computer needs, as it's very difficult to find an open computer with access to the Internet (several of them are limited to library catalog browsing, and these are rarely occupied)-- though if you're a kid, they've got a large section roped off simply for kids to play games online.
Interestingly enough, my university's library sports several hundred computers, most of which are occupied all day long. Again, a student ID is required to use these computers, but the activity on them is relatively unrestricted (ranging from homework to Farmville). Additionally, the campus has about ten other labs hosting about 40-50 computers each, providing students with all the time in the world to play Farmville.
I've done a large portion of my editing in the university library in the past simply because the time restriction on computer usage was absent. I'd never even consider it at the public library simply because I wouldn't even have time to check my watchlist.
Bob
On 2/8/2011 6:33 AM, Carcharoth wrote:
Noticed this article about UK libraries and I thought the mentions of Wikipedia would be of interest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12340505
The Andrew Dalby mentioned there is presumably:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Dalby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dalby
Author of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_and_Wikipedia
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Does anyone here (particularly in the UK) use libraries regularly for Wikipedia work?
What about public libraries in the USA and other countries? Are they well-funded or not?
Carcharoth
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 4:33 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Noticed this article about UK libraries and I thought the mentions of Wikipedia would be of interest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12340505
The Andrew Dalby mentioned there is presumably:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Dalby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dalby
Author of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_and_Wikipedia
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Does anyone here (particularly in the UK) use libraries regularly for Wikipedia work?
What about public libraries in the USA and other countries? Are they well-funded or not?
Carcharoth
I know of no place where libraries are as well-funded as they would like to be :) Libraries in the US are often poorly funded because they depend on local tax revenue (city or county). In a recession, when people don't buy as many goods and there are not as many real estate sales, this local revenue can drop dramatically and the corresponding impact on libraries (as on public schools and other social services) can be dramatic. See e.g. http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/libfunding/public/index.cfm for a sense of this across the U.S.
These cuts affect all the services libraries provide -- everything from internet access for people who don't otherwise have it, to helping kids learn to read, to buying good books and reference materials for the community. Libraries are often the only common indoor public space in a community, and are certainly the only such spaces devoted to learning and research.
And I certainly hope you all are using libraries for your Wikipedia work! It would make it much more difficult to find good sources if you weren't.
-- phoebe, who's a librarian :)
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2008@reagle.org wrote:
On Tuesday, February 08, 2011, Carcharoth wrote:
[Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?]
Yes, here's my summary:
Numerous Wikipedian vignettes and debates are used to explore issues including reliability, verifiability, neutrality, and criticism. Also includes historical parallels. Very charming and detailed, but does not advance any particular theories. \acite{Dalby2009wah}
And here's my review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-05-03/Book_re...
And here's David Shankbone's: http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/11/02/andrew-dalby-wikipedia-and-the-worl/
-Sage
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Ed Summers ehs@pobox.com wrote:
Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4].
I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment.
Perhaps I am missing something, but aren't there existing SEO tools for seeing 'where are my domains being linked from'?
I occasionally go into Google's Webmaster Tools (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en) and see where gwern.net pages are being linked from. (I was surprised to learn that my [[dual n-back]] FAQ (http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ.html) had been linked on the German Wikipedia.) And surely Google is not the only purveyor of such tools.
I also wonder how much such a server would cost, even if you *had* to roll your own service. It sounds like it'd be trivial to provide a browsable web front-end, so I assume the gigabytes you speak of are needed for analyzing the database dump. But dumps occur so rarely you don't need a 24/7 server crunching the numbers. For a server with 7.5 GB of RAM, Amazon charges only $0.34/hr (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/), so even a very long number-crunching session would only cost a few dollars.
On 8 February 2011 14:35, Ed Summers ehs@pobox.com wrote:
Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4].
I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment.
Seems similar to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch
Britain is a densely packed island and we're swimming in obsolete computers, routers and whatnot so if we just made an effort to extend internet access, digitized all books and used an extension of the existing royalty payments schemes we could deliver any printed matter to any home around the clock at minimal cost.
In a couple of years time we won't be able to move for obsolete Android mobile phones, Kindles and whatnot, so we'll have a glut of internet-capable book readers. The corporation tax exemptions for depreciation allow businesses to write kit off against tax after three years.
In principle at least, we could make huge savings while making books more freely available than they ever were in paper form.
Add a Council Tax rebate to anybody providing a WiFi internet hotspot from their residence and you've got a nationwide electronic library system that practically runs itself.