Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Ideally, harvested searches plugged into open-source library manage-
ment systems/institutional repositories, etc., will become the preferred
choice, allowing libraries to make sense of the anarchy by choosing
separate, interoperable modules from a variety of existing suppliers,
open-source communities and developers.
Visualization
The main goal of
data visualization
is its ability to
visualize
data,
communicating information clearly and effectively. It doesn't mean that
data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely
sophisticated to look beautiful.
(
Smashing Magazine
, 2008)
Carol Tenopir (2007) asks '[is the]
search box solution really the best for
facilitating research?'
The work of the Human-Computer Interaction
Lab
41
and Edward Tufte,
42
amongst others, has led to data visualization
gaining acceptance in recent years. Recently, Brendan Dawes (perform
any search on his website to watch your results move across the pages
as a number of insects
43
) created DoodleBuzz.com, a way to read the
news through an experimental interface that allows you to create
topographic maps of current news stories.
44
He was also commissioned
by the BBC to re-design its Memoryshare website;
45
when this was
shown at the recent Mashed Library 2009 event (Dawes, 2009) there
was a palpable 'sharp intake of breath' from the librarians in the room
at the replacement of a perfectly functional search box with a data
visualisation page. This is an evolving area and will certainly be a part
of the resource-discovery process in years to come. Certainly today, in
its simplest form, it can transform a two-dimensional repository into a
resource of obvious appeal to potential users, as the recent JISC-funded
Kultur project shows,
46
or create a virtual bookshelf to reintroduce
serendipity into library catalogue.
47
What can't we afford not to do?
This chapter started by considering how A&I databases were being
slashed in order to balance the budgets. However, there is also a cost in
going to any new system, whether it is the new generation of harvested
