Volume 43, Number 6 - November/December 2019
EDITORIALFrontLines Page 4 Erroneous information is rampant these days. By its very abundance, it can be amplified by repetition. By Marydee Ojala The Searcher's Viewpoint Page 41 It is not surprising that while AI is very present in the literature and in our learning spaces, many folks may still be left wondering how AI will impact the profession. By Raymond Pun DEPARTMENTSPage 8 Search Engine Update By Greg R. Notess Page 43 Conference Corral IFLA Looks to Athens for Wisdom and Dialogue FEATURESPage 10 Fragmented Truths: Who’s Doing What to Minimize ‘Fake’ To fight fake news, many journalism organizations have developed fact-checkers and are using AI technologies to help alleviate the problem. It's heartening to know that so many organizations and individuals are dedicated to combatting the spread of falsifications, misinformation, and disinformation. Barbie Keiser explains what's been going on. By Barbie E. Keiser Page 18 Mistakes Happen: A Patentability Case Study Called in to review the results of a patentability search, Thomas Wolff discovered that mistakes had been made by the original searcher. His lessons learned concern how to avoid missing obvious references, how to treat clients with respect, how to own up to mistakes and how we all must be diligent to avoid making mistakes. By Thomas E. Wolff Page 26 U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey’s Statistical Testing Tool The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) contains an overwhelming amount of information. To its credit, it also provides its Statistical Testing Tool that can save researchers time and allow them to use the data better. Roger Magnus explains the intricacies of searching this tool. By Roger Magnus Page 32 Practical Knowledge and Information Management The practice of knowledge and information management (KIM) is hardly new, yet it hasn't enjoyed the success we all expected. Information overload, forcing people to use a specific structure, not rewarding people for sharing information and knowledge, and concentrating only on upper management, creates blockages to successful KIM. By Katharine Schopflin Page 36 Open educational resources (OERs) constitute a growing trend in instructional materials—they save money for the educational community and facilitate instructor manipulation of the resource. Basically, OERs are educational resources that are freely available to use, adapt, and share. They are typically digital in format and do not require written permission to use. By Lesley S. J. Farmer COLUMNSInternet Express Page 47 Get Hip With Home Automation: The Appeal and Cautions of Smart Home Living The devices that are invading our homes and changing how we run our households are collectively known as smart devices. Carly Lamphere takes a look at a range of these devices and also lets us know when it might be smarter not to deploy them. By Carly Lamphere InfoLit Land Page 51 On the Future of Academic Libraries—One More Take The academic library is once again under threat. The notion that everything is on the internet, thus obviating the need for libraries, is shortsighted but pervasive. Academic librarian Bill Badke makes the case that a shared vision of the nature of education will conclude in recognizing libraries as part of the larger nexus of imparting expertise. By William Badke Technology and Power Page 54 Big Data and the ability of AI technologies to rapidly analyze huge amounts of data are turning the research paradigm on its head. The trend toward trusting data-based machine learning algorithms is moving the emphasis from data's role to either validate or invalidate the hypothesis to ask what the data show, then form a conclusion. But their role should be to augment and empower human autonomy. By Bohyun Kim The Dollar Sign Page 57 Finding and Creating Company Lists Company lists serve a variety of different purposes. People looking for a new job want a list of companies in their field and possibly in their geographic area. However, geography may not be their primary concern. They could be willing to move, or they might actually want to live and work somewhere else. A target list of prospect companies is a constant demand from sales departments. Consulting firms and law firms might be looking for new customers. By Marydee Ojala Hard Copy Page 60 Recommended Reading on Information Services, Internet Searching, Personal Librarians, and International Librarianship By Jennifer A. Bartlett Online Spotlight Page 64 Able to Leap Info Silos in a Single Bound Mary Ellen Bates considers what superpower info pros have and suggests it's not being a friendlier search engine. Info pros take a holistic view, seeing where they work as an entire ecosystem and taking on the role of trusted expert who can recognize what is needed, where, and by whom. By Mary Ellen Bates |
