Chapter 7. Stakes and Prospects of Heuristic Visualization for OPAC Use
7.3. Visualization and the trail of knowledge
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establish a dialog with its public based on a better comprehension of how the library functions. Furthermore, the image of professional librarians could be improved by this pedagogical approach towards the library’s users [CHA 05].
7.2.3. Improved online catalogs – they lead to an increase in unintended applications
The catalog plays a central role in a library and has more to it than the capacity to provide the required descriptive notes. It contains organizational information that reveals a distinct and empirical logic. Users often underestimate this logic as well as the importance of the actual catalog:
– architecture: the most recent library buildings make free access to collections easier. Even if the localization of a certain book is indicated in the descriptive note (precision might vary) it never explains to the user how collections are organized and why they are put into a particular room, or into different places;
– organization (and classification) as well as standardized descriptions of knowledge (RAMEAU, unified encyclopaedic directory on authorship and topic in alphabetical order). A classification system offers access that is based on different categories. This form of access is hardly used and difficult to introduce into reading rooms. Alphanumeric encoding is useful due to the fact that it is very concise, but, it does not provide any information about the variety and the intellectual organization of collections;
– policies on documentation reveal the library’s system of acquisition and the value that is attributed to different collections.
Catalogs have, of course, benefited from the progress made in web applications.
However, online catalogs still follow the traditional microfiche models. According to Christine Borgman this procedure no longer corresponds to user behavior when searching for information. “ … we argue that most current online catalogs are based on card catalog design models, that this model does not map well onto online systems, and that the model is not based on information-seeking behavior” [BOR 96].
7.3. Visualization and the trail of knowledge
Stakes and Prospects of Heuristic Visualization 111 geometric, enabling researchers to observe their simulations and computations.
Visualization offers a method for seeing the unseen” [VIS 91, p. 1].
Interactive visualization of information aims to provide a perception of information and manipulate this information. Its performance is based on the following aspects:
– the processing capacity of an algorithm is linked to efficient restoration of data on graphic screens15 and the principles of creating two- or three-dimensional models of objects, interactions that include several different modes and, last but not least, virtual reality;
– the metamorphosis of the content represents a graphic representation of semantic and topic based links and inter-relations between the individual documents.
It is more precisely this axis of visualization that we are interested in as it allows for an elaboration of visual expression that is based on colors, forms, metaphors, lines, hierarchies, and composition [WOO 02]. This form of visualization calls for a convergence on the level of graphical semiology [BER 67], semiotics [STO 01] and visual communication that is needed to create a design for the given information [JAC 99].
“A less familiar but growing area is that of information visualization, which attempts to provide visual depictions of very large information spaces” [BAE 99, p. 260].
As a result, communication is based on infographics and interactive design that represents the respective information in order to emphasize its significant parts. The same effect cannot be reached within a written text16. We are talking about heuristic visualization and the four fields of knowledge mentioned above. Their aim is to add another level of comprehension to a text by using cognitive aspects of visual aids17. This especially applies to information that is already well structured and coherent but that simply cannot be understood on its own (see Figure 7.1).
15 Principles such as zoom focus on the context, hyperbolic subject trees, etc. [CAR 99].
16 The project Understanding USA is administrated by Richard Saul Wurman and is a very interesting example. It consists of a group of graphic and interactive features created by designers and architects of information. They were trying to present essential information from the annual USA report (1999) in a way that was easily understood by the country’s citizens (http://www.understandingusa.com).
17 These images, no matter whether they are cartographic, monosemic or metaphorical, increase the potential for memorizing and learning [DEN 89].
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Figure 7.1. Four components of heuristic visualization
7.3.2. Reticular systems and hypertextual trails
The resources offered to the users of a library are covered by a diversity of different ways to carry out research. Obtaining the required information is directly linked to the special features of the individual’s documentary research. Students, researchers or lecturers use this federated architecture and create their own trail of research and discoveries which fill the void between the subject of their research and the task of searching. These search tools provide documents and bibliographical information that should at least partly answer the user’s questions. The fact that someone progresses in their research is just as important as the way in which his/her associations are structured. “… understanding the coherence and the way in which hypertexts are organized is a fundamental step when trying to understand subject trees that represent a mental structure…” [COL 04].
Systems of different types of logic are present within a library and can be represented as distinct reticular structures:
1) the reticular system is linked to the architecture of a library (Figure 7.2);
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Figure 7.2. Disposition, access and movement of users. Every reading room in the library of the University of Paris 8 corresponds to one or more disciplines. The way different
disciplines are distributed is based on logic as well as on which rooms are located next to one another. As users move through reading rooms that are
located next to each other the different disciplines start overlapping
2) reticular classification systems. This system of organization is similar to subject trees. The user can first access the main categories, i.e. subject fields, and then go further down to specialized subdivisions. This system, however, also works on a transversal level and some books might appear in two or three different subcategories (Figure 7.1). This system allows for an approach based on different facets. “The basic principle of facet analysis is that concepts can be grouped using a characteristic of division which is not necessarily hierarchical. In other words, subjects which have previously been subdivided by progressive hierarchical arrangement, forming the familiar ‘tree structures’ of conventional indexing theory, can be looked on as patterns of horizontal division as well vertical divisions.”
[DUN 99, p. 133];
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Title of a book Classification mark
Label of subdivisions
302.22 MEY TEC
Category of article: social interaction Practices in communication
from higher education to working environments
808.06 MEY Specific techniques 302.23 COR Ways of communication
Mass media Social interaction Semiology of the image in
advertising
659.13 COR Particular categories of advertising 551.48 BET Hydrology, lakes, rivers,
streams Large rivers
628 BET Sanitary and municipal techniques Urban engineering
Table 7.1. Examples of transversal links between disciplines of some books (Dewey's system of classification, common services of documentation at the University of Artois)
3) the RAMEAU reticular system. A description enables the user to move from one notice to the next and therefore change from one discipline to another following the principles associated with a thesaurus. The twofold semantic mark in bibliographic notes is not used often enough. It is based on the classification on the one hand, and on the headings and subdivisions on the other. Categories that are created within the classification system and concepts that stem from headings and subdivisions [MIN 05] enhance the quality of both simultaneously.
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