December 13, 2004
Visual Learning Spaces or Games - 2004 Year in Review
2004 saw the continuing technologic shift of the library from 19th century repository to 21st century visual and virtual 'learning space' and the accompanying challenge that goes along with the shift of large systems of information from physical and static entities to online, virtual and dynamic ones. A signal development was the expansion of the World Wide Web and accompanying implications for a global networked society. Tim Berner's Lee futuristic vision for the WWW came one step closer to realization with widespread acceptance of the web as a viable medium for education, commerce and 'learning space'. This entry reflects on this year's concerns with regards to libraries, information visualization and the ongoing technologic transformation that is occurring in our early 21st century landscape.
Early this year, I was asked to redesign the website for the American Society of Information Science and Technology, Special Interest Group for Visualization Images and Sound. This redesign of a 3D typographic fly-through or 3D cognitive map of a large information space heralded questions for the year regarding visualization and information architecture. Challenges in larger information spaces have shifted from obtaining information to making it visible and enabling 'information units' to see relationships between previous unconnected 'compartments'. In this respect, search engines began to become more innovative (Grokker, Vivisimo) with regards to precision, recall and relevance. Current page rank technology champions such as "Google" came to a forefront in terms of dominant search and retrieval methodologies. And while serious contenders to the long scrolling lists of Google have yet to appear, experimental prototypes did loom on the horizon. The future of search engines here are 3D and information foraging environments used by game engines - these have yet to be built.
Similarly, new online image applications began to appear. Chosen as a test site for the Mellon Foundations' major imagebase project, U Miami began to examine the challenge of implementing a large imagebase application through Artstor. This project involved the implementation of several existing technologies, the transformation of largely 20th century 'imaging' archiving practices and the challenge of paradigm shift with regards to what these large 'image' bases imply about teaching, learning, artifact creation and knowledge production.
The semiotic possibilities of 'sound' continued to press on borderlines of development and implementation. While still not widely accepted or utilized, 'navigational' uses of sound in interface development began to be explored. More widespread, were music industry ventures "Napster" and "Real Rhapsody" presenting robust commercially thought-out digital music libraries in easy to navigate and interesting formats. Academic libraries and archives should take note. The larger shift was also from 'recorded' technology to 'media' content management by larger database providers. This trend will continue and expand to 'video' and other recordable media.
On another front, the power of 'weblog statistics' was enabled with new web statistics software, Web Trends. Still insufficient in terms of providing sophisticated user profiles, the weblog statistical software did begin to provide indications and markers as to how the main resources in large information systems such as academic libraries were being utilized.
Worth spending more time on was the push forward of online games into 'serious' areas. While the library still discounts 'online games' for serious purposes (commerce, academia, cultural collaboration and production) the models are becoming sophisticated. In the upcoming year, time should be devoted to this area in terms of both research and the beginning of experimentation/implementation. Similarly, text based online communities continued to develop in sophistication and purpose. Again, these models should be adapted and brought into the academic arena.
Digital Libraries also became more innovative and 'global'. For example, "the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative" connected disparate physical objects into a global virtual space so that scholars could be unhampered by constraints of 'physical location. Interesting collaborative ventures between digital technologists, museum curators and academic library collections increased on the one hand to create virtual exhibits and on the other to create 'learning' synergies between library collections, exhibitions and through the new potentialities of technology.
At UM, several innovative digital library efforts were completed. Dr. Lyn MacCorkle's "Sixties" project took the idea of putting an online course one step further by combining traditional curriculum with the potential of online video and a unique database remix of material so that online course possibilities became more robust through video but also enabled through precise 'metadata' descriptors of visual resources and assets. The trick here now is to take advantage and combine this with the computer's intrinsic capability for interactivity. Similarly, my own and Dr. Holly Ackerman Cuban Rafter's project took advantage of new multimedia and innovative navigational possibilities to (re)present a recent and as yet undocumented transatlantic history. Again, both of these digital libraries were permanently archived as innovative multimedia archives and learning tools. Similarly, cross-disciplinary efforts such as UM's interdisciplinary seminar for "Reconfiguring Public Spaces" broke down barriers between traditionally compartmentalized schools and departments. Architecture, Public History, Information Technology and Urban Studies thought through disciplinary border lines and synthesized information online through the internetworked potential of the internet as a possibility for collaboration.
The learning potential within current DVD technology became more established and models more thought out for using 'visual culture' to teach new disciplines and reinvigorate old ones. With this, imaging technologies similarly advanced with applications like 'the zoomifyer' allowing almost unlimited size images to be placed 'onto the web' and zoomed and navigated through a visual cartographic metaphor. The potential here must be thought about in terms of similar visual earlier innovations (microscope, telescope) and their accompanying societal reverberations. Similarly, innovative uses of Flash interactivity became widespread with the advent of Flash MX 2004 and with this the opening but still unrealized combination and potential of 'video databases' and computer interactivity. Blogs also became ubiquitous with Wikis coming into the radar.
To conclude, in 2005 the 64 bit processor will be introduced which will introduce another paradigm shift. Memory and processing power will become less of factors and '3D' visualization possibilities will begin on at least a few academic based efforts. To generalize, possibilities for future development are large and open. Imagination is needed and enabling perspectives required to begin more bold experimentation and set new pathways to the future.