Pauline Rafferty

Flickr and democratic indexing: dialogic approaches to indexing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: to examine three models of subject indexing (i.e. expert‐led indexing, author‐generated indexing, and user‐orientated indexing); and to compare and contrast two user‐orientated indexing approaches (i.e. the theoretically‐based Democratic Indexing project, and Flickr, a working system for describing photographs).Design/methodology/approach – The approach to examining Flickr and Democratic Indexing is evaluative. The limitations of Flickr are described and examples are provided. The Democratic Indexing approach, which the authors believe offers a method of marshalling a “free” user‐indexed archive to provide useful retrieval functions, is described.Findings – The examination of both Flickr and the Democratic Indexing approach suggests that, despite Shirkys claim of philosophical paradigm shifting for social tagging, there is a residing doubt amongst information professionals that self‐organising systems can work without there being some element of control an...

Democratic indexing: an approach to the retrieval of fiction

This paper builds on work begun in the field of image indexing [5,7] and examines how an analytical framework to describe the contents of images may be extended to deal with time based materials like film and music. The indexing approach is then considered in relation to fiction. Our project evolved from an analysis of problems related to image retrieval and of solutions currently available [4]. A levels of meanings table has been developed by the authors and is being used as an indexing template for image retrieval purposes. An image database offers an opportunity to test the image retrieval innovations in a pilot study. Central to the project is the development of the concept of democratic indexing [6]. Thc authors argue that this concept could be used in many types of information retrieval. Democratic or user based indexing is intended for use in a dynamic retrieval system which would allow users to contribute to the indexing and retrieval process. By focusing on user interpretation, democratic indexing differs from traditional IR models which assume that retrieval mechanisms are constructed by the librarian/indexer. User group might include newspaper journalists or researchers, but it is clear that the users would have to have something significant to gain from using the system. Users would need to feel that it is worthwhile to contribute as well as to receive. Our approach to image or pictorial information retrieval has incorporated a number of novel features: - the information which is to be recorded for each image includes descriptive cataloguing and subject indexing based on user perceptions of the image and objects within the image [4]; - the collection of user generated indexes will be used to compile a public index through a process which we have called reconciliation; and - the ability of individual users to record their private indexes offers a democratic approach to indexing.

Meaning, communication, music: towards a revised communication model

Purpose – If an information retrieval system is going to be of value to the user then it must give meaning to the information which matches the meaning given to it by the user. The meaning given to music varies according to who is interpreting it – the author/composer, the performer, cataloguer or the listener – and this affects how music is organized and retrieved. This paper aims to examine the meaning of music, how meaning is communicated and suggests this may affect music retrieval.Design/methodology/approach – Musicology is used to define music and examine its functions leading to a discussion of how music has been organised and described. Various ways of establishing the meaning of music are reviewed, focussing on established musical analysis techniques. It is suggested that traditional methods are of limited use with digitised popular music. A discussion of semiotics and a review of semiotic analysis in western art music leads to a discussion of semiotics of popular music and examines ideas of Midd...

Creative professional users' musical relevance criteria

Although known item searching for music can be dealt with by searching metadata using existing text search techniques, human subjectivity and variability within the music itself make it very difficult to search for unknown items. This paper examines these problems within the context of text retrieval and music information retrieval. The focus is on ascertaining a relationship between music relevance criteria and those relating to relevance judgements in text retrieval. A data-rich collection of relevance judgements by creative professionals searching for unknown musical items to accompany moving images using real world queries is analysed. The participants in our observations are found to take a socio-cognitive approach and use a range of content- and context-based criteria. These criteria correlate strongly with those arising from previous text retrieval studies despite the many differences between music and text in their actual content.

Facets of user‐assigned tags and their effectiveness in image retrieval

Purpose – This study aims to consider the value of user‐assigned image tags by comparing the facets that are represented in image tags with those that are present in image queries to see if there is a similarity in the way that users describe and search for images.Design/methodology/approach – A sample dataset was created by downloading a selection of images and associated tags from Flickr, the online photo‐sharing web site. The tags were categorised using image facets from Shatfords matrix, which has been widely used in previous research into image indexing and retrieval. The facets present in the image tags were then compared with the results of previous research into image queries.Findings – The results reveal that there are broad similarities between the facets present in image tags and queries, with people and objects being the most common facet, followed by location. However, the results also show that there are differences in the level of specificity between tags and queries, with image tags conta...

Inter‐indexer consistency in graphic materials indexing at the National Library of Wales

– This paper seeks to report a project to investigate the degree of inter‐indexer consistency in the assignment of controlled vocabulary topical subject index terms to identical graphical images by different indexers at the National Library of Wales (NLW)., – An experimental quantitative methodology was devised to investigate inter‐indexer consistency. Additionally, the project investigated the relationship, if any, between indexing exhaustivity and consistency, and the relationship, if any, between indexing consistency/exhaustivity and broad category of graphic format., – Inter‐indexer consistency in the assignment of topical subject index terms to graphic materials at the NLW was found to be generally low and highly variable. Inter‐indexer consistency fell within the range 10.8 per cent to 48.0 per cent. Indexing exhaustivity varied substantially from indexer to indexer, with a mean assignment of 3.8 terms by each indexer to each image, falling within the range 2.5 to 4.7 terms. The broad category of graphic format, whether photographic or non‐photographic, was found to have little influence on either inter‐indexer consistency or indexing exhaustivity. Indexing exhaustivity and inter‐indexer consistency exhibited a tendency toward a direct, positive relationship. The findings are necessarily limited as this is a small‐scale study within a single institution., – Previous consistency studies have almost exclusively investigated the indexing of print materials, with very little research published for non‐print media. With the literature also rich in discussion of the added complexities of subjectively representing the intellectual content of visual media, this study attempts to enrich existing knowledge on indexing consistency for graphic materials and to address a noticeable gap in information theory.

Open Source, Open Minds? : An Investigation into Attitudes towards Open Source Library Management Systems in UK Higher Education Libraries’

Purpose – This paper aims to report a small-scale study that investigated attitudes to open source library management systems (LMS)s in UK higher education libraries. The study sought to establish why the sector has been slow to adopt this technology, and how attitudes towards it in UK universities might change in the future. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative online questionnaire was sent to all 181 libraries within the UK higher education sector and received a response rate of 46.4 per cent. The questionnaire was followed by qualitative telephone interviews with five selected professionals. Findings – UK higher education libraries rely on peer feedback when choosing a LMS. With limited experience and a need for strong commercial support given uncertainty about staffing in the present financial climate, HE librarians are reluctant to choose open source LMSs. Participants also demonstrated a lack of motivation to change from current LMSs, suggesting limited adoption of alternatives in the near f...

Towards the disintermediation of creative music search: analysing queries to determine important facets

Creative professionals search for music to accompany moving images in films, advertising, television. Some larger music rights holders (record companies and music publishers) organise their catalogues to allow online searching. These digital libraries are organised by various subjective musical facets as well as by artist and title metadata. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of written queries relating to creative music search, contextualised and discussed within the findings of text analyses of a larger research project whose aim is to investigate meaning making in this search process. A facet analysis of a collection of written music queries is discussed in relation to the organisation of the music in a selection of bespoke search engines. Subjective facets, in particular Mood, are found to be highly important in query formation. Unusually, detailed Music Structural aspects are also key. These findings are discussed in relation to disintermediation of this process. It is suggested that there are barriers to this, both in terms of classification and also commercial/legal factors.

Organising music for movies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the classification of commercial popular music when large digital collections are organised for use in films.Design/methodology/approach – A range of systems are investigated and their organization is discussed, focusing on an analysis of the metadata used by the systems and choices given to the end‐user to construct a query. The indexing of the music is compared with a check‐list of music facets which has been derived from recent musicological literature on semiotic analysis of popular music. These facets include aspects of communication, cultural and musical expression, codes and competences.Findings – In addition to bibliographic detail, descriptive metadata are used to organise music in these systems. Genre, subject and mood are used widely; some musical facets also appear. The extent to which attempts are being made to reflect these facets in the organization of these systems is discussed. A number of recommendations are made which may hel...

Is there nothing outside the tags?: Towards a poststructuralist analysis of social tagging

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships between social tagging and key poststructuralist principles; to devise and construct an analytical framework through which key poststructuralist principles are converted into workable research questions and applied to analyse Librarything tags, and to assess the validity of performing such an analysis. The research hypothesis is that tagging represents an imperfect analogy for the poststructuralist project. Design/methodology/approach – Tags from LibraryThing and from a library OPAC were compared and constrasted with Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and publishers’ descriptions. Research questions derived from poststructuralism, asked whether tags destabilise meaning, whether and how far the death of the author is expressed in tags, and whether tags deconstruct LCSH. Findings – Tags can temporarily destabilise meaning by obfuscating the structure of a word. Meaning is destabilised, perhaps only momentarily, and then it is recreated...