The “Collage Effect” – Against Filter Bubbles: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Combating the Pitfalls of Information Technology

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2018.09.020Get rights and content

Abstract

The rapid development of information technology has partially been reversed, and may become a tool for manipulation, which is incompatible with librarians' social mission. Making information available, connecting databases, and making them accessible result in people becoming more and more exposed. Customisation and effectively filtered information sources create filter bubbles. Although new systems of collaboration would be suitable for sharing reliable knowledge, they often lead to the spread of fake news. Despite worrying trends, we seek an encouraging future. Therefore, in this paper we analyse the relationship between information technology, market economy, and the librarian profession from the perspective of Hungarian LIS education, and emphasise the importance of active and creative information provision based on interdisciplinarity. Based on our experiences we believe that current and future readers can be reached through intriguing collages of credible information. The use of collages can compensate for the effects of filter bubbles, and librarians may become the masters of creating digital information collages.

Introduction

For the new generations of librarians, we need to redefine and rethink again and again what appealing career perspective the librarian profession can offer with its unstable prestige and income prospects (Prins, Gier, & Bowden, 1995; Sable, 1983; Shontz, 2004; Woodward, 2011), and how we envisage the future of libraries and librarians in the information society (International Federation of Library Association and Institutions, 2018b; Kane, 2011). All this happens in our current, information- and knowledge-based society, about which an increasing amount of concern has been raised in recent years (Cooke, 2017).

Edward Snowden's leak (Greenwald, 2013) confirmed our worries regarding the safety of our private sphere; the flood of fake news and the monopolisation of platforms questioned the social benefits of the global information system (Staltz, 2017); and the Cambridge Analytica scandal (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018) shook our faith in even the biggest service providers. In the age of artificial intelligence and robotics, new predictions are being published constantly on fields that are susceptible to computerisation, including the librarian profession (Frey & Osborne, 2013). In which areas can our work be replaced by software-based services; and what will the profession be like in ten or five years, for which we are preparing our students at the university?

In recent years more emphasis has been placed on reports and plans on renewing the library as a physical social space (Audunson, 2005; Watson, 2017). The attempts at expanding the library space and its provided functions are successful (Gisolfi, 2015), and the makerspace movement is spreading rapidly (Fourie & Meyer, 2015). Library services are becoming more and more flexible; they leave the confines of the library walls: pop-up libraries are popular, just like public bookshelves installed in busy public spaces; library buses that can reach even the smallest villages; and reading material arriving on ships or even on donkey back (International Federation of Library Association and Institutions, 2010; Moore, Elkins, & Boelens, 2017; Winter, 2010). The proactivity and creativity of librarians is becoming crucial (Johnson, 2016).

However, a fundamental element of the library science's vision for the future and its identity is that this particular field of science is inseparable from technological development. We are the experts on storing knowledge, making it retrievable, and providing it. The development of the internet is controlled by technology companies and commercial interests, but the same was true at the heyday of book publishing and printed press. The opinion of librarians is always of high value when it comes to classifying and categorising documents and information. The solutions and organisational principles of library science still serve as models or starting points when it comes to the research of making knowledge available or mediating it (Sarrafzadeh, Martin, & Hazeri, 2006).

Similarly to the functional expansion of the physical social space, we need to respond to the different and highly diverse demands of the field of digital services as well. Even in the smallest library there are several sources available to numerous phenomena, events, and issues in which readers are interested. The skills of selection and making the necessary connections are basic competences of information service, and are among the most important skills of the librarian profession. However, many librarians are intimidated by the notion of presenting the collected information in an intriguing way as digital content. The reason behind this, aside from the lack of time, might be that they are reluctant to assume responsibility for creation. They would prefer this to be the task of professional users: they would rather leave it in the hands of scientists, specialist authors, and publicists doing research in the collections. Admittedly, library professionals are not required to comment on parts of the collection; scientific narration is not their responsibility. Therefore in this paper the term “collage” is used to describe the activity when a librarian selects intriguing and in some respect connected pieces from a collection or knowledge base, and arranges them together. This does not require anything else but the librarian's competence of information service. The outcome of this work (the “collage effect”), however, may reach more people than the search engines of existing digital content and databases or the homepages of collections. With the regular publishing of sample collages consciously prepared from its collections, a library, through its virtual presence, can achieve the same goals as it aims for, renewed as a physical social space.

The presence and spread of compilations (collages) prepared from the scientifically credible content of collections may prove as an important counterweight in the era of fake news and filter bubbles. The conscious, creative use of the collage effect may preserve not only the credibility of information among the content offered by social media, but also the significance of libraries, collections, and the librarian profession in the era of digital content.

Our paper does not attempt to define the modern librarian profession itself, but aims to provide new perspectives for creating the future librarian's identity, and for adapting to the expectations of a multicultural society (Gollop, 1999; Overall, 2009). The basis of our analysis is the perspective of European higher education (Audunson, 2007) provided by the Institute of Library and Information Science at Eötvös Loránd University, the leading and oldest higher educational institution in the field of library and information science in Hungary, founded in 1949. We offer those interested in library and information science bachelor's and master's degree programs, teacher training, and a doctoral program.

The perspective of librarian training is unique because there is no library or public collection which needs to be more flexible, open-minded and multidisciplinary than university institutions and faculties training future librarians, due to the effects of digitization (Audunson, 2018; Jablonski, 2006). Curricula need to be updated more often than ever before, and there is a considerable strain to adapt to society's and the employers' changing demands (Bronstein, 2007; Chow, Shaw, Gwynn, Martensen, & Howard, 2011; Hider, Kennan, Hay, McCausland, & Qayyum, 2011).

We need to provide an up-to-date picture of the different areas of our field, so students can have a full and current view by the end of their education. We do not have our own collection, we are not bound by existing systems or our readers' fixed set of needs, and therefore we can focus on the most recent issues and best practices. Each year new students – thus new colleagues – arrive with the newest set of technological skills and questions. They are critical, open-minded, and not yet bound by commitment to this profession or by loyalty to the collection at which they will be employed. Nowadays starting a university program does not equal commitment either: students may need to graduate several universities to find their career, or they can try different professions before finding their true calling.

Section snippets

An ambivalent relationship: the library and the filter bubble

The developments of recent years filled the pioneers and inventors of the web with disappointment. Tim Berners-Lee (2017) and others (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017) write studies, while the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) (2018a) uses infographics to warn us about the dangers of fake news and filter bubbles. This disappointment also has an effect on the library profession's vision for the future. The library is, so to speak, the opposite, the antithesis of

Perspectives of the librarian profession: evolution since the turn of the millennium

In January 2018, on the open day of our university, we showed two pictures to those interested in our programs: a photograph taken of a library's endless rows of shelves, and another of the robotized, endless storage hall of Amazon. We asked the students to think about the differences between the two places.

The items need protection; we need to know their characteristics and their proper place; they need to be quickly accessible and served effectively. Every single one will be needed by someone

The “collage effect”

For the time being we can only guess whether the Cambridge Analytica scandal (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018) will just be a one-time loss of trust, or it will be revealed in more areas how exposed we are to the commercial interests of database managers. Sensitive areas cover our whole lives: public administration, smart households, autonomous cars, and shopping habits.

We have no way of knowing whether in five years, when our current librarian freshmen will graduate, Facebook will still

The possibility of an interdisciplinary collage

As a direct effect of technological development (Scripps-Hoekstra, Carroll, & Fotis, 2014) library and information science (Lugya, 2014), and consequently, the interdisciplinary context of librarian training (Lørring, 2007; Luo, 2013) is more important than ever. Competence development in the field of library and information science can only be effective if we include innovative methods (Missingham, 2006).

A conscious intention of our Institution is to broaden the perspective of the librarian

Experts on collage creation: conclusion

If we think about what appealing library and information science perspectives were offered to young future professionals in the last two decades, we can see some very educational changes. We admit, we had high hopes for hypertext and bigger plans for web 2.0, and we were hoping for a revolutionary transformation by e-books or business information service. It is also visible that we aim for a partnership with digital humanities instead of rivalry.

In the age of information independent from its

Péter Kiszl is director of the Institute of LIS, head of the Department of Information Science, director of the LIS PhD Program, head of the LIS BA and MA programs, chair of the Board of Trustees of the University Library Foundation, and member of the Management Committee of Distant Reading for European Literary History of the EU-funded European Cooperation in Science and Technology program (COST Action CA16204). His research interests include information and knowledge management, business

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  • Péter Kiszl is director of the Institute of LIS, head of the Department of Information Science, director of the LIS PhD Program, head of the LIS BA and MA programs, chair of the Board of Trustees of the University Library Foundation, and member of the Management Committee of Distant Reading for European Literary History of the EU-funded European Cooperation in Science and Technology program (COST Action CA16204). His research interests include information and knowledge management, business information, entrepreneurship development of training in LIS and digital humanities.

    János Fodor has research that covers the content development skills of librarians, scientific publishing of text and image collections, the role of the social media in the reader-library relationship. As a litterateur he compiled posthumous books and a web collection of his father, Hungarian poet András Fodor (1929–1997). He was among the first web developers of cultural web contents in Hungary. Since 2000 his portal of web projects has been serving as an educational site for the students of the Institute.

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