2023-07-10 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 14, Issue 6

Featured Story

Some Thoughts on Ideas, Folksonomies, and Obsidian

While sitting in a whiskey bar in Spokane, Lee and I discussed the libations at our fingertips. Lee is my friend. He drank a Nikka Coffey Grain whiskey from Japan, and I, an American bourbon from the heart of Kentucky. The whiskey was good.

This tête-à-tête led to a discussion of how ideas can be shown to connect with other ideas (the operative word here being shown). One way this can be accomplished is through tagging. A feature of Web 2.0 folksonomies, tags are a rich (and now prevalent) way to classify and connect ideas with other ideas.

But why connect ideas with other ideas? What are some strengths of tagging?

One strength is browsability. Creating tags generates browsability, giving us an idea of what users are looking at and what they find interesting. Tagging also puts power into the hands of users, making them both participants and experts in the process. And because there is user involvement, tagging facilitates representative vocabulary. Similar to descriptive linguistics, this open approach forges new controlled vocabularies that are easier to search, reflecting the language of its users.

Participation is also a key feature of tagging, since the more users there are, the more data can be tagged. When there are more tags, there is more data to draw from. Therefore tagging distributes responsibility and increases usability.

But is something missing? Do folksonomies come up short in the quest for classifying and connecting ideas? I would suggest they do.

One thing that strikes me about tagging is that hierarchy is completely nonexistent. As an approach, this seems to suggest that ideas are like islands unto themselves, independent and disconnected. However, when organizing information, it is how one piece of information connects to another that gives both value.

Another thought to consider: while tagging succeeds at classifying and connecting ideas together, those connections are less ideas than they are information. Nuanced as it may be, ideas seem to me the first fruits of the mind’s attempt to organize and manage knowledge. Complexity comes with relation, when one idea is likened to another. If, however, tags lack complexity due to their disconnect from other data, then it follows that they are definably information rather than ideas.

And now for something completely different. This is Obsidian. Obsidian is part markdown editor, part knowledge base app. Boasting of a beautiful and minimalistic interface, Obsidian’s real show of strength is in the way it showcases ideas and their connection to other ideas. It’s an amazing thing to behold. Here’s a time-lapse video of the graph view over a few months, of notes and ideas as they are added by this user.

However it is the backlinks feature that brings it home for me. A backlink is a link that connects another note to the one in front of you. This allows you to find every note that references the note you’re writing. Why is this important? Just imagine what you could do if your notes on a specific subject were backlinked to all other mentions of that subject.  For writers, the research process would be made faster (as would the writing process itself). And for the lifelong learner, backlinks could provide a powerful way to connect ideas and to continue learning more and more.

a diagram showing a back and forth relationship between the three laws of motion and Isaac Newton

An example of how backlinking works in Obsidian.

I’ve been using Obsidian for a few months now and it is quickly becoming my preferred note taking app. Previously I was using Notion to handle all aspects of learning and knowledge building. That said, it is still my preferred productivity tool. It’s stellar for project management and task management, not to mention a miscellany of other experiments. But for note taking, it’s too wide open. Its boundlessness is exhausting. After hours of middling success, I find myself exasperated, reaching for a pen and a piece of paper (or opening a simple text file)!

If Idaho library professionals could leverage the potential of an app like Obsidian, I wonder what sort of advantage we could bring to our patrons. In my mind, the benefit of an app like this is that it might help us appreciate and think more deeply about what we know. Maybe we don’t need the app at all. Until we do.

By Chris Thielen

Fail Forward

We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.

The trouble with pre-made slides…

I recently helped out with an Outreach event teaching basic technology at a senior living community. Our class was about Apple and Android basics with prepared materials from digitallearn.org.

We had slides and printed handouts for each OS, and edited the slide deck to accommodate the information we wanted to share. We soon found out that the slides and the handouts had different and contradictory images. The photo that needed to be the Android device was actually the Apple device and vice versa. A silver lining though, was that all attendees had Apple devices which were easier to teach than two different operating systems.

By Mariah Farmer

 

Crush Corner

Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Grossology!

I have some colleagues that planned a really incredible Grossology program. They made unicorn snot (aka slime), learned about what happens to waste water (which is surprisingly very interesting), and learned all about the digestive system from chewing to poop. They had almost 50 people show up, one family from several hours away! The creativity and effort that went into this program to make it fun and educational was amazing. The kids, parents, and the staff had such a great time. Kudos to you Cami and Cat!!

By Maggie Dumont

SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at https://libraries.idaho.gov/splat/

SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.