“Survey of MP3 Usage: Report on a University Consumption Community,” by Mark Latonero, 2000
Solomon's Mine in TimeOn reading "Children's information retrieval behavior: A case analysis of an OPAC," Paul Solomon’s 1993 study published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(5): 245-264, I learned how important context, especially the date a study was written, is to critical analysis when reading articles in our rapidly changing information environment. Overall I enjoyed his kind and informative tone. He showed real empathy with his study subjects and introduced new ideas to me, which I enjoyed the best.
Solomon opened his introduction with a literature review. By using the term “excitement” in the second sentence I felt Solomon might be a writer who possesses enthusiasm, and finding his mention of Case, knew that this writer was someone to read thoroughly. Solomon also assumed that studying new algorithms for search would not add as much to the field as the study of human subjects would. I was encouraged by this viewpoint.
Solomon’s article was written in a clear, factual manner. I especially enjoyed his self aware sense of humor and sense of playfulness as expressed in his problem statement:
“Searchers, in turn, have their own way of thinking about their topics and interests. Although tools such as the four-volume tome, Library of Congress Subject Headings, are sometimes made available, users for the most part either avoid them, are unaware of their availability, or do not know how to use them. (Solomon 1993)”
By using the term “tome” he gives some idea of what remains unstated – that information searchers are probably not going to read a huge set of books on subject headings to become expert in the science of information seeking and retrieval. This is especially true since we later hear about young children looking up “dinosaur” and having trouble with their spelling.
In the problem statement, Solomon addressed the ubiquitous answers computers give to not finding searches (“TERM NOT FOUND” or “QUERY ERROR”) and suggested that information retrieval systems provide instruction and support instead of dead ends. His main theme, supported by the evidence he collected, was the importance of practical solutions to such problems, so that even a child can use search systems effectively.
The feeling of respect he imparted regarding the children he interviewed and observed was very enjoyable. As a result, I felt he did not go into the field knowing it all, or with something to prove, but that he actually did his work with a marvelous sense of discovery.
Solomon’s observations and call for future research – “Continued testing with different groups of children has helped to refine the interface into one that lessens the skill barriers that searchers face. These barriers, such as search term generation (recalls) are often problems for adults. Thus, workable interface solutions for children may influence designs for other users as well.” (Solomon 1993) and when discussing Grade-level impacts –
“…the syntactic idiosyncrasies of the OPAC software influenced all users from time to time.” (Solomon 1993)
-- struck me as hilarious, because rewording with his prior observations it adds up to:
“Everybody, regardless of age, likes more well designed tools for search, not brain dead ones.[1]”
This is humorous because I am reading this study as someone who has had search engines like Google available for many years -- Solomon didn’t have advanced search and neither did the children he studied. To find information, even with a computer-based OPAC system, they had to know how to spell and how to remember a search. They also had to understand related and broader search concepts. I have the luxury of terribly garbling[2] my spelling in a search and then most online search engines will attempt a correction. In addition, I can completely forget a search, because I can store the results as a favorite. There are many ways to stumble onto the same information I once found, to recall it, through tags, and other tools commonly available to those on this side of the digital divide.
In fact, the reason I noticed the date of the study is because the OPAC search tool Solomon was using at the time sounded like some kind of torture tool to me; using graphics effectively he included the user interface as a screenshot, details with other screenshots, with the description of how searches returned results. Those graphics and description led me to check the date.
Prior to that I wondered who would put their kids into such a backwards school, were they neo-luddites[3], or did they have other reasons such as the context of the study itself? The date told me everything. Then my mind turned completely and I felt these students may have done better in their lives as a result of Solomon paying attention to them. As a result of the training that occurred naturally, they learned how to find information faster than other students[4].
In a way his problem statement can be reduced to: ”Information retrieval systems need to be designed for real people, even kids.” He reasons that children are a perfect example of people who use an information retrieval system with no expectations, and learn it. Researchers can learn about what information retrieval solutions needs are to improve these systems. Solomon’s research question was “How do children use Information Retrieval Systems?” using the OPAC system. The methodology was very appropriate for his research problem; I was especially fascinated by searching for information rituals that he discovered in children in his study[5].
Clearly in light of new search engine technology we see that his conclusions and recommendations were true and correct. Possibly his own studies brought forth fruit. Those very things he recognized and wrote about have changed in modern retrieval methods on the World Wide Web.
In hindsight we see that having too much information return in a retrieval can be nearly as bad as nothing being returned, but he brushed by delving much into that, possibly due to the nature of difficulty of returning large amounts of data successfully.
I could not interpret some of Solomon’s statements. On page 247 of the publication of his work in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science, he speaks about “children of average intelligence investigated more themes,” and I wondered in contrast to what kind of intelligence in performance? Offering only the middle point is difficult to understand if you mean higher or lower intellects investigate more themes. Some highly intelligent people focus more on one thing so may not have a broader range of understanding.
On page 254 the truncation reference to “e.g. (hurr@)” raised questions. Perhaps the @ sign was being used as some kind of wildcard. In such a way would someone from the future be unable to interpret code, software, hardware or related terms embedded in a current Hacker Koan[6]? If you use symbols, it’s important to reference their meaning in some way so it’s not lost in time.
My plans are to return to Solomon’s study and mine it for more information in the future.
Latonero’s MP3 Study
Upon the recommendation of my cohort Jagadish Yadavadri I read Mark Latonero’s survey results on University of Southern California students’ consumption of MP3 sound files and self reported purchasing patterns. The fact that as a master’s degree student he obtained funding of $2,000 dollars to perform the study[7] while others just cried foul, reminded me of the old adage, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does any thing about it.” Latonero took up the actual inquiry into the subject of MP3 use, its effects on purchasing patterns, and published one of the first empirical studies on the subject.[8] He deserves credit for his thoughtful approach, although his study reports results, and does not serve as well to inform.
One of the notable differences in the style of these two kinds of reports, Solomon’s case analysis and Latonero’s survey, was the amount and kind of information provided. The survey stands alone lacking outside reference materials; it contained no references and no recommendations for further studies, related or otherwise. The study particulars are visually very well documented with graphs and short explanatory interpretations. The reasons driving the study refer to “speculation” and “most media reports” without quoting one professional publication or news article. However, readers can imagine the worried music production company executives pacing back and forth wringing their hands and wondering about depressed marketshare, Dr. Latonero’s survey focuses on what 275 randomly selected respondents actually reported at the time.
His main conclusion was clearly expressed on the first page and second paragraph of his study, where he stated that –
“MP3 File sharing is wildly popular, but contrary to most media reporting, the majority of students surveyed are still willing to pay for recorded music. The study found little persuasive evidence to indicate that student’ aggregate use of MP3 technologies has been harmful to either the recording industry or artists.”
Since this study is self reported and does not focus on the actual marketplace I wondered how Latonero could backup this statement. Stating facts and backing them up with more evidence lends more weight to evaluation and analysis. Clearly there is something going on in the music industry related to file sharing and the Internet.
For example as reported in our class the popular music store Tower Records filed for Chapter 11, on Feb. 9, 2004[9]. At the time this was widely reported in the media, and articles written at the time said Tower “suffered from rapid changes in the music business, especially the exploding popularity of downloading music for free from the Internet.[10]” Not presented in our class was that Tower Records pulled out of Chapter 11 protection only 35 days after filing[11]. This calls into question not only the causes but also what exactly the problem was. The reason provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission quoted in the same article was that Tower, after borrowing money for expansion, failed to make a profit -- “revealed the retailer had lost money for 13 straight quarters.”
Similarly contradictory reports from record companies and artists call into question just where and how people purchase music, such as in which formats[12]. This also creates questions regarding changes in the music industry which appear that their actions are now and will be enforced in the future by the new technology more than the law enables enforcement of anything.
There are such a wide number of variables, and possible solutions to what some view as a problem. Others in the music community view these same issues as an opportunity. No longer do individual artists require huge marketing machines to promote their music, which prior to this meant locking themselves into a unique form of debt termed “an advance”. These same artists can promote themselves to their audiences directly using new Internet based marketing techniques and many business and technical models.
Internet wags offer that “major record labels have been criticized for failing to take advantage of the potent marketing opportunity presented by the Internet and the MP3 download rage[13]” are in my estimation correct. That industry is resisting inevitable change through a newly enacted law, THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1998[14] in the Web’s Wild West environment. Regarding the law, educated and informed individuals’ express confusion of what the laws even are and how such laws are related to digital media, as repeatedly shown in studies including our own “IMT510 – Final Report – Group 5” detailed on pages 5-7.
Though I appreciate Dr. Latonero’s survey it is far too simplistic to say downloading music doesn’t appear to be affecting the industry based on just one survey. Even taking into account the date it was written the opinions seem naïve.
[1] My original margin note read “Stupid software hurts everyone.”
[2] While I draft this paper in Microsoft Word, Word fixed the word “garblling” to “garbling” but I could not make it stop correcting it for this note, nor stop auto correcting a capitalized word unless I turned off the function for the entire page.
[3] Reference term Friday November 5, 2006 located description at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-luddism
[4] “Change in Competence of Children”, Solomon, P. (1993). "Children's information retrieval behavior: A case analysis of an OPAC." Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(5): 245-264.
[5] Rituals may be something not well understood in information retrieval.
[6] Reference example Friday November 5, 2006 located at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
[7] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/dt/V142/N44/01-napster.44d.html
[8] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.stanhopecentre.org/about/
[9] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/09/entertainment/main599008.shtml
[10] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/09/entertainment/main599008.shtml
[11] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FNP/is_7_43/ai_115080290
[12]Case, D.O. (2002) p. 263. Looking for Information. New York: Academic Press. “Journal of Marketing …”How do Customers and Consumers Really Behave?,” Donald Lehmann (1999)… the focus must shift, Lehmann says, away from viewing the consumer as a conscious, rational “decision maker” and toward the customer as an emotional, unfocused, learning human. Allegedly “irrational” behavior should not be merely identified as an aberration but should be modeled and explained as much as possible.”
[13] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.goingware.com/tips/legal-downloads.html
[14] Reference downloaded Tuesday December 5, 2006 located at: http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
Dr. Paul Solomon's Website at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Review of two papers for the IMT510b, Masters of Science in Information Management, at the iSchool, University of Washington, Seattle. Wednesday, December 6, 2006.
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