Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was giving $3 million in “funding, software, technological expertise, training and support services” to the Library of Congress to build on-site and online exhibits of LC historical collections. Others have commented on this. From a Jester’s point of view, I’ve got problems with this on two fronts: Microsoft using LC in a cheap marketing ploy and LC’s use of a new technology that impedes access for no good technical reason.

Library of Congress as shill for Microsoft

This excerpt from the undated page “Microsoft signs cooperative agreement with U.S. Library of Congress” is the beginnning of my uneasiness. Emphasis and links added:

Scale: The Library of Congress receives upwards of 2 million visitors per year. Also, LOC.GOV is one of the top sites for search engines for international and U.S. historical searches and receives millions of hits and unique users per month. Children and teachers across the country will learn by using this site, the materials created here will be approved curriculum in all 50 states.

Scope of influence: This initiative will influence library technology worldwide. Libraries large and small from around the country and the world look to the Library of Congress for technical guidance and are certain to take note of what tools are being used in the NVE ["New Visitor Experience"] and on MyLoC.gov [not yet operational]. Because of its scale and breadth, it will have influence not only in the U.S., but also for scalable web sites in general. The Library of Congress will engage top educators to create educational content which will meet strict guidelines mandated by state departments of education for inclusion in public schools.

Partners: Schematic: User Experience. Portal Solutions: infrastructure implementation. [What the heck does this mean?]

The Technology: For the on-site visitor, Kiosks will be built using Windows Vista and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) using touch-screen technology for an immersive experience. Visitors will be given a “passport” (optionally mapped to a Windows Live ID), which can be used to digitally keep track of what exhibits each visitor has seen.

The publicly available web site will offer the ability to visit the library in a virtual environment which will complement the physical visitor’s experience. Because the Library of Congress is so vast, tourists will be able to “complete” their visit on line using the web site, which will have kept track of their visit when they were present at the library using the “passport” technology.

Clearly Microsoft is using this $3 million “gift” (again, we’re not sure how much of it is real cash and how much is in-kind software licenses and suck) to push the adoption of Silverlight. I’ve got a problem with a public institution like the Library of Congress being used to push a commercial advantage. If Microsoft paid YouTube $3M to make videos available in Silverlight rather than Flash, it would be a different story. That Microsoft convinced HardRock (not a cultural heritage institution) to put up content in Silverlight doesn’t bother me. If Silverlight had been adopted by the Library of Congress based on its own merits, it would be another story entirely. (Based on the information released to date, it doesn’t appear that this was the case.) That leads into the next issue I have with the LC/Microsoft deal.

Silverlight-exclusive Content Impedes Access

Silverlight does not have a wide scope of adoption; it is not installed already on the vast majority of machines on the net. Many access the internet in places that don’t allow for plug-ins to be installed. (We hear about this at OhioLINK with regards to the educational videos available through RealMedia at OhioLINK — and RealMedia has been out for a decade! We’re actively investigating a shift to Flash-based players, by the way.) Content that is available exclusively in Silverlight is effectively not available to those that cannot — for technical or know-how reasons — install the plug-in.

A justification could be offered if Silverlight represented a big-enough shift in capability to justify the added effort to install the plug-in. I don’t see any evidence that it is. For instance, I’m not convinced that Deep Zoom in the upcoming version of Silverlight is really all that interesting. It would appear to use JPEG tiles to get information from the server to the applet in the browser — the same fundamental technique used by the Zoomify Flash applet and AJAX techniques like Google Maps. The Silverlight framework seems to give a clean, one-step way to implement the creation of the tiles on the server, but that can be replicated in other ways. (See for instance, my own efforts to create a shim between JPEG2000 and Zoomify.) Besides, from a content accessibility perspective, why would we make the programmer’s life easier if it makes the viewer’s life harder.

Final Thoughts

Join George Siemens — a leading theorist on the implications of technology and societal trends on learning and knowledge — to examine how changing learner expectations impact educators, institutions and the process of learning. Siemens will present the opening keynote address, Connectivism: Content, Connections, Conversation, on Monday, March 5, 9:45-10:45 a.m. at the Ohio Digital Commons for Education (ODCE) Conference in Columbus, Ohio. Siemens will also do a wrap-up session on March 6 to close the conference. Register by February 8 and receive a $50 discount off the regular conference rates.

George Siemens is a prominent writer and researcher on learning, networks, technology and organizational effectiveness in digital environments. He is the author of Knowing Knowledge, an exploration of how the context and characteristics of knowledge have changed and what it means to organizations today. Siemens is also Associate Director, Research and Development, with the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba and founder and President of Complexive Systems Inc., a learning lab focused on helping organizations develop integrated learning structures to meet the needs of global strategy execution. Siemens maintains
www.elearnspace.org, www.connectivism.ca and www.knowingknowledge.com. Additional background information is available at
www.elearnspace.org/about.htm.

“ODCE 2007 – The Convergence of Learning, Libraries and Technology” will be held March 4-6, 2007, in Columbus, Ohio. The conference will feature submitted and invited presentations, technology demonstrations, pre-conference workshops and vendor exhibits. The preliminary program is online now at http://www.oln.org/conferences/ODCE2007/ODCE2007PrelimProgram.pdf.

ODCE 2007 is jointly sponsored by the Ohio Learning Network, OhioLINK, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.oln.org/conferences/ODCE2007/ODCE2007PrelimProgram.pdf on December 31st, 2010.

The text was modified to remove a link to https://home2.oln.org/ODCE2007/ODCE2007registration.php on December 31st, 2010.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.knowingknowledge.com on January 19th, 2011.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.knowingknowledge.com on January 19th, 2011.