Re: People v. Collections

From: Josh Kuperman <josh.kuperman_at_nyob>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:24:56 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
On 6/27/06, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
> > Carolyn MCDONALD said in part:
>
> >...
> >   What if our "catalogue" is nothing more than a venue to enable
> > people to meet over a book (or other piece of information)? Or rather,

The social functions on internet social networking sites, (digg,
delicious, etc) are about automatically sharing ideas. The idea of a
catalog needs to change: from a list of items existing in a place - in
a library, to a means of searching a user defined content delivery
network ubiquitously available on computers, cellphones, eBooks, Sony
PSP's etc. The concept of "book" is already confusing, and "meet" will
be too.

>
> What does it mean for NG catalogs?
> 1. New functions to support the social dimension
> 2. New data elements not hitherto recorded.
> 3. Question: What old functions and data elements can be dropped?
>

I tried post this before but I'm pretty sure it didn't go through (and
the post was too long ). But here is how I see what I'm looking for -
not sure if it is still a catalog, at least in any library sense.  It
comes down to two points, universal networked sharing  and content
delivery.

1. I want content, not items. I don't want a pointing device telling
me where on the shelf to find a book. I want to search, find, and have
it delivered.  Note no physical library is needed for this.

2. I want to search my stuff, my friends stuff, libraries, local
bookstores, and complete strangers who might be willing to share. Do I
want a catalog, a search engine, the pirate bay? You tell me!

I am sure we are months perhaps years from being able to set up
something like this, but I can think of lots of ways how to do it.
There might be some issues.

--
Josh Kuperman
josh.kuperman_at_gmail.com
Received on Tue Jun 27 2006 - 11:30:42 EDT