The quote is from Maurice B. Line, Librarianship as it is practised: a
failure of intellect, imagination and initiative, (1983), reprinted in 33
Interlending & Document Supply109,109-112 (2005) available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/1220330209.html
More good Lines:
We do not want our catalogues to stand as the largest monuments in an
extensive cemetery of dead books.
On the construction and care of white elephants: some fundamental questions
concerning the catalogue (with M. W. Grose) (1986)
Some schemes ... have appeared, but the impact on library classification has
been very small. Bliss is used by few libraries other than those in
Institutes of Education (which happened to be founded about the time Bliss
was published), and Colon is surely hardly used at all. It is possible
that, in addition to the very important research carried out by the
Classification Research Group and others, a rather different set of
questions require fuller examination. In seeking theoretical perfection, it
is easy to forget one essential ingredient for a perfect theory - that it
must work in practice. At present, some classification research has about as
much relevant to modern library function as Christian theology -- in the
academic sense -- has to practical Christianity.
How golden is your retriever: thoughts on library classification (1969)
It is often not uncommon to see backlogs of anything from 6 months to 2
years in libraries, particularly academic libraries. Never mind whether the
readers are waiting for the books, or if the funds will ever be available
for cataloging them properly; standards must not be reduced.
One characteristic of the perfectionist is that in order to live with his
own perfectionism, and knowing that he cannot attain it himself, he must
find others who are also imperfect, preferably more imperfect than himself.
Few things therefore so rejoice the librarian as when in stocktaking he
comes across someone else's mistake, be it large or small.
This persists in the 'more voluminous than thou' complex -- the use, as a
standard measure of comparison between libraries, of the number of volumes a
library holds, as if bulk is somehow a measure of quality. With libraries,
as with women, sheer bulk should be totally irrelevant as a measure of
quality.
The search for the ideal (as Agnew Broome) (1974)
Ignoring the words of committees is a lot more difficult than ignoring the
needs of users.
As Ranganathan said, "Save the time of the user" (a precept, incidentally,
that I wish he had followed when writing his books).
Can we have fewer papers on "How I run my library good" and more on "what
my users feel about my service"?
Ignoring the user: how, when, and why (1980)
All collected in Maurice B. Line, Lines of Thought : the Selected papers of
Maurice B. Line (L. J. Anthony ed., 1988)
On 3/7/07, Binkley, Peter <Peter.Binkley_at_ualberta.ca> wrote:
>
> Google reveals this:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22rather+as+if+hens+were+to+gather+toget
> her+to+discuss+the+design+of+eggs%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozi
> lla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
>
Received on Wed Mar 07 2007 - 18:11:56 EST