On Mar 15, 2007, at 7:50 PM, Rocki Strader wrote:
> Speaking from an academic library point of view: The catalog would
> contain "something in between," i.e., content that the library
> owns, absolutely; but also Internet resources that have been vetted
> by subject specialists for their suitability at supporting a given
> institution's curricula, other programs, and overall mission.
Whew! I thought I was going to be the only one to reply to my own
question. ;-)
I agree. I think a library's "'next generation' thing" should contain
metadata and/or data pertinent to the information/knowledge needs of
its hosting institution. In an academic setting this metadata and/or
data would support learning, teaching, and research missions. In a
public library it might support things like life-long learning and
the processes for an informed public. In a corporate setting it might
support efficiency and ultimately the financial bottom line.
If we assume the above is somewhat true, then we might ask ourselves
more specifically about this metadata and/or data. Obviously it will
include the metadata describing physical/non-digital items.
Traditional books. Microforms. Sheet music. Etc. Less obviously it
might include items "born digital" and/or digitized versions of
items, not just metadata surrogates. For example, the full text of
the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Images of the Washington
Monument. Genome #7653. And just as importantly, if not very
importantly the full text of journal articles.
Just think of the possibilities. Suppose you wanted to create a
library to support a well-rounded liberal arts education. Some
advocate all you need to do is read, discuss, and write about the
Great Books. A superset of the Great Books is represented by the
content of Project Gutenberg. Step #1 in creating your library might
be to collect all of Project Gutenberg. Next, the journal literature,
compared to books, represents a bit more about the here and now.
Current and new ideas. Open access journals and open access
repositories for full of such content. Step #2 might be to
systematically collect content, not just its metadata, from these
sources as apropos. A traditional library research process includes
defining your topic and doing introductory reading in an
encyclopedia. Step #3 might be acquire a copy of Wikipedia. (There is
probably an electronic dictionary or two one can collect as well.)
Step #4 is to dump all the content into a pile, index it, and provide
access to the index.
All of our discussions to date has focused almost exclusively on Step
#4 without much thought regarding the content of this "thing". In the
current environment it does not make sense for the "thing" to only
describe items owned or licensed by a library. At the same time it is
unrealistic to introduce the content of the entire world into this
"thing". Such a process would not save the time of the reader nor put
the content into the reader's context.
To what degree is the content of this "thing" just metadata, and to
what degree does it contain (not just point to) digital versions of
content like the full text of books, journals, encyclopedias,
dictionaries, specifications, standards, manuals, music, images,
sounds, movies, PowerPoint presentations... Just think of the
possibilities.
--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame
(574) 631-8604
Received on Fri Mar 16 2007 - 07:10:01 EDT