Part of 'collections' is the _choosing_ what to include---whether it's
hosted locally or remotely. That is probably the important
part---whether it should be hosted locally or remotely is a question of
what service we want to provide, and whether that service CAN be hosted
remotely at the level we want, or whether it needs to be hosted locally.
And what the costs associated with both are. For both digital OR
physical items! Many of our libraries even host physical items off site.
Of course, hosting digital items off site is generally more feasible,
with less drop of service quality to the patron. But as Eric says,
hosting digital content locally may let you offer better quality
service. And there's also the issue of preservation---but libraries are
now exploring even preservations off-site and consortial, for both
physical and digital. (What's the company/consortium that acquires
perpetual archiving rights to digital materials so your library can
subscribe to it, instead of worrying about it themselves?).
In the present and future, our collections will be multi-levelled. We'll
have some things on site. We'll have some things off site. We'll have
some things provided by vendors, and some things provided by consortial
arrangements. We'll have some things that we "curate", and some things
that we help the users find out in the big wide Information Universe
that we didn't choose at all.
There's a really good article on "what is a collection" in the digital
age, that's like 10 years old already but still good--but now I can't
remember enough about the citation to find the article! (How's that for
a reference question). If I could remember it, I'd reccommend it.
Despite being 10 years old, it's about the exact same convesrsation we
are having now---to me indicating how SHORT a distance our profession
has gone in the past 10 years. We are not dealing with what we need to
be dealing with.
Jonathan
Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> Despite some of the following comments, I still believe we need to
> think harder about collections when it comes to this "'next
> generation' library thing":
>
> * Why "collect"? Don't you mean "provide access to" or
> "provide records that link to"? --Dan Lester
>
> * To me the question is not "what's in it?" but "what does it
> connect to?" and "what are it's services?" --Karen Coyle
>
> * And I got: I want to help people build their own personal
> branch of the One Big Library, and to help them build their own
> customized catalogue to that branch. --William Denton
>
> IMHO, collections without services are useless, and services without
> collections are empty. A library needs both collections AND services
> in order to practice librarianship.
>
> One part of librarianship is collection and preservation. Copying
> things locally is not necessary for providing services against an
> index (catalog), but creating local collections, whether they be
> analog or digital, does offer two additional opportunities: 1) it
> allows you to archive/preserve the materials, and 2) it provides a
> way to index and display content in ways better meeting the needs of
> your clientele. Put other ways, "Lot's of copies keep stuff safe",
> and "I don't need your stinkin' interface, just give me the data."
>
> A few years ago there was an Internet mantra, "Content is king."
> These days it seem to be more like, "Context is king", but I believe
> it is really a combination of the two. Content and context.
> Collections and services. Great libraries will provide both.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Mon Mar 19 2007 - 09:33:22 EDT