Ha! I found the citation I was thinking of. (Apparently I have some
reference skills after all).
Lee, H-L (2000) What is a collection?. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science; 51 (12) Oct 2000, p.1106-13
"Examines 4 presumptions associated with library collections:
tangibility, ownership, */a/* user community and an integrated retrieval
mechanism. Some of these presumptions have served only to perpetuate
misconceptions of */collection/*. Others seem to have become more
relevant in the current information environment. The emergence of
non-traditional media, such as the World Wide Web, poses 2 specific
challenges: to question the necessity of finite collections and contest
the boundaries of */a collection/*. */A/* critical analysis of these
issues results in */a/* proposal for an expanded concept of
*/collection/* that considers the perspectives of both the user and the
*/collection/* developer, invites rigorous user-centred research and
looks at the */collection/* as an information-seeking context. (Original
abstract - amended)"
I highly reccommend this article. Here, I'll try to give you a COinS even:
|<span class="Z3988"
title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004|&issn=0002-8231&volume=51&issue=12&spage=1106&epage=13&date=2000%2D10&genre=article&aulast=Lee&auinit=H%2DL&title=Journal%20of%20the%20American%20Society%20for%20Information%20Science&atitle=What%20is%20a%20collection%3F|"></span>
(Yeah, yeah, that's a terrible not-to-spec COinS. Not sure the best way
to easily generate one that is in this situation?)
Another choice quote (what have we done to address this in the past 7
years?)
"Unfortunately, the gaps in a library's OPAC cause a major hurdle for
users. They frustrate users by making part of the collection
inaccessible from the main entry point into the collection: the OPAC. It
also burdens users by forcing them to switch among a number of different
information retrieval systems (IRSs) to find all materials in a
library's collection. Although it is desirable from the user's
perspective to access all information items through an integrated IRS,
this is not the case at present in many American libraries. In system
design, information professionals - librarians in particular - need to
take this consideration seriously. In other words, an integrated
retrieval system should be an indispensable element of a well-developed
collection."
[...]
"A tricky question is whether remote information resources are part of
the library collection, for they are not physically collocated
there - they may be distributed on separate servers and accessible only
through an electronic network. In librarianship, there have been a few
examples that provide precedents of a collection without being
physically collocated. One of them is the concept of a national
collection.[Note 4
<http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/72514560/main.html,ftx_abs#NOTE4>]
Since 1988, Australian librarians have vigorously promoted the formation
of a /Distributed National Collection/ (Waters, [1992
<http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/72514560/main.html,ftx_abs#BIB41>]).
It seems unhelpful to debate whether or not a group of objects, tangible
and/or virtual, physically collocated or distributed, qualify to be a
collection on a purely ideological level. Collections are developed for
the purpose of serving users' information needs. The conceptual
understanding of a collection must fulfill this practical purpose. Thus,
how users perceive a collection during information seeking, how
developers do so during collection development, and how a concept of
collection can facilitate information seeking are more pertinent
considerations."
Jonathan
|
Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> 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 - 09:47:55 EDT