Folks:
I'd like to make a strong suggestion that you listen to an important
podcast interview by Scott Mace of Open Source Conversations with
Karen Coyle. The interview is linked from Karen's blog,
(http://kcoyle.blogspot.com/2007/03/podcast-on-libraries-and-standards.html).
Like all of us who do most of our communication in writing, she found
things to criticize in what she said during the interview, and the
itch to edit her own words took hold. But don't pay attention to
Karen's second thoughts--the interview is excellent. It ranges across
an astounding number of topics: cataloging history and standards,
ebooks, DRM, etc., and frankly I don't know anyone else who can
comment intelligently on all those topics.
Karen reminds us in the interview that libraries and librarians have
been deeply involved in creating and using standards for more than a
century. The world is certainly a lot more confusing than it was in
Dewey's day, and the standards development going on around us not
always easy to track and understand.
Clearly, the world beyond libraries is starting to get a glimmer of
what we have to offer for the future. Let's not forget that
realizing the goal of participating in that future requires that we
engage in activities and conversations outside our usual
"libraryland" boundaries.
Diane
Received on Sun Apr 01 2007 - 10:04:28 EDT