Spiderable OPACs and the elephant in the library lobby

**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**

But speaking of Elephants, not in the lobby but in the administrative
office ... While everyone is chatting about the global village and being
relevant there, we are ignoring the timeworn adage "Follow the money!"
Libraries are funded locally or at least institutionally, either by
universities, municipalities, states, etc.  The place of the state
library of Florida in the global village   apparently wasn't that
meaningful to the governor or the state legislature when they decided to
dismantle it, ditto the EPA libraries to the US government.  I doubt if
more Spiderability would have changed their minds.

Most of our governing boards aren't that interested in serving everybody
in the global village, because that's not their mandate from the
ratepayers in their district or tuition payers on campus.  (Who, after
all, deserve some say in the matter.)

Thanks to Casey for coining the phrase "one catalog to rule them all".
I love it!  I also love Google and OCLC, but we should also consider
"Follow the money!"  here, too.  We don't really want to tie ourselves
to closely to Google or anybody else, because, let's face it, if
advertising dollars dry up, Google is going down as fast as Imus!

Just my two cents worth.

JJ

**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**

Jane Jacobs
Asst. Coord., Catalog Division
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432
tel.: (718) 990-0804
e-mail: Jane.W.Jacobs_at_queenslibrary.org
FAX. (718) 990-8566

________________________________

From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Casey Durfee
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 1:46 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: Spiderable OPACs and the elephant in the library lobby



I definitely agree.  There are a lot of reasons to be wary of a "one
catalog to rule them all" solution being sold by a single vendor no
matter how appealing the idea might be.



There are a huge number of places where the library world needs a
digital commons that "the Big O" (or any other vendor [1]) is unlikely
to be able to provide:



1) a way of creating links to media that can link to library catalogs,
bookstores, book swap sites, LibraryThing, etc. in a location and
user-aware way anybody could understand and use

2) Open-source/wikified MARC records

3) Creative Commons-licensed reviews of materials, cover images, sample
text, etc.

4) Union holdings information
5) (Anonymized) patron usage data, ratings, tags, etc.



OSLC, anyone?



[1] Cue the Talis guys...




>>> "K.G. Schneider" <kgs_at_bluehighways.com> 4/24/2007 9:47 AM >>>

I wonder how many of us are conceptually on board with the concept of a
national catalog, and yet hesitate to endorse this concept (or even
argue
for a functional model we realize is not working for us now, if it ever
did)
because the only functional model remotely available to us (and not that
remote any more, either) would place us under the control of the Big O.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com



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