Karen wrote:
"The hard part is letting go... which is also about turf, egos, and
force of habit."
But what worries me about that is that "letting go" is, at bottom,
mainly about money, not about serving people. I realize money is a
legitimate concern, but I think we should at least face the fact that
this is what we're talking about when we speak of "letting go." I
realize you may already have done that at some point, Karen, but I just
felt I needed to emphasize it.
I've seen cases where catalogers accepted any record that was "close" to
the item they had. Just so there'd be a record in their system with that
title and author and maybe an approximation of the date and a subject or
two. That would be the cheapest kind of copy cataloging I can imagine.
Would we want to go that far?
Catalogers' egos may play some role in resisting "letting go." But
sometimes they have those egos because they know they've done a good job
helping people find information. I think that's a pretty justifiable
pride.
--Ted Gemberling
PS Karen, sorry for the duplication. I just realized I only sent this to
you before.
Received on Thu May 17 2007 - 16:29:13 EDT