Re: "Third Order"--was Libraries & the Web

Karen wrote:
"Nonetheless, we can't seriously expect a report written for a
union to be balanced in its response."

But Karen, there you're doing the same thing you criticize people for
doing to Calhoun's report, questioning its motives rather than
responding to its content. When I read Calhoun and Mann, I analyzed what
they said, and in a few cases told Mann I thought he was off on details.
I told him I thought Calhoun did at least seem to have a grasp of the
economic issues we face, though I didn't like her solution.

Yes, the union could have a motive for pushing a critique of Calhoun.
But you still have to deal with the content of it. Content can be valid
even when motives are questionable.

I guess we're both doing the same thing: you are accusing Mann of
writing to promote LC workers' job security, and I am accusing Calhoun
of writing to give Marcum and others what they want, an excuse to cut
funding for cataloging.

Let's say I argued that Virginia should cut funding for mental health
services, in spite of the Virginia Tech massacre, because the real
solution to campus violence is having every student and faculty member
bring her own firearm. Psychiatric treatment won't prevent such violence
in a "cost effective" way. I hate to get into politics again, but that
has a certain (slender) analogy to these issues. If someone from
Virginia's mental health services critiqued that as short-sighted, would
it be appropriate to say she was ONLY doing so to save people's jobs?
I'm not saying that wouldn't be an admissible point, but clearly it
would be pretty subordinate to the issue of which solution is really
more helpful. And I think both issues relate to important questions
about our society's priorities: we seem to be more interested in
spending money on prisons and big tax cuts than on mental health
treatment or libraries.

So I guess I think that in this case, the interests of Mann's library
union members are really in line with the good. At least with caution
about making hasty changes.

You said people who don't like the Calhoun report should "respond with
the ultimate retort, which would be an intellectual framework for
cataloging for the 21st century."

That's a pretty tall order. Remember that Calhoun was paid to create her
report. LC may have paid her a salary for several years to do it.
Perhaps Mann was paid something by the union, but probably not nearly as
much. It's hard to create an intellectual framework for cataloging for
the 21st century on your own time, when you have lots of other things to
do.
        --Ted Gemberling
Not an official statement of the UAB Lister Hill Library

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of K.G. Schneider
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 3:27 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "Third Order"--was Libraries & the Web

> I would agree that it is unfortunate that his is the only sustained
> critique that's surfaced online.

Is it unfortunate, or is it indicative?

Also, Mann has a respectable background, but in that report, yes, he was
writing it for a union. I write that as a former shop steward who
understands why unions exist (because management often forces unions
into
existence). Nonetheless, we can't seriously expect a report written for
a
union to be balanced in its response.

> I vaguely remember a lot of hub-bub
> attending the report's release, and a fair amount of "Yeah! Stick it
to
> the Man!" talk from the Kool Kids of LibBloging,

Uh, speaking of ad hominem... By the way, what posts are you referring
to?
It would be useful to see how well or badly these posts discussed
Calhoun's
report.

> It's interesting to note that while killing LCSH is the thing
everybody
> remembers about the report, it gets only a quick, almost cursory
mention
> under item 4.2 -- "Support Browsing and Collocation".

Right, which is why it's so interesting that it becomes the hobbyhorse
ridden by many people who have not read any of the reports I list,
including
the one from UC, BSTF, which also discusses reducing the cost overhead
of
LCSH.

A lot of us "get" metadata and yet also would like to see how we can
improve
the production methods for it. Instead of responding to Calhoun's report
by
attempting to debunk it, why not respond with the ultimate retort, which
would be an intellectual framework for cataloging for the 21st century?

K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com