Can I ask a dumb question about ditching LCSH? What *sort* of money
are we talking about?
It seems to me if LCSH has *any* value it ought to be worthwhile for
the library world to pay someone, somewhere to maintain the system and
someone, somewhere to assign LCSHs to books. The questions are who and
how.
How expensive could it be? I mean, even Google's moon-shot scanning
project is relatively cheap compared to all the library money out
there. Adding LCSHs is surely a tiny fraction of that cost, and
there's the added incentive that most of the sunk value in LCSH
*vanishes* if the system stops growing or new books don't get LCSHs.
Maybe LCSH is somehow sapping librarians' will. Killing it would spur
innovation. Calhoun's report suggests as much with regard to automatic
cataloging (a pipe dream if you ask me). But dollar-for-dollar, can
LCSH *really* be a net loss?
Tim
On 5/23/07, Ted P Gemberling <tgemberl_at_uab.edu> wrote:
> 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
>
Received on Wed May 23 2007 - 18:27:22 EDT