Tim,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I realize I am in the "attacking
change" faction. And I don't think that's necessarily as bad a thing as
most people on this list seem to think. Karen wrote, "if we didn't have
so much wasted duplication and misdirection of effort and feudalism in
our profession, the Web would be ours." But why should we want it to be?
I think one of the basic thrusts of Thomas Mann's position is that
libraries and the Web have different values. They are both good in their
own ways, and there's no reason they have to be brought together. Of
course we should catalog some things on the Web, things of high value,
but the Web shouldn't belong to us, any more than television should.
You wrote:
"By this view, Librarians must merely dig in their heels and make people
understand how *wrong* they are. Libraries must get better at
"explaining" and "promoting" their services to the nitwits. At the
margins, this is a good thing. But only at the margins. The world has
not gone mad."
I'm not sure what you mean by "margins" here. I don't think we
"attacking change" people have to say the world has gone mad. The world
hasn't gone mad: it's found a wonderful technology, the Web, and it's
librarians who have gone mad, thinking it replaces what they have done.
As for the "nitwits," talk to any professor. At least, let's say, in
history, a field I'm real familiar with. They will tell you that
"nitwits" in their classes are writing papers based on things they found
on Wikipedia, and if they don't stop doing that, they'll never graduate.
I'm usually happy to read Wikipedia entries myself, if it's just to find
something interesting on a topic in times of leisure. In particular, I
enjoy the pages about linguistics, especially relationships between
different language groups. Wikipedia stimulates my mind, so it's
educational in a way. But I would never go to it for *authoritative*
information on anything.
It's interesting that the founder of Wikipedia has said he wants to
create an "authoritative" version of it that would have entries written
strictly by recognized experts. But the problem is, how is he going to
get them without paying a lot for them? And once that "authoritative"
version exists, what reason will there be for the "un-authoritative" one
to continue? In a way, Wikipedia exemplifies what the Web is: a place to
get interesting, free information that is not authoritative. It's very
similar to television in that way. Some television programs are highly
informative and educational, too (such as PBS).
--Ted Gemberling
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Tim Spalding
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 8:45 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Mann's critique of the Calhoun report
> Has anyone on this list made that suggestion, ever? I do not believe
> so. And I do not believe that is true.
Okay, I'll bite. It *is* true. If librarians do not innovate, the
relative value of their work will decline.
Rather, it will *continue* to decline. The web has made it easier for
regular people to get all sorts of information they once needed a
library to get. This is a *great* thing. But it does pose dangers to
librarian jobs. And it threatens what's more important-the many things
that librarians do that computers can't, and (pace Alexander) never
will be able to do.
Broadly speaking, I see three responses at work:
1. Ignoring change. However we feel about it, this is NOT an
irrational strategy. Libraries are not going to vanish any time soon.
Change is difficult and expensive. Funding doesn't seem in immediate
danger, people still use libraries a lot, and I'm retiring in a few
years.
2. Attacking change. To many librarians, the world has simply gone
mad; the internet has no editor, Google is lousy, Wikipedia doesn't
work. The web and libraries are at odds, and libraries are better. By
this view, Librarians must merely dig in their heels and make people
understand how *wrong* they are. Libraries must get better at
"explaining" and "promoting" their services to the nitwits. At the
margins, this is a good thing. But only at the margins. The world has
not gone mad.
3. Embracing change. Needless to say, I think this is the future and
the only sure way to protect librarian jobs and what's best about
librarianship.
I see a lot of opportunities. Personally, I want to spend the next
five years helping libraries leverage what they've got-a bunch of
great, unexploited data-and help them steal a little fire from Google
and MySpace through social networking, algorithmics and so forth.
But I also see obstacles. The worst are institutional, structural. In
general-yes, there are exceptions-libraries aren't built to change
rapidly, to take risks, to open up to outsiders. There are some good
things in the predominant structural characteristics of
libraries-non-profit and generally arms-length funding, strong
hierarchies that favor tenure over merit, sharp lines between
specialties, limited labor fluidity, terrible pay, powerful unions,
powerful member organizations-but they are not likely to foster rapid
change.
If there is a strong point here it is libraries historical devotion to
openness and cooperation. There is something old and something very
new in this. What makes libraries great is, in a sense, what makes
Linux great.
Ultimately, this is why I despise closed data so much. Libraries are
behind the curve in so many ways. They are, in my opinion, losing. If
they're not going to take advantage of their greatest cultural
asset... well, how the heck do you expect to win anyway?
Tim
On 5/24/07, Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> > Ted P Gemberling wrote:
> > > If we buy too quickly into the idea that computers and full texts
will
> > > solve all the problems, some of our jobs really might be lost.
>
> On 5/25/07, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> > Has anyone on this list made that suggestion, ever? I do not
believe
> > so.
>
> Actually, I think it's been said here a number of times (I know I
> have), especially for certain things. But all things in context, of
> course.
>
> > And I do not believe that is true.
>
> Why not? As software becomes smarter, computing becomes cheaper and
> the amount of information becomes unhumanly incomprehensible, what is
> it that librarians can do that computers can't? Think 5, 10 or 20
> years into the future, and tell me why librarians, as they are, should
> hope to have a job still.
>
>
> Alex
> --
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchymist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic
Maps
> ------------------------------------------ http://shelter.nu/blog/
--------
>
Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 10:57:07 EDT