Alexander,
There is much we agree on here - to my reading however, you have more
faith in technology to understand human language than I do. In any
case, thank you so much for your answers, your passion, your engaging me
on this heartfelt topic, and your work. I commend you - and genuinely
hope that it is fruitful (though again, I do not have your faith).
That said, you said.
" So, for us they are great tools, but for normal sane people they can
be a
huge constraint."
This is why I make the analogy between a librarian and a doctor. Each
has specialized tools, technological, physical, mental, etc. (sometimes
costly) that treat "rare conditions" (for libs, in the case of curious
scholars who want tools that can help them dig very deep) - we don't
expect everyone to be perform specialized surgery on themselves, so why
should it be that different here? Granted - we do need to make
"surgery" easier for our users who want to attempt it - which is many.
We must!
You said:
Ok, so as the devils advocate ; *why* should it [the library] survive?
With all these technologies and possibilities, what do the human
librarian add to the future of knowledge management?... What if
[librarians] are irrelevant?... computers, software and algorithms are
going to be increasingly clever at finding, cataloging and deliver
stuff... Tools that help us catalog better ; that's what you need to
attack,
not... those who recognize that human-maintained systems are on the path
to doom and destruction for the library profession. (end)
Re: the doom and destruction born of an over-reliance on
human-maintained systems, is it that obvious to you, and if so, why?
Please see Bernhard Eversberg's response to Wayne Jone's email re:
Martha Yee's paper, as I think he sums up my thoughts well (by the way,
although I think folks like Yee and Mann will be vindicated in the
future, I am not convinced that *everyone* will realize this. I suspect
my analogy between libs and doctors may break down badly when I, for
instance, predict that the market might fill any void that we leave
behind (giving up on their specialized human-mediated management of
information) - because *everyone knows when they are sick and want a
doctor*, but when knowledge - or the potential to get knowledge - is
lost, how will people know this?).
You said:
"1)there's going to be *seriously* more information available, much more
than any human or human-maintained system can keep up with"
I agree - and that's why I think Thomas Mann is right on with his "niche
strategy". Have you read his paper yet? Talk about "hot metadata" (but
really, as he says, people often don't realize how hot it is until
they've been introduced to it...)!
This does not preclude digitization, user tags, working closely together
with other metadata communities, adopting new rules and formats, etc. -
it just means that the library community shouldn't sell its "birthright"
(primarily, its highly detailed subject headings which though not
perfect, really do represent knowledge gained by those who have gone
before us by doing hard work, born of curiosity and wonder, making
contact with the world out there, according to the best practices of
their various disciplines - as there are catalogers even who specialize
in these disciplines) for a bowl of porridge.
Of course, when the bar has been lowered so much in public education
(try getting a good, well-rounded liberal arts education today), I admit
my arguments sound less and less cogent.
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
Received on Wed Aug 01 2007 - 07:35:57 EDT