Everybody tech:
You guys are very funny. I hope to be there someday in my
understanding. I want to be elites like you!
Karen:
"My measure of a librarian's value would be in how much she or he
facilitated the creation of knowledge, not how much organization s/he
imposed on documents. In this highly networked world, facilitating
knowledge may take the form of allowing users interested in a topic to
find each other, or allowing users to show *their* view to others.
Basically helping build the conversation around the resources. And this
is the thing that I don't see us doing today."
Karen - I think it would be awesome for us to be able to do this! A la
Library Thing. Maybe Tim has the wherewithal - or we can help him - get
into specialized libraries and academic libraries (Go Tim). You know, I
*want* to be able to do this - to be a facilitator at the center of it
all (I think many libs have always wanted to do this) - but meanwhile I
don't think it is a good idea for us to give up what I believe is the
historic core of our profession - which is "organization... imposed on
documents" for the sake of findability (niche, niche, niche) - and not
just because the market sees this as valuable, but because it is our
*responsibility* to do this for the common good (I am thankful that Tim
seems to do both well: http://tinyurl.com/33fovq )
Andrea:
"in addition to functioning as a way to build connections through social
networks that facilitate scholarly communication.
I don't think this is an either-or situation."
Andrea, you express similar sentiments to what Karen did earlier (Karen,
good points - I don't think libs should push for prosecution vs. those
who practice cataloging without a license! :) ). So I am with you
here. No "either-or"ing! And yet - I know we must be realistic with
budgets, etc. I admit that I think that busting up the specialized
infrastructure is not a good plan - I think it's a horrible plan and
that folks like Mann and Yee are largely right. At the same time I
appreciate so much the concern folks like Karen Schneider, Karen Coyle
and Diane Hillman have - I don't *want* to minimize their very important
contributions, insights, concerns. But nevertheless, do I de-legitimize
myself as being a "change agent" if I say all this? I hope not.
Getting back to Thomas Mann, I agree with Ted. I had read a good amount
of library lit myself (for my age, I'm only 33) - I never realized to
care about this stuff until I read him - and then it hit me: This guy is
a true librarian. Anyone reading him can see that he loves what he does
and is great at it. He's real. He's on the ground. He is a
specialist. I'd be happy to submit to his expert guidance for this or
that. And not only that - I'm a librarian too, and I *love* my job.
Not only this - reading some of Mann's pre-internet stuff, its amazing
how "progressive" he sounds. He was writing about the great importance
of keyword searches to complement subject searching. He talked about
how the existing superstructure is necessarily limited in that it carved
up the world into disciplines, often not allowing or encouraging people
to see beyond their silos (he didn't use the world "silo" but that's
what he meant). He was writing about the "Principle of Least Effort",
saying that "people tend to choose perceived ease of access over quality
of content in selecting an information source;... regardless of whether
it is leading them to the best sources" (Library Research Models, 1993,
p. 93). He even talked about how this behavior was not something to
change in the patron!: "it is acceptable... for the problem to remain
unsolved as long as the blame can be shifted [i.e. to the patron!] (p.
98)! This man is no ideologue - and just because he writes for a union,
does not necessarily de-legitimize his serious insights. I'm with Mann,
as I suspect many of you elitists are - though you might not yet fully
realize it!
And he still shows he's still a real "library practitioner" by
supporting the idea of using user tags now - and I'd guess would be OK
with patrons deciding to use simple keyword searching to start the
catalog. And yet - we know how he feels about holding on to those
advanced tools!
Andrea:
"In essense, the value of what we do is to empower our users towards a
goal of lifelong learning. As such, it is our privileged mission to
engage our users in meeting their needs, rather than to impose our views
onto them... The measure of a librarian's value is intimately tied to
facilitating access to knowledge in ways that have meaning to our users,
not to us. That is a key difference in how our profession differs from
the legal and medical professions."
Agreed with first sentence. After that we enter into iffy territory, I
think - *sometimes*, when we *know better* than someone else, it is our
*responsibility* to impose our views on them. This does not mean we
physically force them to do something, or something like that - it means
we are firm and we don't let a person believe after talking to us that
we think they're making a good decision if they totally disregard our
advice. Doctors would of course behave in a similar fashion. We all do
this here and there. Now, of course, if you question whether experts
and the expert librarians who catalog their materials (and yes, Karen, I
agree with you here - as Mann notes, there should be expert catalogers
who work closely with experts in the fields to get the best labeling
possible - and again, we need "authority control" or "vocabulary
consistency" to find as much that is truly relevant as possible) have
views that are really related in some sense to the views of others -
i.e. we assume that we share a world "out there" - I can understand why
you would disagree with me - and I suppose, consider my views of little
value?
Andrea, your message sounds very "Weinbergian" to me. David, whose
insights I appreciate very much, says in his latest blogpost that he
wants "[a web] infrastructure super-saturated with meaning". I ask:
"What kind of meaning? How do we get there?" I ask this because though
he critiques the idea that the universe has an "inner order" that
*experts and authorities* can *expose* and *discover*, he leaves us
with... what?
Thomas Mann, talking in his paper about the importance of "scope-match
coverage" (vs. increasing granularity), illustrating how librarians have
created and use tools to help people see "the whole elephant" *"with all
the parts properly interrelated"* (of course, this is not to say that
the Library of Congress, for example, with its collective wisdom holds
all the secrets of the world - when further questioned, Mann would
almost certainly say that *even this* only offers some of the picture,
not everything - as we are only human). Now, I am wondering to what
extent folks like Weinberger think we *can* *discover* things in this
world? Can we at all? And if so - and here is the big question -
*how* are things discovered now, or will they be discovered, in ways
that are different from the past?
Were back to Aristotle again. Keep in mind that not even Weinberger
thinks reality can be carved up in just any way - i.e. it is not
infinitely malleable. Therefore, I don't think he really has an
argument with Aristotle. So - are the connections that experts and
those who catalog them have seen for the most part "really real" - or
not? If they are to a fairly good extent - then the existing
superstructure we have is of some very real value whether or not we
realize it, no?
Though this will probably sound funny given my talkative and often
relatively confident tone on this list (especially above now), there are
very few things in life I will go to the wall for - mostly because I am
always questioning what I've learned, and am plagued by many a doubt...
and I often annoy people by questioning everything they hold most dear.
There is not one legitimate view - the one we are "licensed to
practice", in Karen Coyle's words. But there is a core to our
profession, and I submit this is it.
Please explain why I am wrong. Like I said, I am full of doubts.
Andrea, I hope I haven't forever chased you back to "lurkdom". Keep
fighting!
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 Thu Aug 02 2007 - 07:28:51 EDT