Ted,
Good grief. Thanks. Not sure if it will help me get a job though (did you see my "contrarian", philosophical (well, *I* think I'm practical :) ) posts on NGC4Lib?
Ted: I guess I'm kind of Weinbergian in thinking that a certain amount of inconsistency is okay. Part of the burden of research belongs to the user, and complexities of ideas are such that you probably can't expect indexers to assign all headings consistently. The user needs to figure that out to some extent, with the help of reference people. (end)
I too think it is impossible to expect indexers to assign all headings consistently. And yet - if the person cataloging knows the topic they're cataloging about relatively well; and if they try very hard to accurately represent (with an eye towards creating detailed subject headings) the ideas / representations of the author in terms the intended audience can understand; and if they do so following accepted, agreed-upon conventions, doing so consistently - then this situation is much better than if just a couple uncontrolled vocabulary keywords are attached to an item (extreme statement - straw man - I know...). Again, to me, this seems like love (paying attention to something... "listening" to it... trying to represent it as accurately as possible... sharing it with others in a way that it can readily be found... doing so in the context of other things like it, etc.). It also is putting a real value on hard work, curiosity, "leather-foot journalism", etc., of the other. !
Will this be perfect, proven, 100%, beyond probabilities, etc. (a la Plato and his ideals)? No. But - *if together we share a world out there* - and if the people who write the books - with all of their particular biases / hated "isms" (some who no doubt recognize them better than others) - share the same world and have taken it upon themselves to look closely at this or that and to communicate to us some aspect of it they find important or interesting (let's assume for a minute its *not all about* self-interested power plays)... then to me, at least, it seems more reasonable to believe that we can - and should try - to make *some* overall sense of reality than not (or you can go ahead and just get real cynical about those "selfish genes" you got :)). If some want to call that a particular philosophy, or faith, I understand - some, after all, many would say that it is irrational to even try this. I imagine most [naïve?] regular folks would call that some "good sense" t!
hough. And I would argue that if some rather intellectual person, for
example, says they believe otherwise, in their actions they often tacitly betray those stated beliefs. Most people would "popularize" their heady stuff *if they could*.
Otherwise - if there is *nothing* orderly about the world (remember, not even David says this) and we can't discover *anything* (here - I'm not sure in what sense David thinks things can be discovered) - why are we talking anyways? :) And what *in the world* are those crazy librarians talking about? But if we think it's a good thing to think we can learn about the whole wide world out there - and not just what interests us at the moment, can we even teach a child this, for instance, without trying to meaningfully categorize the people, places, things, influential ideas, etc. that are out there?
I don't think so - but don't you put me in any boxes now... :)
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 12:53 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Elitism - and Aristotle again! - in libraries (was Elitism in libraries)
Blanka,
Yes, Nathan's posts are wonderful. So gracious and thought provoking.
He's a lot better exponent of library values than I am (when I logged
onto my e-mail last night, I did with trepidation, expecting some angry
responses to my rant on Wednesday about library literature. And I may
still get them.)
Nathan, you confirmed something I'd been thinking for awhile. I also
figured Mann was real pro-computer until a certain point, not at all
reactionary. In fact, I bet that when the online catalog came along, he
thought it was the greatest thing ever for library users. I think the
tipping point may have come with the 1991 article by Dorothy Gregor and
Carol Mandel, "Cataloging must change!" Or perhaps a bit later, since I
think that article did not begin to be real influential right away. At
any rate, it wasn't until 1997 that he wrote his response to it, which I
think is a classic. Here are a few lines from it:
"A few years ago, I was surprised to hear a speaker at an ALA convention
assert that it was 'known' that subject catalogers cannot agree on which
headings to assign to books; the speaker referred to a 1991 Library
Journal article as, apparently, validating that belief ... A few months
ago I heard it once more from a graduate student at one of the local
library schools. Her cataloging class, it seems, was debating whether or
not LC Subject Headings were even necessary any more, and the same 1991
LJ article was being offered as "evidence" in the discussion. The gist
of one of the major arguments presented in the article, 'Cataloging must
change!' ... is that fine distinctions in subject cataloging simply do
not matter because there is so little consistency in the assignment of
LC subject headings anyway."
Suddenly the online catalog and keyword searching, things which had
given users more access, were being used as an excuse to dismantle our
system of subject cataloging.
It's significant that Karen Calhoun cited Gregor and Mandel's article as
an inspiration for her work when she made her Report on the future of
bibliographic control over the last couple of years. Mann's article in
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly can be found in v. 23 (3/4), 1997.
Now, I will say, as I have before, that I don't think consistency is
quite as important as Mann or Gregor and Mandel think. I side with Mann
on the value of assigning subject headings and do think consistency is a
good goal, but I guess I'm kind of Weinbergian in thinking that a
certain amount of inconsistency is okay. Part of the burden of research
belongs to the user, and complexities of ideas are such that you
probably can't expect indexers to assign all headings consistently. The
user needs to figure that out to some extent, with the help of reference
people.
Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library
(205)934-2461
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Bajankova, Blanka (KCEL)
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:32 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Elitism - and Aristotle again! - in libraries
(was Elitism in libraries)
It is a joy to read your thoughts, Nathan Rinne.
Blanka
Blanka Bajankova, Librarian
FAO UN
David Lubin M. Library
CDP-Monographs Cataloguing Unit
00153 Rome, Italy
Received on Fri Aug 03 2007 - 14:49:59 EDT