> BUT, moving back to "google" as a generic ..... Kleenex and Thermos
> and
> Aspirin were so successful that they became kleenex, thermos, and aspirin.
> I think we are well along the path to when "google" as a verb will be
> nearly
> universally used to mean nothing more than looking something up on the
> Internet. And no doubt the corporate entity that is Google will be
> partly
> pleased, and partly annoyed.
As I mentioned in an earlier message, I think it is absolutely essential for us to differentiate our product (i.e. traditional forms of access based on concepts and authorized forms) from the results of search engines (which give access based on text searching and "relevance ranking"). From my experience teaching students and faculty, along with speaking with people at large, I realize that there is practically no understanding among users about how traditional catalogs differ from search engines. We must accept that it is these people: our users, and not us, who will decide upon the future of the catalog, because they are the ones who control the funding they give us. If they do not understand the differences, they will see no reason for the continued existence of traditional means of access which they will see as obsolete.
As a result, we must demonstrate to the public in no uncertain terms, that search engines absolutely *cannot do* what the traditional catalogs do, and not only this, we must also demonstrate that traditional bibliographic access is just as important now as it ever was. I feel that if we compromise on this, we will lose everything eventually. Users must see that both methods are essential and neither is obsolete. Search engines and traditional access work together, and the weaknesses of each are compensated by the strength of the other.
When I see widely cited articles on the web about how bad catalogs are, many of them written by librarians, plus the decimation of traditional bibliographic agencies around the world, I think that the situation has reached the critical point. I certainly know the negative sides of a catalog, but people must begin to understand that the problems they find with the catalog are with the *catalog* as a whole, and not with the individual *records* themselves. Traditional library catalogs certainly are obsolete, but not the records within them.
I am hoping that on lists such as this, we can find some new ideas of presenting our information in better ways than in the "digital card catalogs" that our OPACs do now (sorry for using this term!). In my own opinion, relying on "browse headings" and the attempts toward FRBR displays are nothing more than recreating the card catalog (or perhaps more precisely, the printed book catalog). A well-made catalog/bibliographic/metadata record should be a far more powerful tool for resource discovery than it is currently.
Digitally re-creating a form of catalog from the 19th century cannot be the solution. Therefore, I think we need to begin repositioning ourselves now for the battles to come. Media barons know that the names of things make a huge difference, e.g. "The Patriot Act." "Catalog" represents a tool that has frustrated many people for many, many years. It's probably time to come up with a new word, or if we decide to retain the current term, at least we should enliven it in some way.
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Received on Tue Aug 21 2007 - 14:18:24 EDT