LIS and CS

Will Kurt <wkurt_at_bbn.com> writes:
>
> I've noticed that there's a trend of LIS people ignoring/disbelieving
CS people,
> which is a shame because CS has done a lot more research in many of
the areas
> LIS is interested in than even LIS has. I've made the analogy before,
but for
> LIS people to ignore the solutions that CS has to offer would be the
same as if
> CS people to ignored hardware solutions of EE people.

The danger of ignoring CS is a point worth noting and remembering.

An anecdote: In 1999, I was taking a "techie" LIS graduate-level course
at the University of Texas in which one of my classmates was a grad
student from CS. At the end of the course, he told me how much he
enjoyed it, because it was a vacation compared to the courses in his
department.

If you'll allow me a generalization about LIS versus CS: We're good at
helping people use systems, they're good at understanding and building
systems. If we don't find / encourage / nurture / fund more of the
latter kind of people -- the Tim Spaldings and Terry Reeses and Kyle
Banerjees -- then we will remain where we are now: Complaining that our
vendors don't make our systems do what we want them to do and fearing
that the next generation of systems will make us obsolete.

Ed Sperr asked a good question: Where do we find relevant literature?
When I was a student, I used the ACM Digital Library, which now costs
$198/year to access ($99 for ACM membership, $99 for the DL) if you do
not have access through your library. ACM also has special-interest
groups for information retrieval, hypertext and the web, and artificial
intelligence. Membership in ASIS&T ($140/year) might also be worth a
look.

Does anyone else have a place they would go for relevant CS literature?


Steve


--
  Steve Casburn, ILS Librarian, Multnomah County Library
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