OK - well I guess I knew I was asking for it really.
Although I agree that these things go hand in hand (and as I said, I
wasn't trying to argue that access wasn't important), the Universal
Library (whether it be a 'library' or no) is doing something different
from just being a repository for existing content.
From this point of view, building the collection has to come first -
there was nothing to put in the 'Universal Library' to start with, so it
couldn't build services, it had to build content. I know it sounds like
I'm arguing reductio ad absurdum, but clearly all print libraries today
start from the point of view that someone out there is producing print
items to collect - if that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have libraries.
The Universal Library wasn't in this position - it is acting as both
publisher and repository for this stuff - and as such I would argue that
to some extent had to put publication of content first (might be
interesting to compare with the issue of 'Institutional Repositories'
that many Universities are engaged with - the problem is getting
material to populate the thing). So, the Universal Library decided to
focus on creating content.
Now, if they did this without any access at all, that would clearly be
useless (like a warehouse of books for which noone has the key). But
they haven't done this - they have, at whatever rudimentary level, given
access. They have made it possible to search by title and author (plus
year and subject - although I would agree the latter to be not a huge
amount of help), and find items via the Internet Archive (and thus via
Google).
They have longer term aims to add full-text indexing which would be a
great addition, and they recognise that the metadata is far from
perfect, and state that they want to engage the user community in this
effort.
A final point is that the Universal Library is that we are all welcome
to link to these texts from our own catalogue - so if we have a record
in our catalogues, the Universal Library can provide access to the
actual text - and we choose whether we do this or not - and generally
not - this is the least part of the effort - we don't have to digitise,
and we already have catalogue records, so it is only a matter of taking
that final step and linking our metadata to a copy of the book. So we
are as guilty as neglecting 'access' as the Universal Library - we
decide to catalogue metadata, at the expense of actually making the
material available.
Bah humbug and a Happy Christmas :)
Owen
Owen Stephens
Assistant Director: e-Strategy and Information Resources
Imperial College London Library
Imperial College London
South Kensington
London SW7 2AZ
Tel: 020 7594 8829
Email: o.stephens_at_imperial.ac.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
> Sent: 18 December 2007 14:54
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Responses to LC Working Group
> [collections & services]
>
> On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:54 AM, Stephens, Owen wrote:
>
> >> It's difficult to imagine this working with the Universal
> >> Library. That resource has such primitive searching
> >> capabilities...almost as if building the collection was top
> >> priority, without much thought given to how to access what's
> >> in the collection.
> >
> > Ummm... not wanting to be overly picky here - but surely
> building the
> > collection has to take priority over access?
>
>
> At the risk of pulling things too much out of context, I disagree; I
> do not think collections take priority over access. More
> specifically, I think neither collections nor access takes precedence
> over the other. Collections without services (such as access) are
> useless; services without collections are empty.
>
> Collections and services in a library are a Yin and Yang sort of
> thing. Together they make a library. Separate they equal less than
> the sum of their parts. You can't have one and not the other and call
> the result a library.
>
> Collections without services are useless. Who cares if a library owns
> a pile of stuff if you can't do things with the stuff. Search.
> Browse. Borrow. Renew. Evaluate. Share. Annotate. Print. Compare &
> contrast. Extract all images from. Extract all citations from. Cite.
> Buy. Sell. Etc. Without some levels of service against collection,
> your "library" is not a library. It is embryonic and a proto-library.
> Libraries are to be used and without services against them they can
> not be used.
>
> Services without collections are empty. It is not all about services
> because without collections it is not possible to preserve
> collections for future use. Without collections it is not possible to
> provide services against them. Without collections your library is
> literally empty -- a broker to content. Google provides bunches o'
> services against content. It provides access to content, but I don't
> think very many people would call it a library.
>
> Again, the point I'm trying to make is that collections over services
> or the other way around is a fruitless discussion. Neither is more
> important. You need both to call your thing a library.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>
Received on Tue Dec 18 2007 - 11:57:46 EST