Happy Friday!
Marx's logic of "dialectical materialism" was part of the curriculum in
my youth. While I don't claim to be either a Marxist or a philosopher, I
think we can sometimes profit from exploiting the approach. To me Plato
was a traitor to reality. (If you're curious about the fuller story, on
searching in GOOGLE you'll find much about it and the history of modern
philosophy.) My personal interpretation of that logic has been that
matters move along and any given time slice could be called the "status
quo". Elements of discontent seek to bring about changes they see as
improvements and fight against that status quo and its defenders.
Battles rage. Some portions of that status quo and some of the
improvements emerge into a new (but still evolving) state that sometimes
will be for the better. Unfortunately, adherents of the merits of parts
of the status quo and of specific desired improvements sometimes
disseminate less than impeccable portrayals of themselves and each other
and make casual assumptions about things they don't really want to
understand.
It will be OK that some librarians righteously defend those hard won
standards and practices that now exist while others seem willing to
abandon everything built so far to employ innovative software that
performs new and exciting services for users, if ultimately worthy
elements of all become integrated into better library catalogs than we
now have.
Such an outcome may not be cheap or near. Some new capabilities that I
personally would hope to have in future library catalogs include:
(1) Better browse retrieval display of headings along with associated
items in the library catalog than is currently available,
(2) Better means of transparently connecting inter-related resources for
users, and
(3) Retrieval of place-related resources through geographic coordinates
searching (to be enabled through geographic subject headings tied to
authority records that will contain the coordinates data).
I don't think GOOGLE does any of these so far.
Meanwhile, I also cheer the emergence of faceted keyword retrieval
displays as well as various improvements in user services such as I see
in the new Endeca catalog implementation here in Florida and elsewhere.
Keyword capabilities are great, but please look beyond trying to do
everything with them since it's been said, "When the only tool you have
is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
I definitely don't want to lose the economy of scale enabled by common
standards nor the benefits of name authority work and subject analysis
applied to library collections. On the other hand, please don't ask me
to fully catalog every piece of flotsam and jetsam being digitized and
set afloat on the Internet!
Optimal synthesis of a "next generation" catalog is a worthy challenge
for all of us, and I encourage both skepticism and openness to
cooperation. Defy the budget-mongers! Don't make assumptions! Neither
underestimate nor fear the complexity of the challenges! Thanks to those
who have been sharing ideas on this list, which has been great lurking
for me (though sadly I haven't time to study all of it). Happy New Year!
Jimmie Lundgren
Science & Social Science Cataloging Unit
George A. Smathers Libraries
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611
352-273-2725
Received on Fri Jan 04 2008 - 15:13:49 EST