> -----Original Message-----
> It comes back to the whole "lipstick on a pig" thing. Usability testing
> helps you refine an existing design, but it doesn't help you invent
> something new. If your underlying design is inherently flawed--based on
> incorrect assumptions, for example--then all the usability testing in
> the world won't fix it.
>
> > If we know what it takes to get the job done right, why haven't we
> done
> > so successfully already? Why are we talking about NGCs? Why don't the
> > current catalogs work if we know what it takes to do it right?
>
> I'm beginning to think that it would be very difficult for the solution
> actually to come from a library. Not only are we change/risk averse, but
> we're also too close to the problem. We continue to come up with
> statistics and analyses and all sorts of things, but I'm really starting
> to think all of this is just giving us a bad case of information
> overload.
I think that we need to look at the system as it was designed to do: the
purpose of the catalog was to allow people to find everything within a
particular collection by their authors, titles, and subjects. It also was
designed to serve as inventory control since librarians needed certain
information that the users didn't need and they didn't want to make two
lists of the same materials. There are a lot of caveats hidden in here, as I
have mentioned in earlier posts.
Overall, the system as it was designed has worked pretty well, that is: so
long as there are well-trained people keeping it going. It has also always
been an expert system: users were always more or less helpless, but still:
the catalog allows people to find items within a collection by their
authors, titles, and subjects. Although it's not simple, and takes an
expert, it still works. It also continues to serve us for inventory control.
We have millions of records created over 100 years following standards that
would be considered more or less "modern" today. In a new system, I would be
very hesitant to make anything that winds up throwing out this work.
If we are to make something entirely new, I think it would still have to
give reliable access by author, title, and subject because those are some of
the things (not everything) that people have always wanted. The automated
means such as Google do not allow for this. Ensuring reliable access implies
some type of authority control. To establish authority control still takes
trained human beings and as a result, it demands, and will demand, an
incredible level of human cooperation, especially if we are talking about
the level of the entire internet, and such a level of cooperation has never
happened before. Just to get the level of cooperation for ISBD (essentially,
cooperating on the internal inventory aspect of the catalog) took decades of
dedicated work by many people around the world.
When looked at in this way, the task seems almost insurmountable and I just
want to go limping off to a bar...
But, then I tell myself that our predecessors did it with ISBD--they stuck
it out--and we could build on their work to complete the task of "universal
access." I believe it can be done, but it will be a long, difficult
struggle. Just convincing people that it's important will be a giant step
forward.
A huge advantage that we have over our predecessors is that we can
communicate much easier and can work together in far more effective ways. I
agree that open source is another tremendous advantage in that new ideas can
worked on without "getting permission" from anybody, and then everyone can
see the ideas in action instead of discussing them abstractly and then
waiting for some company to come up with a prototype.
The major problem I see is: this will take a long time, and all kinds of new
things are happening all around us. It is just very unfortunate that the
library world is reduced to playing catchup. This should be our moment in
history!
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 327
fax-011 39 06 58330992
Received on Wed Feb 06 2008 - 10:55:55 EST