On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_nd.edu> wrote:
> What is this thing called the library "catalog" anyway? Maybe it is
> more like an index as opposed to a catalog, and maybe it is really a
> tool to assist in the work of library constituents.
The catalog is an inventory of stuff the library has got in its
collection. This notion in itself has caused all sorts of trouble when
you want to *do* something with that metadata, where traditional
librarianship don't include non-collection metadata in the catalog,
not to mention causes all sort of metaphysical problems when you put
things in your catalog you can't touch, like electronic documents and
links; are they in your catalog if you point to stuff? Where does the
definition of the library intellectual property go between "over there
are some resources" and "over there are some good resources we've
selected"?
Ouch and painful if you want to do something crazy like incorporating
and interacting with the rest of the world in your OPAC (whatever that
means these days). There's a slight distance between the
collection-only and the all-embracing metadata repository thinking
that seems to cause some confusion and disagreement amongst librarians
everywhere. Some mix them up, of course ("find stuff from your library
only" and so forth) which have all sorts of usability and technical
issues with it. Most prominently, though, is the librarian divide
between "stuff we've got at this library", "stuff from all sort of
libraries", "stuff all over the place" and interactions and
cross-pollinations between them.
"Catalog"; This is one of those words that needs to be redefined for a
new millennium.
Alex
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Received on Thu Mar 13 2008 - 07:50:59 EDT