[please excuse cross-posting]
Hello all,
LC Reference Librarian Thomas Mann has a new [scathing] paper out,
responding to the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic
Control
http://www.guild2910.org/WorkingGrpResponse2008.pdf
Found at Christine Schwartz's excellent blog:
http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures/2008/03/thomas-manns-
re.html
("a must-read for the future of cataloging debate")
From the paper:
"...it is likely that the present review itself will be vacuously
dismissed as a 'rant', an 'amusing' paper, or a mere call to 'maintain'
the status quo,' by those in LibraryLand who are incapable of writing a
substantive response to it. [It will be evident from this paper's
concluding sections, however, that I am endorsing a plan that takes us
quite a way beyond the status quo.])" (p. 22)
"All the king's horse and all the kind's men cannot re-assemble the
conceptual wholes, or the relationships among them, that are created by
vocabulary control mechanisms once they are lost" (p. 29)
"The real enemy of the 'good' is not the perfect, but rather the
slipshod, the partial, the unsystematic, the haphazard, the superficial,
and the shoddy. No one maintains the 'straw man' position that 'the
perfect' is attainable to begin with." (p. 31)
Perhaps also of interest from the paper:
*Doctor analogy - p. 9
*Crossword puzzle analogy - p. 17, 24
*On Karen Schneider's comments about catalogers - p. 22
*On Library Thing - p. 24
*Recommendations / plan - p. 36 - 38 ("the addition of Web 2.0
capabilities in search sites linked to OPAC records will mark a major
advance in research and retrieval capabilities").
Mann certainly seems irritated by much of the Report, and he obviously
is not mincing words - perhaps he expects to be marginalized and has
given up efforts to "make nice".
But if he is marginalized it would be a shame. People can certainly
argue with his take-no-prisoners, "no nonsense" approach, but I, for
one, have a hard time dismissing many of his substantial arguments
regarding realities that many seem to be disregarding (and the losses
that will accompany such disregard).
My hope is that someone will rise to his challenge and produce a
substantive counter-response to this specific paper, arguing powerfully
and convincingly that libraries are not necessarily committing
"self-immolation" (as Martha Yee proposed some time ago), but perhaps
actually preventing it.
I think the future of LibraryLand will only be the better for it if
substantial debate takes place.
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
Received on Mon Mar 17 2008 - 12:10:55 EDT