Perhaps an example will illuminate the discussion?
A couple years ago a library bought a vendor's "off the shelf" data-mining software and wowed the library world with a new resource discovery tool. (Endeca & NCSU Libraries)
How much library-coding (as in software programming) was involved?
How much library-coding (as in cataloging and technical services) was involved?
How much of each of these was (or could have been) done by a librarian-coder?
Libraries need people who understand:
1. what it takes to *adequately* discover a unit of information
2. what it takes to supply said unit of information
3. what the marketplace has to offer by way of inventory & discovery systems
(the marketplace could be open or closed source / homegrown or commercial)
The people who understand these need not be librarians or coders, though it would help if there were access to librarians and coders to better focus the process of acquiring, providing discovery tools, and providing or circulating the units of information.
Sounds easy, doesn't it? :)
-Aaron
:-)'
--
What is the "library business model"?
1. Define what people want/desire/need
2. Acquire (or license) some (likely inadequate) subset of 1.
3. ...
4. Non-profit
--
scimus quae legis et non dicimus
"We know what you read, and we're not saying."
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 2:27 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Library Technologies and Library School (was Commercial Vendors and Open Source Software)
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 20:05, Kevin M Kidd <kiddk_at_bc.edu> wrote:
> I'm not sure what exactly this means - it's a distinction
> without a difference. Why wouldn't a librarian who does
> IT work understand that he is doing IT work?
Since this really cuts to the core of the problem, let's get it out in the open;
Libraries have been special for far too long, and that is why we're
now having this conversation and why the library world is in trouble.
An IT guy in a library is being told that he needs to make systems
that are special for the library, and every other librarian also
thinks the library is such a special place that software must be
custom made, that there are no alternatives.
But there are always alternatives, both on how you approach the
problem, and also on how you deal with your own specialness.
Libraries are probably best to change and compromise a little. Just
because you like to think in terms of stacks doesn't mean you must
have software that are written for stacks; shelves will probably do.
Just because you call your main users patrons doesn't mean that a
customer wouldn't do. And so on. For every problem in the ILS you will
find an outside alternative. This is a problem of not wanting to
change more than actually solving the problem.
Alex
--
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Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Wed Sep 24 2008 - 13:20:38 EDT