Selection also means databases and free resources like Google Book Search or
commercial databases. Because we know that Google are prefered by the
students
and that some teachers and researchers also like databases that we pay
for. So there
is nothing new in William H. Walters article: Performance: comparative
recall and precision in
the journal Portal:
"These findings suggest thata searcher who is unwilling to search
multiple databases or adopt a
sophisticated search strategy is likely to achieve better than average
recall and precision by using
Google Scholar."
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/toc/pla.9.1.html
Not everything found is open access and a clique away, most someone has to
pay for, guess who? And someone has selected it and made it part of the
collection,
guess who?
Jan
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> If I may, I think that Kevin and Alex are talking past one another here.
>
> Kevin seems to be taking the information manager's/librarian's view of selecting materials that are considered to be worthwhile according to certain, established criteria and making them available to the users of the specific collection in the most coherent way possible. Some people consider the role of selection an absolute evil, but others appreciate it.
>
> Alex appears to have more in mind a "research machine" that will provide answers to questions someone asks. Therefore, if I am a researcher, I want to know what is available on ___ subject. If I limit myself to a library catalog, there are some problems:
> 1) I must follow the idiotic, arbitrary rules and standards used in the catalog, e.g. looking for "Tolstoy" instead of "Tolstoi"
> 2) I miss a whole bunch of information stored up inside the books themselves, because the fulltext is not stored, while I can do this in Google Books
> 3) I am not limited to the materials only in the local catalog that have been selected for me by someone who doesn't really know my needs.
>
> I hope I've captured at least the kernel of both sides.
>
> My own opinion: we need both. And I am sure that at least Kevin will agree with me (I'm not sure about you, Alex!) My own experience has been that with the craziness of the web, people desperately want something they can rely upon and want selection more than ever. (I am not even considering the crucial role of the reference librarian here) Of course, people still want the craziness, but they also want another "space" that is more reliable and assured, much as Ross Atkinson mentioned the "control zone" in his writings. In my own mind, I have always thought of this "control zone" to be the virtual area of the future library.
>
> How can this "control zone" be created? I think that (apologies to Tim) the Semantic Web has the tools and methods to create it. Of course, it could be done completely through Web2.0 tools and having no experts at all, much like Wikipedia, but before coming to this conclusion, I think it would be best to read Lawrence Sanger's article at: http://www.eupjournals.com/doi/abs/10.3366/E1742360008000543 as an introduction to the argument. He concludes that there is a place for expertise in building these kinds of tools and he makes a very compelling case.
>
> The control zone can only be made through metadata, either derived automatically or manually, or as I prefer: both. This is why metadata is so vitally important. Perhaps Google Books and Scholar has created one part of this control zone and it could be improved and expanded from there. Google may very well go along with something like that. LibraryThing could be a part of it. But through the creation of this control zone, all kinds of people--not only librarians, but also not just anybody--could be invited to select and perhaps even catalog resources. Certainly, everybody could tag.
>
> Will anything like this be built? Probably not.
>
> Jim Weinheimer
>
>
--
De åsikter som framförs här är mina personliga
och inte ett uttryck för Göteborgs universitets-
biblioteks hållning
Opinions expressed here are my own and not
those of the Gothenburg University Library
Jan Szczepanski
Förste bibliotekarie
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
Box 222
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 7861164 Fax: +46 31 163797
E-mail: Jan.Szczepanski_at_ub.gu.se
Received on Tue Mar 03 2009 - 06:13:23 EST