Re: Whose elephant is it, anyway? (the OLE project)

Popp, Mary Pagliero wrote:
[snip]
> What power are we going to give to the
> user who wants self-service searching without requiring that user to
> learn a lot about how records are constructed?  It is that answer
> that should be driving at least some of our discussions.  The fact
> that OLE does not provide opportunities for such discussion makes it
> less likely to be an effective solution.

I'd like to understand what basis this statement is made.  The OLE 
Project is completely open and has made both formal and informal 
invitations of participation and discussion, the most significant being 
the business process modeling workshops hosted in December and January 
to collect exactly this information.  Regardless of one's geographic 
ability to attend these workshops, all of the information is published 
on the OLE Project website for discussion, critique, and questions.

We have also hosted open web casts to update the community on our 
progress, with recordings of these web casts and other 
publicly-permitted conversations we've had with other projects, like 
Evergreen.

http://oleproject.org

Tim

--
Tim McGeary
Team Leader, Library Technology
Lehigh University
610-758-4998
tim.mcgeary_at_lehigh.edu
Google Talk: timmcgeary
Yahoo IM: timmcgeary

> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Next generation catalogs for
> libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael
> Fitzgerald Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:12 PM To:
> NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Whose elephant is it,
> anyway? (the OLE project)
> 
> At 09:54 PM 3/10/2009, Mary wrote:
>> Throughout the history of the development of automated library
>> systems, the back room activities were the driving factors in
>> development. We started with circulation and added back room
>> cataloging.
> 
> Oh please - like circulation isn't a public service? Or cataloging? 
> The totality of the library serves the public - acquisitions included
> (are we acquiring things for staff-only use?). It's a very myopic
> view that says that only the OPAC matters to the public. Why should
> this be viewed as a divisive tech services vs. public services
> situation?
> 
> I would love to see a library system that gives more power to the
> reference librarian so that the public can be better served. Right
> now, most of the tools are so poor that cataloging data that has
> already been input cannot be easily retrieved and used in the kinds
> of sophisticated searches that pinpoint what users need. Too often
> the reference librarians on the front lines are forced to throw some
> keywords at a search box and they fare about as well as a civilian
> would, even when they know in their heads how to do a better search -
> they are frustrated by the limitations of the current systems (and
> who has time to do a "create lists" kind of search with the patron at
> the desk?). Thankfully, we have started to see more MARC data being
> leveraged in next generation systems, and hopefully that will mean
> that cataloging will make use of more of the appropriate fields
> instead of ignoring them "because they don't show up in the OPAC
> anyway".
> 
> It's all connected and as Sharon wrote, it's about good interfaces
> between the systems.
> 
> Mike
> 
> www.crj-online.org www.jazzdiscography.com
>