On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 23:08, Jacobs, Jane W
<Jane.W.Jacobs_at_queenslibrary.org> wrote:
> Sorry, but this is just not true. I'm not arguing for elitism here.
Yes, yes you are. You're saying that certain libraries are special in
that they have special needs, special customers, special specialists,
special collections, special everything, and that any system these
libraries will run will need to be special themselves. Now, I
understand that perhaps the word "elitism" has certain applications
that don't necessarily apply here, but the specialness you describe
certainly is spot on. And I again respectfully disagree completely
with the notion that you need to be special.
Let me clarify a few points to explain my stance on this. First of
all, when a library says they're special, they mostly mean they cater
to a given group of people, so from the get go the audience, scope and
domain is defined. There's a huge problem with this in that you're
excluding users you didn't think of (which is important to keep in
mind in an ever-changing society) and limiting your evolvement and
direction.
Right now the library world is in a bit of a turmoil because there is
no clear cut direction forward as technology has changed previously
stable parts of society ("knowledge is taught through books"), and
you're trying to find a footing, some clear direction, or even a
change of philosophy and definitions. What you *don't* need is to
think your users are clear cut. The ever example being thrown at me is
"academic library", which is a silly thing to argue for as academics
themselves deal with, um, everything. So the argument is that you're
an academic library for folks within certain fields (like medicine, or
law). Now all these domains and limits of scope were fine before there
were computers and electronic resources, but *all* of that is about to
change, and your whole concept of domains will fall with it.
Specialisations will fall away at the seams as knowledge networks will
take over for where books used to be the glue in the knowledge model.
People are more happy with networked knowledge than relying on
specialised books, and no where do we see this more happening in -
exactly! - academia. No other place is drooling more over eBooks (and
did you see this one:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/03/worlds-first-co.html ?!?!
Prepare for impact!) and moving their in- and output into electronic
form than them. The old publishing model is falling, and slowly being
replaced by academic credentials instead, faster, cheaper and easier
to correct. There's no way that the academic library will prevail. You
may *hope* so, but I'm extremely certain it won't.
You need to get out of the specialness business for your systems. Be
special, by all means, in the role you play across your systems, but
the systems themselves *must* be open for all people and resources.
Less censorship, better filtering. The world is going this way, and I
don't see the library world being able to ignore this one.
> What I AM saying is that each library has a specific mission and
> customer base, for its interface needs to be tailored.
Oh, I'm certain that that is the way it is now, what I'm saying is
that if you keep to this path you'll be gone in 10 years or so.
> That is not to say that Google is the
> evil empire, but, like everyone else's, their priorities follow a money
> trail.
Sorry to pour salt in your tea, but so do you.
Kind regards,
Alexander
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Received on Wed Mar 18 2009 - 20:41:01 EDT