Bryan,
Please realize that we are all on the same side. I am an old-style librarian with my roots deeply embedded in traditional library cataloging. Alex has a different background and while he and I have clashed in the past, I understand that he is one of the golden few: a well regarded technical expert who genuinely cares about the future of libraries. He's also not afraid to say what he thinks.
I have serious concerns about the future of libraries and librarianship as a whole. I know I am not alone. In my opinion, continuing on the same paths we have always travelled is the same as eventual extinction. I say this although I have worked and published articles on the history of libraries and cataloging. I even wrote one of the cataloging manuals that I gave to ACRL and was at least was being considered for inclusion into RDA. None of this matters now though: we must change, period.
It sounds as if you are new to this field.
Welcome to the fray!
I'm glad that IPL has worked out. That is *very important* for our field and please realize that what you are doing is a radical departure from former days. Google is a radical departure. Online resources are a radical departure. There are brand new materials that could not have been imagined only 20 years ago and libraries are only now scrambling to catch up in the sense of selection, cataloging, archiving.
Many "information experts" out there who are not librarians and do not understand anything about librarianship will argue very strongly that libraries and librarians need to be buried. Obviously, I don't agree since I think that our basic methods will always be valid, but they must change in the new environment into.... what? I still don't know and this is one reason why I spend time on this list
How can we change things for the better? Only with the help of people such as Alex and Tim. They see some things; they know some things, and they are *not* always right, but their opinions must be considered, no matter how much it may hurt us.
I sincerely hope that standardized cataloging will not die off, but it is in danger.It will definitely change in many ways (and I am a fierce critic of RDA, which is not really a change in my opinion). I don't know what the future will be, but if we deal with it the right way, it should be exciting.
Jim Weinheimer
> Jim,
>
> I don't often question the motivations of the people who submit the
> questions to the IPL, and I really don't think that sending in what we'd
> call ready reference questions makes them helpless or lazy; they just have
> questions, and I often have answers. It's mutually beneficial, and I rather
> enjoy the work. They learn something, and I learn something. Their reasons
> are their own, and I only ask about them when it makes sense in order to
> better answer the question.
>
> I recently claimed a seemingly simple ready reference question for which
> Google was initially no help. But it should have right? But maybe the reason
> I did not find the answer on Google or Yahoo was because I was helpless or
> lazy. How do you work this Internet Google thing? Google did come in handy
> later but only after I had done most of the legwork with (gasp!) print
> sources. Even the wretched catalog helped out here and there. Imagine that.
>
> I know. I know. I don't count because I have been in the game long enough to
> know how to use a catalog to meet my needs.
>
> But if you and Alex are right, and if we all don't get it right, then I need
> to be looking for a new line of work soon. Curses! I am not even middle aged
> yet. That time machine dropped me right at the moment that cataloging was
> about go extinct.
>
> Maybe the NGC will never come about and cataloging will die off. If that
> happens, then for those who are interested, meet me at the end of the
> railroad tracks. We'll memorize some of the great works and then burn them.
> You bring the rants from NGC4LIB. I bring them from AUTOCAT.
>
> Sorry to go all off-topic on you, but I could not help it.
>
> Bryan
>
> >
> >Yes, and I still have to get papers from JSTOR because some of my users
> never have gotten the hang of it. And these aren't just the old faculty, but
> undergraduates as well. We will always have people who are more or less
> helpless in the information environment, and whether they are helpless
> because they really are helpless and cannot learn, or whether it is because
> they are too lazy to do it themselves, I don't know.
> >
> >I don't think it's wise to base ourselves on the most helpless of our users
> however. Of course, we need to continue to help them, but we should focus
> our efforts toward making them less dependent on us, and on other
> "information providers" who may not follow anything like our code of
> ethics.
> >
Received on Mon May 04 2009 - 15:37:56 EDT