Karen Coyle wrote:
> Unfortunately, we still do cataloging that is essentially based on those
> rules. And cataloging creates the catalog. That we *should* do
> differently is obvious. But we don't, which is why the catalog still
> serves that limited set of functions that Cutter enumerated.
I personally don't find anything wrong with those traditional purposes of the catalog. I think that people still want to find information *things* by their authors and subjects (uniform titles are really weird for people, but they normally want them once they understand what they are).
As I have brought up several times, in my experience, people think they are doing this now in full-text search engines, i.e. finding "all" the resources by an author or on a topic. When I have replied that they are not getting semi-random results, they are shocked and don't believe me at first. Then, I have to prove my point, and when I do (it's not that difficult *if* they give me a chance and pay attention), some will actually agree that Google is seriously lacking, but others, evidently hurt and embarrassed, then make a 180 degree turn and begin to maintain that it's not that important to find materials *reliably* by their authors and subjects.
I think this all comes from the finding that 80% of people believe they are expert or very good at searching materials on the web. Once they find out that they actually don't know much at all, manyy become very defensive.
Certainly the catalog must do much more than Cutter's purposes, but there are some minimums and let's face it: if the catalog can't do what was routinely done since the 18th century (if not much earlier) using feather pens and slips of paper, it's difficult to call our present situation "advancement." If it can't do the one task, I think it is fair that everybody will look skeptically when somebody claims that computers can successfully complete far more complex relationships
What do we do with the 80% who think they know everything already? I don't know.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Thu May 07 2009 - 15:33:25 EDT