Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> Jan Szczepanski wrote:
>
>
>> What does Google Book contain? Everything in fulltext? No. Is everything
>> needed
>> for me in a Swedish university library. No. Do I need the literature in
>> most of the worlds
>> languages? No. Do I need books in every subject? No. So what do I need?
>> Not more
>> than say 10-15% of the old stuff in theAmerican libraries. To give my
>> users everything
>> seems to me absurd and crazy. They don't want to get swamped. Maybe
>> that's not your
>> problem but for me it is. A library user must trust that we have a
>> collection of great worth
>> and quality. There is a big fuzz concerning the big black hole, the
>> copyrightprotected material.
>> mostly from the last century. Even if Google will succed in making this
>> material free for a
>> fee, not everything of that material is of interest. Still a selection
>> must be made. New books?
>> No library can afford to buy every book produced in the world, about
>> three thousand
>> every day. We have to make a selection.
>>
>
> While I agree that people want and need selection, a lot of the reason for selection in the past was based on limited budgets and/or space. I certainly have big problems right now in my library on both counts. With digital materials, space ceases to be an issue, but there is still that budget to deal with.
>
I have never felt that budget and space are limiting me. OK, its a
challenge but the result is often more interesting. You got the
possiblity to weed the collection and you will be surprised how much
you can recycle and less money means just more work for finding the
absolutely most interesting books and journals.
> *IF* the Google Books deal goes through, as I hope it will, then comes a big, huge, tremendous problem. The way I look at it, once that happens (and it will eventually, if not in one, short month), and when a library subscribes to it, as people will want and demand, then it will be up to the librarians to "get control" of it. This means that for any institution that subscribes to Google Books, their librarians will be looking a backlog of 8,000,000 items (and growing!). I've seen some big backlogs, around 100,000 books, but never one that big!
>
> This will fall into our laps sooner or later. Maybe in just a few months!
>
> What do you do?
I will make a small part of these titles part of my catalog
> How do you select from that?
As I said. As usual, just the most important and just what my customers
needs.
> How do you "get control" of that?
What do you mean by control?
> Do you look at item #1 somehow, make a decision, go to #2, make a decision, then send the selected items on to cataloging?
The same procedure as usual, yes.
> It seems to me that everyone is swamped already, and in any case, *nobody* will wait for us to make a selection from 8,000,000 items, catalog them and organize them in some way. Everybody (including me) will start in with Google Books, using whatever tools are there, and they will refuse to wait several lifetimes while we do our work.
>
It will be hard work. But the marc-records are there and the selection
will not take much time if we work together.
> So, while I agree that people want and need selection, the old methods for doing it break down completely in this new environment.
I can't see that. I have collected and cataloged nearly 35.000 free
e-books and collected more thant 10.000 free e-journals. With a couple
of friends using the old methods we can make it. Maybe it will take a
couple of years but we can.
> And let's not forget all of those new, good digital items being made by professors, and available for free, plus all of those other materials that are not in Google Books. I've said for several years myself that although everybody focuses on metadata, I think the real issue we need to face in this new world is selection.
>
Selection without records are useless.
> What we need are new methods and partners. I have some ideas, but have run out of time right now.
>
I just hope it's some kind of quick fix.
> Jim Weinheimer
>
Jan
--
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 Wed Sep 16 2009 - 05:06:21 EDT