Joe Montibello said:
"One of our problems is the number of people who already, way before
Google's Big Deal, think that everything they need is online. Those
people are lost to us right now, until we come up with something they'll
see on the evening news that makes them want to come back to the
library."
If they even watch the evening news anymore. :-)
Bernie Sloan
--- On Thu, 9/17/09, Montibello, Joseph P. <jmontibello_at_EXETER.EDU> wrote:
> From: Montibello, Joseph P. <jmontibello_at_EXETER.EDU>
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] selection, collection, etc.
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 11:04 AM
> Ok, I'm in way over my head here.
> First, thanks to the list for a really
> useful discussion. Just a few thoughts...
>
> Jim W. wrote:
>
> "These materials will be easily available directly from
> their office
> desks and from their homes"
>
> One of our problems is the number of people who already,
> way before
> Google's Big Deal, think that everything they need is
> online. Those
> people are lost to us right now, until we come up with
> something they'll
> see on the evening news that makes them want to come back
> to the
> library. Current library users are people who need
> something that they
> don't think they can get online. They aren't all going to
> disappear the
> moment the Big Deal is approved, but they're the ones we
> need to focus
> on. (Somehow.)
>
> "each library is supposed to do this? When and who will do
> it? We do it
> cooperatively? OK, that's fine. How long will that take?"
>
> I think that we will have to do it cooperatively. And
> we will have to
> do it to a minimum standard of quality (*to* that minimum
> and not "as
> far above that standard as we can"). Speed is
> important here. "Just
> good enough" has beaten out "carefully thought out and
> structured" too
> many times. It would be a big change for some subset
> of libraries to
> jump out ahead, do this without permission and blessing and
> the final
> approval of an official representative committee, and
> produce something
> "just good enough" to get noticed and used.
>
> Google scanning all these books is an example we should
> learn from.
> From a business standpoint, they should never have started
> scanning
> books because the copyright issues were impossible. Whoops,
> now it might
> be possible...and when they can clear that hurdle, they'll
> have
> something ready to go in Google Labs that week.
>
> Basically, if a self-appointed group
> (*ahempeopleonthislistHrhm*)
> divvied up the library world in an arbitrary way (e.g.
> Public/Academic/School/something else), and then put
> together a way for
> librarians within their chosen realm to select and catalog
> (again, just
> well enough) things from Google, and then started twisting
> arms to get
> professional groups and major libraries on board, some of
> us in the
> little places could be begging our own higher-ups for a
> chance to help.
> Little places would gain recognition for our institutions;
> bigger places
> would gain an army of grunts to hammer out a few items each
> to add to
> the collection. Not as good as local selection, for a
> million reasons,
> but maybe it would be a decent compromise between "let
> google do it all
> however they want" and "we have to catalog these 8 million
> things by the
> end of this fiscal year."
>
> I have a list of people that I would put on this committee,
> people I've
> never met, but whose opinions mean a lot to me. Many
> of them are
> regulars on this list. I bet everyone who reads this list
> could come up
> with a similar list of names of people who could bootstrap
> and lead a
> cross-institution group, gain some traction with other
> libraries, and do
> *Something* within three months of the approval of the Big
> Deal that at
> least the library world would be excited about.
> Translating that
> excitement beyond library journals and listservs to the
> public, would be
> something we would have to worry about after we had
> *Something*.
>
> Joe Montibello
> Class of 1945 Library
> Phillips Exeter Academy
> Web: http://www.exeter.edu/library
> Blog: http://academylibrary.wordpress.com
>
Received on Thu Sep 17 2009 - 11:33:06 EDT