I'm a little confused here. If OCLC is providing their MARC records then
why would we not use those instead of starting over? I would think OCLC
would be glad to sell sets of them appropriate for various types of
libraries or custom ordered much like they do for Netlibrary. I realize
everything won't have a record available but the majority will. Am I
missing something here? I just don't see the issue in that respect. Jim
said something about confusing selection and cataloging but I don't see
how we can select something without providing access. That's where I see
our library involved- mediating between our students and millions and
millions of titles. That mediation will include providing catalog
records for our select group of titles that support our students and our
mission.
Michael Mitchell
Technical Services Librarian
Brazosport College
Lake Jackson, TX
michael.mitchell at brazosport.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Montibello, Joseph P.
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 10:05 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [NGC4LIB] selection, collection, etc.
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 - 11:43:35 EDT