Quoting James Weinheimer <j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU>:
>
> Still, to expect that anybody is going to sit still for a two-hour seminar
> on how to use a traditional library catalog is a little like expecting
> people to sit still for a seminar in how to shoe a horse. Some very few may
> be interested, but the majority of people have moved beyond.
I just read a great comment about the fight by newspaper publishers
against Google's use of the news -- it compared the publishers to ice
salesmen trying to convince their customers not to purchase
refrigerators, but to continue to keep things cold in big buckets with
chunks of ice. This is a variation on the 'buggy whip' metaphor, but
equally apt. You just can't expect people not to move forward when
they perceive a better way to do things. What I find particularly
interesting is that in the library world we have turned it into a
moral issue, more than a technical one. Jim's quotes give us something
of a hint about the underlying moral motivation in libraries. We have
some great values, like freedom of information, but we also have a
heavy streak of 'we know better because what we do is, by definition,
Good For You.' That's a big bucket of ice, IMO.
kc
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Fri Oct 02 2009 - 05:20:30 EDT