Shawne Miksa said:
"I love having to dig up things in the library, especially things the old print Citation Indexes. Fascinating stuff. Therefore, I think people do like it."
I'm hoping that was said tongue-in-cheek.
--- On Wed, 10/28/09, Miksa, Shawne <SMiksa_at_UNT.EDU> wrote:
> From: Miksa, Shawne <SMiksa_at_UNT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] New Laws
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 5:55 PM
> James said:
>
> <snip>
> I was discussing the world-view of catalogers, who must
> look at the world beyond their local collections.
> </snip>
>
> That is an incredible disingenous statement, Mr.
> Weinheimer. Who exactly are your catalogers? Most of the
> catalogers I know look way beyond their local collections.
> My cataloging students certainly do not escape my classes
> without having that wide worldview seared into their brains.
> (Perhaps it is the administrators who are short-sighted and
> don't provide the resources to make this happen.)
>
> <snip>
> I firmly believe that a catalog should give access to
> materials in my collection. But, I also believe that an
> electronic book in the Internet Archive is just as much a
> part of my collection as some physical one on my shelves. My
> users want them; I want them. But not just books, there are
> a wondrous amount of resources out there: educational
> videos, interactive scholarly sites, and so on.
> </snip>
>
> But here is where I don't understand you---many library
> catalogs do these things already. Many academic library
> catalogs and public libraries allow users to search the
> local catalog and also a whole bevy of Electronic resources.
> Here at UNT we use a Federated Search Engine to search all
> of the journal databases at once, if so desired.
>
> <snip>
> I don't think they liked it one bit.
> <snip>
>
> Omigod, I'm gonna cry.
>
> I love having to dig up things in the library, especially
> things the old print Citation Indexes. Fascinating stuff.
> Therefore, I think people do like it.
>
> Seriously, we need some hard evidence of this --again, too
> much generalization across the board on what we think people
> like or don't like. I agree with Mr. Eversberg--case studies
> of actual query pursuits.
>
> <snip>
> When the journals first came out, librarians tried to
> catalog each article, just like a book, but it soon became
> impossible to even imagine doing so, and therefore, they
> outsourced it ...
> <snip>
>
> This issue has been around for years....Ranganathan numbers
> each section in his chapters because he wanted his works to
> be accessible on that level. If all information resources in
> the world were completely digital I could see this
> happening. But, the REALITY is that they are not. And they
> will not be for a long time. Google can throw all the money
> they want at it. It's not going to help.
>
> <snip>
> I made the following record: http://www.galileo.aur.it/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=22971
> where the 856 field uses a Google query. So, I cataloged it
> as a type of collection. Quick and dirty, I admit, but
> otherwise, the materials in Google can't be found.
> </snip>
>
> Very clever. I will bring this up in class.
>
>
>
> **************************************************************
> Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Department of Library and Information Sciences
> College of Information
> University of North Texas
> email: Shawne.Miksa_at_unt.edu
> http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm
> office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101
> **************************************************************
>
Received on Wed Oct 28 2009 - 18:12:12 EDT