On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 20:09, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
> This is not a response to what I was actually saying, but anyway:
Huh? You said "Libraries have always been about providing free and
liberal and uncensored access to information for
everybody." I was responding to exactly that; in the past this was
hard, but in the digital age this is not the hard part. The goalposts
have moved.
> Is it the library's job to make understanding information easy, and
> for everybody??
Well, to provide context to that question I need to point to ;
noise >> data >> information >> knowledge >> wisdom
Your use of a double question mark makes me assume you mean 'no.' How
does "access to information" differ from "understanding information
easy"? I think I know where you're heading with it, but would like a
clarification.
> And even if it is, this is not the topic of this
> present discussion. Also, what's gold for one fellow is silt for the
> next. Our competence and capacity for judgement has its limits.
I haven't talked about judgement at all. Going from information to
knowledge does not need judgement, not until you hit wisdom in which
filtering and conceptualization of models come into play. Err, or are
you implying that any opinion is as good as for example scientific
fact, that we shouldn't judge whether 250 years of scrutinizing ideas
and testable theories has precedent in getting on our stacks than
Barry who thinks the sky is an upside down carpet painted by God? Our
competence and capacity for judgement may have limits, but let's not
think that the opposite means we shouldn't apply it or strive for more
of it.
> That situation may certainly be a transitional one, and even if a lot
> of evidence is pointing that way, predictions are still hard.
Oh, I don't know. It was harder to predict 10 years ago, but these
days ... well, it's no longer predictions of things to come as a lot
of those things *have* come. The question becomes; what now? What
next? If we have lost in these fields, should we fight for continued
survival in these fields, or are there other fields we should move our
battle to?
Regards,
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Tue Mar 30 2010 - 05:32:12 EDT