Laval Hunsucker wrote:
<snip>
I'd say, myself, that nobody's gonna get anywhere worth getting, until we finally abandon the absurd
myth that librarians organize information. ( As opposed to -- kind of -- organizing ( surrogates of,
references to, metadata for, . . . ) documents containing collections of statements and the like
that have the potential to lead to the construction of information when absorbed and cognitively
processed by individual human minds. )
</snip>
I don't understand this sentiment at all. You are saying that libraries have *not* been organizing the materials they have been responsible for? And they haven't been doing so for over a thousand years? Then how does anybody find anything when you go to a library, which have materials from all times in all languages in all formats?
Certainly we use surrogates, such as metadata, to allow extra access into the materials in our collections, and there are lots of reasons for that, but in a physical library, the materials themselves must also be organized for retrieval as well, as anybody who has gone to get a book off the shelf learns when that item is not where it is supposed to be.
And when you continue:
<snip>
Exactly. Of course. To individual humans, each for her- or himself. That's the only way it could possibly ever work, in the past, in the present, or in the future.
</snip>
I can't agree with this either. Most people can't organize their own papers or their checkbooks. How many people xerox the same thing three or four times because they can't find their copies, or they can't remember whether they xeroxed it in the first place? If people have a few dozen books and magazines, they don't need any organization at all. But when it becomes hundreds or thousands, it is much harder to simply remember where you left everything the last time, and it must be systematized. When you are building something to organize hundreds of thousands or millions, and not just for yourself, but to be used by others, then you facing the tasks of librarianship.
The fact is that if you want something from a library, and everyone has done their jobs correctly from the person who accepts the item, to those who process it, catalog it and shelve it, you really can find something in a library but you have to know its author, title or subject. It may not be easy to find and may take awhile, but you really can find these things.
Perhaps many individuals don't agree with our methods but that's just too bad. As I wrote before, that's how the machine works, like any other machine: a car, or a power saw. You have to know how to use it correctly or you may get a nasty surprise. At least with libraries, when the library machine breaks, there should be a very friendly reference librarian there who will offer you help.
Is this the best of all possible systems, especially today? Not at all, and I think everybody knows I am not a Luddite. But we should not sell short the undoubted successes of librarianship by maintaining that it's a myth that librarians organize information. We do organize information; we have for centuries and millennia, and done things with pieces of paper and pens and typewriters that the Googles of today cannot.
James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Received on Sat May 01 2010 - 12:19:00 EDT