> Ah, there's the rub. In a profit-minded society bent on eliminating
> public funding altogether, such systems are inevitably commercial
> products, and you all know what the ramifications of that can be ...
I'm not sure how you made the leap from my remarks to the inevitability of commercialization. Everything I talked about can be done with open source tools. Linux is my main desktop operating system, and I teach open source tools to my students. I am a ~very~ heavy technology user, but I spend very little money on software. For the most part, if it's not free open source software (FOSS), I don't use it.
To my mind one of the problems libraries face is our own acquiescence to commercialization in the form of buying substandard database management systems in the form of OPACs/ILSs. ILSs are typically 10-15 years behind the curve, yet we buy them year after year.
> Has anyone surveyed the smaller libraries lately to see whether they
> might accept some sort of technology transfer from we elitists at the
> opposite end of the innovation spectrum with complete elimination of
> standards based upon their present "physical" catalogs in mind?
It's difficult to get cheaper than FOSS. But even taking that into account, why should the rest of us wait for libraries that have chosen to keep physical catalogs? Those libraries may be very happy and have no desire to change. Keep in mind that the more advanced systems can always export compact data as needed.
> Could it be (gasp!) that some individuals in our society are simply
> conditioned to respect the concept of "standards" designed by
> "authorities" itself, regardless of content? OTOH, *concrete*
> "standards" are quite effective for stimulating commercial product
> design (and preventing critical thinking and innovation).
I'm not sure who you're referring to here: people who blindly accept computing standards, or people who unreflectively apply something like the DDC without examining alternatives.
Technical standards are good for making Web sites accessible to people who have visual or auditory impairments. I've never heard a painter complain about the technical standards that go into creating pigments, etc., so why should we complain about information technology standards? One of my favorite standards is SVG, which allows the creation of vector graphics without the use of a commercial graphics package (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/). How does that prevent critical thinking or promote commercialization? It's been years since I've regularly used a commercial graphics editor. If more people used applications such as OpenOffice, Inkscape, or GIMP, parts of the commercial software industry would be considerably smaller and less powerful.
Steve
=====================================
Stephen Paling
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Studies
4251 Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park St.
Madison, WI 53706-1403
Phone: (608) 263-2944
Fax: (608) 263-4849
paling_at_wisc.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: john g marr <jmarr_at_UNM.EDU>
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010 5:07 pm
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Copernicus, Cataloging, and the Chairs on the Titanic, Part 2
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010, Stephen Paling wrote:
>
> >... the compact notation that was necessary on catalog cards may now
> be a hindrance.
>
>
> >... let's build our systems ...
>
>
> >Conduct Basic Research.
>
> See above.
>
> >I am amazed by the number of people who advocate the use of new
> standards such as RDA and FRBR without even a nod toward any evidence
> that either standard is actually what users want or need.
>
>
> >Much of the organization of information will need to be done by
> machines in an automated fashion. Instead of fighting this, let's ask
> ourselves how we can be involved in producing ontologies.
>
> God forbid that [e.g.] legal case data (transcripts and decisions in
> particular) should ever be digitized and made publicly available for
> data mining in the instant-- why, that might eliminate the core
> principles of litigation (manipulation, profit and self-interest) altogether!
>
> I'm not even going to go into corporate proprietariness in depth.
> Can you imagine the socioeconomic impacts of sharing (shudder!)
> information about things like oil drilling technologies and OPAC
> programming? Egad!
>
> Cheers!
>
> jgm
> John G. Marr
> Cataloger
> CDS, UL
> Univ. of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131
> jmarr_at_unm.edu
> jmarr_at_flash.net
Received on Mon Jun 28 2010 - 21:47:25 EDT