On Mon, 28 Jun 2010, Stephen Paling wrote:
> I'm not sure how you made the leap from my remarks to the inevitability
> of commercialization ... one of the problems libraries face is our own
> acquiescence to commercialization ...
And that's the name of that game (not inevitability, but as a problem).
> ... why should the rest of us wait for libraries that have chosen
> to keep physical catalogs?
We shouldn't, but it would not hurt to reduce the necessity to consider
them in the "rules."
> Those libraries may be very happy and have no desire to change.
Hah! So let's take them out of the picture altogether when designing
cataloging codes and see if that attitude continues! :)
> I'm not sure who you're referring to ...: people who blindly accept
> computing standards, or people who unreflectively apply something like
> the DDC without examining alternatives.
I'm referring to a general propensity to be "blind" and "unreflective",
very possibly influenced by arguments in favor coming from commercial
interests ("Buy our product and you don't have to think [you can't
actually, since we aren't going to tell you how to tweak it]") that are
reflected in the library world.
> If more people used applications such as OpenOffice, Inkscape, or GIMP,
> parts of the commercial software industry would be considerably smaller
> and less powerful.
Absolutely, but we ought to be talking more about the reasons why some
people do *not* go to open source solutions and tweak those reasons.
Idealism alone won't get the job done, particularly when there are
commercial elements out there trying to stand in the way for the sake of
defending profits.
jgm
John G. Marr
Cataloger
CDS, UL
Univ. of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
jmarr_at_unm.edu
jmarr_at_flash.net
**There are only 2 kinds of thinking: "out of the box" and "outside
the box."
Opinions belong exclusively to the individuals expressing them, but
sharing is permitted.
Received on Mon Jun 28 2010 - 22:24:22 EDT