Re: Copernicus, Cataloging, and the Chairs on the Titanic, Part 2

John,

I've mentioned specific technologies and techniques. I use FOSS, and I teach my students to do Web design and metadata development with it. I advise a student group that has done presentations on FOSS, and maintains a Linux box for students to test drive. One of my students won an award for an Ubuntu/Koha project. I feel comfortable saying that I'm past the idealism phase. What specific recommendations do you have?

Just out of curiosity, what operating system and application suite(-s) do you use? Are they non-commercial?

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 9:24 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:
> 
> >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.