I post rarely to this list, not out of timidity, but because some of the main contributors make the points I would make much better than I could. There is no point in adding amen posts to theirs. Stephen Paling's recent post places him in that category.
A few reflections. I believe that many of the responses to his post miss his main point: that a revolution comparable to the Copernican is needed in the library world. This is a huge point and until it is addressed thoroughly responses to it can only be described as nit-picking.
What do I mean? Let's approach the main issue from the viewpoint of organizational behavior. The best minds in that field say that it takes about 5 years to change an organization's culture and that only if the big boss pushes it relentlessly. There is such a thing as library culture - but no big boss - and it has fought adaptation and change with ...lethargy, a passive-aggressive response to the need to change. When you don't know which direction to take - and you won't without a cultural shift - you tend to take a step forward in the direction you have always taken. The smaller the step, the easier it will be for you to backtrack if you get cold feet. Everything relates to your current position and habits. The center of your universe is what your library owns and controls and you work out from your local position to your users. This is basically an introverted, highly self-conscious a point of view.
Stephen Paling suggests that this model is outmoded and obsolete. Instead libraries need to turn their thought patterns inside out and start rethinking where they should be with what has been called the global information infrastructure and from there expand to their users, who are not all local. This could be considered an extroverted point of view.
It is the radical change in point of view that is important. Once this takes place - whether by libraries or their successors - the implementation details will sort themselves out. Some contributing to this list would be splendidly qualified to do this. To cavil about details now has the effect of hindering this very difficult, seismic-like shift in library culture. We need to get going in the right direction and we (some of us) know that that direction is not the current one.
True confession time: I worked my way through college by part-time programming, but did not think much of the computer revolution and went on to grad school to study French literature, a great love. Twenty years ago, when I was a product manager for a software company, we used ftp to move our files and latex to write our documents. When the first browser came out, in my rut I was not impressed and entirely missed the power of the WWW. This personal experience tells me how difficult this Copernican revolution can be. We resist little changes to our ingrained habits - how much greater the temptation to fight changes to our fundamental view of our job and profession? Google came along and I was immensely impressed - finally getting something right. Now I ask the NCG community this: what will be the next revolution, following Google search? Will it not have a huge effect on library operations and even survival in anything like their present form? I of course don't know. But her!
e is a thought experiment: imagine public access to something like IBM's Dr Watson combined with Google books and the European and other sites containing millions of digitized books and journal articles. What effect would this have on libraries? Would we even qualify for the old term of derision, book museums?
In case you missed John Jaeger's post about Dr Watson, IBM's question-answering machine, here is the link to the NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html?hpw
Hunter
L. Hunter Kevil, Ph.D.
Collection Development Librarian
University of Missouri Libraries
573-884-8760
kevill_at_missouri.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen Paling
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 10:43 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Copernicus, Cataloging, and the Chairs on the Titanic, Part 1 [Long Post]
As a lurker on the list, I would like to take up Eric's challenge for more of us to speak up, and for the discussion to move beyond the traditional catalog.
I think we need a Copernican turn, a realization of what's at the center of the information solar system, what's at the fringe, and what revolves around what. Toward that end, I'd like to propose some ideas. Part of what I'm proposing comes from a study I'm just completing of what metadata elements would be most useful to members of the American literary community. The evidence is preliminary, but it is evidence nonetheless. I'd be happy to provide a cite if/when I have it.
Stop Assuming That Books Are at the Center of the Information Solar System.
They're not. They're a small but interesting dwarf planet in a somewhat distant orbit (think Pluto). Much of what users want and need simply isn't in books. We seem to assume that if we hammer long and hard enough on our bibliographic standards that we can beat them into a shape that will make them adequate for "other forms of information." We can't. The mathematics of doing that are intractable (http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/), and electronic information is too different from books (http://informationr.net/ir/6-2/paper94.html). Books are now the alternate form of information.
Stop Bashing Google.
Bashing Google for not allowing people to search by title, author, etc., misses the point of a general purpose search engine. Instead, let's create rich resources like the American Memory Project (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html), and let search engines such as Google serve as the gateway. Search engine optimization (SEO, http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf) of the resources we create may benefit us much more than attempts to convince people that Google is a bad thing.
Stop Bashing Users.
Have you ever implied that users don't use our tools because those users are ignorant of how our tools work? Because the users are impatient? Don't be surprised if those perceptions color our interactions with users. How many times on this list, and others, have we heard people advocate ignoring user desires and needs? Let's stop telling users what they need, and instead focus on meeting those needs as they are.
Stop Using Any Tool That Doesn't Work.
If a tool doesn't work for our users, then it doesn't work at all. Let's say, for example, that we find out that users want or need description of information below the level of the book (individual chapters, poems, articles, images, etc.). The MARC record is not a good tool for that purpose, so other tools may need to be considered, e.g., languages that allow us to create internal markup within documents (http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml).
Consider Eliminating Cataloging.
We need to ask whether it is practical to retrofit cataloging standards to better match the current information landscape. If that isn't practical, we need to eliminate cataloging as we know it in favor of more appropriate technologies. For example, links directly from an electronic document to other material by that author or publisher may serve users better than a catalog entry or subject heading. The evidence I have so far suggests that users indeed want that kind of linkage. In my study, 67% of the respondents indicated interest in the name of an anthology in which the author's name had appeared. In an online environment, we can provide a direct link with no intervening surrogate. But the MARC record can't be used to encode an e-book, only describe it on a fairly gross level. A standard such as XML can do both. And more. Let's not dissipate our energy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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
Received on Tue Jun 29 2010 - 10:57:08 EDT