Hiya,
Well, I've just been told by the tone police that my mail was too
harsh for those tender librarian ears (I'm boggling over that one to
be honest, but who's to argue with authority ...), so this will
probably be my last email, at least in a while ;
Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
> It would be the easiest thing in the world to give up, but
> one thing I have seen that all of my users want--from students
> to researchers--much more than our cataloging which they
> find weird, is selection.
I mean, give up on the manual selection ; for this to work you need
better and more powerful tools that can help you out. When I say
"create your own goddamn search engine", well, that's just one such
tool (and just goddamn go and make it; don't sit around a think about
it, just do it, it'll be good for ya!), an engine that harvests all
sorts of stuff and then filters and processes and fiddles to hunt down
what you think should go into a selection.
> Library selectors are only human, and the role of the selector is
> absolutely *not* to mold the library's collection into a mirror the
> selector's own opinions and tastes but instead to help to show
> people, so much as possible, the range of information that is available.
I'm sorry, but by that definition there is no selection. A selection
is always a selection from a bigger pool, and as such there *is*
filtering, censorship, style / subject / picture police, academic
intolerance, short-sightedness, ignorance, stupidity, all depending on
who and what.
> I think this shows the difference rather clearly between
> the attitudes of a librarian and those of a faculty member!
Yes, in this anecdotal story where there is a clear villain. :) I hate
to tell you this, but librarians are people, too. I've heard a story
of a librarian at a general public library who didn't like glossy
pages, and as such no books with glossy pages ("dang new fashionable
waste of paper, impossible to read!") were ever selected for this
library. I'm sure there's many, many stories lurking around in library
corridors.
> Faculty members can both have and teach personal opinions
> about anything they want--after all, that is an important part of their
> jobs and is vital for academic freedom. But a librarian definitely
> has other goals. Both are needed but they are quite different.
Yeah, about that. What exactly do you mean by a "job"? What is a
librarian supposed to do, apart from doing what it said in the
instruction manual? I know this is a bit of a silly question, but I
fear that a lot of library stuff is just assumed correct from
tradition, and I don't buy that. How are librarians who do selection
supposed to do their job? Is it to do what you've always done, or to
do something for the benefit of patrons?
> Therefore, when I am selecting, I must add materials to
> the collection that I do not agree with, even adding opinions
> that I violently oppose.
I may add here that the boundaries between you and Google keep getting
smaller ...
> Google's spiders (which do not get everything) and their page
> ranking algorithm, the details of both are quite secret.
Just a note here that PageRank is old hat (and they're moving into
semantic areas fast), but also this being a global digital world the
reason for the secret sauce is mainly to keep competition going (and
Google knows that's how *they* survive) but mostly for keeping it from
being exploited (something they come down hard on).
> After all, if something is #500 in a search result, it may as well not exist.
Only true per search query, not true for the content itself which
might rate higher using different queries.
> Again, is the job too big as you suggest? So long as librarians
> remain mired in 19th and early 20th century thinking and processes,
> it definitely is.
I think I didn't say much more than that, to be honest, but it's a
very important point because the library as far as I can tell have no
other option in this area than to keep doing what they've always done.
The onslaught of eBooks *might* help get you into gear, but seriously,
if all content becomes digital and available and the digital content
providers get their interfaces and back-end together in ways that you
should, then who needs you? There's a certain air of urgency here that
I don't think you guys take seriously. Well, perhaps you do, but not
enough to throw a lot more resources and grand-scale collaboration at.
> I think selection must change from the traditional methods I mentioned
> above (i.e. a sense of disinterestedness), not necessarily into that of
> "what is best" but one that strives to provide alternative opinions on a
> topic: pro/con, left/right, fascist/anarchist, technical/humanistic, or whatever.
> We could leave to various types of crowdsourcing the task of "what is best".
> Such a tool, no matter what it is and perhaps only an addon to Google,
> would be the "catalog". But no matter what the catalog would be, it means
> little without the concept of "selection".
As much as I agree with this, nowhere in this do you need a single
librarian. And that is an important distinction to note.
> I find this potentially extremely dangerous and why I believe
> there must be something better, although it may not be perfect.
> Libraries have their codes of ethics, which should make them
> important and vital players in this world.
Exactly! They / you are a global loosely organised bunch of people who
care about the knowledge of the world, and who provide a culture and a
context that is simply unmatched. But it is also dying. You cannot
replace the lack of innovation with a coffee shop.
> That is, so long as librarians are willing to change in fundamental ways. I don't know if they can do it though.
Through my journey in the library world I've met hundreds of
librarians and the like over the years (you know who you are :) who
are all tech savvy (to various degrees) and wants to change things,
wants to fix the problem, wants to fight the good fight. If only these
people could come together and take a stand, and actually do
something. Unfortunately they are all outnumbered in their respective
contexts, making it hard for them to stand up.
I don't think you can do it. And it breaks my heart.
See ya around!
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Tue Jul 06 2010 - 07:08:46 EDT