Re: Watson - IBM's "question-answering" machine (potential implications for libraries?)

From: Thomas Krichel <krichel_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:25:50 +0100
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
  Laval Hunsucker writes

> Thomas Krichel wrote further :
> 
> > And he repeated. It is very important to know where the toilet is. I
> > have called his vision the scatological view of librarianship.
> 
> And you wish hereby to imply that in your view he didn't know what
> he was talking about ?

  Not at all. 

> > I find this vision detrimental to the future of the profession.
> 
> But how in fact ?  

  Because if you don't think a librarian needs to know much of
  anything, you will not train them to do much, meaning that they will
  suffer low wages.

  More generally, if we limit librarianship to a service profession to
  help people to use information systems, we greatly limit the scope
  of librarinship. As digital information systems become more powerful
  and easier to use, the scope is continualy reduced and the
  profession is dying.

  Instead, librarianship should include the building of new information
  systems, esp, when it comes to textual information. It's an activity
  I have been pursuing since 1993.

  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                    http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                http://authorclaim.org/profile/pkr1
                                               skype: thomaskrichel
Received on Fri Feb 11 2011 - 09:26:05 EST