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

Thanks.

> Instead, librarianship should include the building of new information
> systems, esp, when it comes to textual information.

I could hardly agree with you more on this. Especially if
for "include the building of new" one substitutes something
like "amount to a matter of helping to build, and of
maintaining the accessibility of, ever new and better".  In
doing this, it seems to me, for a number of reasons, that it's
a good thing that these librarians be happy to reduce their
visibility as nearly as possible to zero.

The rest can perhaps indeed without regret be left to the web,
the experts, and the users themselves.

( For many, this will possibly sound like swearing in church.
So be it. )

 
- Laval Hunsucker
  Breukelen, Nederland



----- Original Message ----
From: Thomas Krichel <krichel_at_OPENLIB.ORG>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Fri, February 11, 2011 3:25:50 PM
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Watson - IBM's "question-answering" machine (potential 
implications for libraries?)

  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