Jim Weinheimer wrote :
> It still seems to me that traditional library goals and ethics,
> based on standards can have a role in solving this dilemma,
> but at this point I don't know how.
Neither do I [ that's a really really tough nut -- anybody
have any good ideas ? ], but I have to agree with the rest
of what you write above. In saying this, I take "library
goals and ethics", as used here, to be shorthand for : the
kind of goals and ethics which library organizations and
libraries have in the course of the last century or two
adopted, advocated and promoted.
Why do I say this ? Because these goals and ethics, and
the ideas/values they embody, 1) are -- both conceptually
and pragmatically -- wider than librarianship itself ; 2) are
not unique to it, but also either individually or collectively
held by many individuals, groups and organizations outside
the library world ; 3) are -- however much they may be
cherished or even claimed by the librarian community --
in most if not all cases hardly an invention of librarians,
but already had a long if variegated history already before
professional librarianship existed ; 4) are not inseparable
from libraries as organizations and as activity-complexes
in the sense in which we are familiar with them, and
therefore can in principle survive and maybe also flourish
even after librarians and libraries will have gone the way
of the steam locomotive and the "fireman" ; 5) must not
be taken to have universal validity, but rather, at least to
some degree and in some particulars, must be considered
contingent ( in the Rortian sense, let's say ), relative and/
or situational ; 6) should not be carved in stone, since
societal and/or cultural progression can bring new and
different insights, perspectives, perspectives, necessities
etc. ; 7) may rightly be characterized as to some degree
having their inspiration less in [ or at least owing their
formulation less to ] the general good than the interests
of librarianship, and/or the way in which libraries have
developed and come to operate.
Or have I missed something ?
Perhaps, then, librarianship should be concentrating its
attention and efforts less on libraries' or even its own
survival, and more on finding or helping to construct
that elusive formula for assuring, or at least maximizing
the probability, that even after their own ( certain ? as
we now think of them, anyway ? ) demise, the sort of
values and norms that we are here talking about can
and will continue in certain contexts to be determinative.
To put it very briefly and rather bluntly : that we need
the values that librarianship has espoused, by no means
entails that we need librarianship. Or the organizations
which we still call "libraries" ( which after all were never
an end in themselves).
Or at least I don't see how it does.
We got along for 2,523 years without librarianship ; it
served its purpose ( even admirably, I'd say ) once there
arose a place and a mission for it ; but now we'll just
have to move on.
( I leave the question of standards, mentioned by Jim
above ) for some other occasion.
> . . . while Penney could take out ads in e.g. the NYTimes for
> their merchandise, people no longer think that way.
Much oversimplified, no ? It seems to me that marketing
and advertising are far more complicated than that.
Depending on circumstances and tactical objectives, an
ad in the NYT ( or, for a different market segment, in e.g.
the NY Daily News ) could still be a more obvious choice
and more effective than depending on Google. Fortunately,
both Penney and the newspapers -- and, certainly, Google
-- know this.
- Laval Hunsucker
Antwerpen-L.O., België
Anvers-R.G., Belgique
P.s. : 2,523 years ? OK ; to make it easy, I'm simply
reckoning from Ashurbanipal to the founding of the ALA.
So, you may want to give or take a few years, or decades
or whatever :-).
----- Original Message ----
From: Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Sun, February 13, 2011 12:35:20 PM
Subject: [NGC4LIB] The Dirty Little Secrets of Search
All,
Here is another article that people may find interesting, from the New York
Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=1&hp.
"The Dirty Little Secrets of Search" by David Segal (February 12, 2011), where
there is an excellent discussion of search engine optimization or SEO, and what
Google does to punish companies or individuals that try to get around their
guidelines. It is interesting also to note Google's terms of service (under
"Quality Guidelines") at
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#3
Of course, people will, and organizations must, push these guidelines to their
limits. An organization such as J.C. Penney (from the NYTimes article) must try
to maximize their sales and advertising is the only way to do that. In this new
environment we are in, while Penney could take out ads in e.g. the NYTimes for
their merchandise, people no longer think that way. To use the web to find new
dresses, people go to Google--not the NYTimes, and newspapers are suffering
terribly and even shutting down because of it. Therefore, it is absolutely vital
for Penney that when someone searches "dresses" in Google, that they see the
Penney site and *not* on page 2. How do you ensure this? By hiring a company
that specializes in SEO, or, the only other choice is to pay Google to ensure
that when someone searches "dresses" an "adword" comes up that will have a link
to Penney's site.
Google has their own guidelines to punish what they call "dirty tricks" (read
the article) and Penney's site fell from #1 to #50 or so, in any case, where
those links become essentially useless. Google of course, tries to claim
innocence in all of this, that the two parts (adwords and search) are completely
disconnected, so that it is not the case that if you make Google mad, you are
punished, but you can fix it with some money since the only other way to ensure
that people will see "dresses" on Google's first page is to pay them. Naturally,
this is a situation that is ripe for exploitation, in spite of Google's motto
"Do no evil".
The reality is that everyone tries to hover just below Google's "detection
screen" to move up a little bit gradually, but not too much. Where does that
leave the public? Although they may "feel" free, behind the scenes they are
being incredibly manipulated. I especially liked where he wrote: "When you read
the enormous list of sites with Penney links, the landscape of the Internet
acquires a whole new topography. It starts to seem like a city with a few
familiar, well-kept buildings, surrounded by millions of hovels kept upright for
no purpose other than the ads that are painted on their walls." Maybe the view
of the virtual world is not that of Tron, of either complete control or complete
freedom, but much like the view of what the real modern city would become in
Blade Runner.
The scholarly/education world is not more virtuous than the regular world, and
will suffer from the same problems. In this regard, the article "Academic Search
Engine Spam and Google Scholar's Resilience Against it" Joeran Beel and Bela
Gipp. Journal of Electronic Publishing Volume 13, Issue 3, December 2010
DOI: 10.3998/3336451.0013.305
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0013.305
is even more important, especially since their conclusions were that it is
easier to spam Google Scholar than regular Google.
This is a rat race that libraries should do their best to avoid. Using the
Google-inspired tools based on crowdsourcing have their advantages but as this
article makes clear, problems as well. We should assume that Google Books and
Scholar will have essentially the same problems, if not worse. It still seems to
me that traditional library goals and ethics, based on standards can have a role
in solving this dilemma, but at this point I don't know how.
James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
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Received on Sun Feb 13 2011 - 12:14:13 EST