David Rothman wrote:
<snip>
Jim, thanks for your reflections, and here's something of interest. Nate
Hill of the San Jose Library and the PLA blog wrote of the three
Cs--collections, conversations and context--as functions of libraries. I
like that mix.
</snip>
Collections, Conversations and Context. I like that too: simple, clear
and with a punch. Maybe that could be our new "Tune in, Turn on, Drop
out" (!)
Currently, the systems have been trying to provide some of this, but
nothing I have seen is really successful yet. One of the best I have
seen so far is Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook" that allows
experts, and others, to comment on each page.
http://thegoldennotebook.org/book/p1/ This is nice, but somehow,
something seems to be lacking to me.
Concerning the Protocols, it is important to understand how the library
supplied context in the old days. It worked in an ingenious way. In the
old card catalog, you would open the correct drawer, browse, find the
heading and flip through the groups of cards as you see in these
searches in the LC catalog: (title) *http://tinyurl.com/3gcggnw* and if
you knew enough, subject search *http://tinyurl.com/3vb37al*.
Just browsing the cards gives the searcher a context for the item--you
see pretty quickly that there is some kind of controversy. Then, when
browsing the shelves, you see a lot more. The thing is, people today
very rarely browse catalog records like they browsed catalog cards and a
lot of this is lost. Also, browsing the shelves is lost too. While there
are advantages to keyword, there are serious problems as well, since the
catalog was designed to function best in the other environment, and a
lot has been lost in the transfer onto the web.
On the web with keyword access, you can wind up right in the middle of
the item:
http://www.archive.org/stream/TheJewishPerilTheProtocolsOfTheLearnedEldersOfZion/JP#page/n6/mode/1up
and who knows what someone will think?
In a relevant case, I worked in a collection that had quite a number of
books on globalization, but all were anti-globalization. My own
political opinion is also anti-globalization, but since I am a
librarian, my personal views are irrelevant, so I wound up buying a
number of books that provided a much more positive view of globalization
even though I personally disagreed.
Concerning appropriate texts, I hadn't thought about it in this way
before, but the problem you mention of appropriate texts may be fairly
new (or maybe not!). While the concern of appropriateness was always
there for librarians, it was more circumscribed in the sense that a
specific institution had more circumscribed patrons, high school or
middle school, research scholars or undergraduates perhaps, but now it's
potentially *everybody* (pre-school to senior researchers) using the
same system (as they do with Google). Public librarians would have much
more experience than academic librarians. It's amazing that the systems
work as well as they do, but there is still a lot more needed.
--
James L. Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Mon May 23 2011 - 13:28:01 EDT