Re: Bill Clinton: Create Internet agency

Thanks, Laval, but I'm baffled why this would be patronizing.
Objectively, isn't it true that people come to the library for
information? And in fact, my statement DISTANCES them from the
librarians' expectations. I really like the Rettig comment.

Observation as a nonlibrarian: Every good librarian is a philosopher
in disguise.

Thanks,
David

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> David H. Rothman wrote :
>
>> Maybe we can say that the role of librarians is for
>> them to encourage patrons to be their own truth-
>> seekers, just so the users have the facts to be
>> intelligent about it.
>
> Maybe we can in fact better refrain from saying that.
> It still sounds pretty patronizing ( and condescending )
> to me, though possibly I'm misreading just where
> you're coming from. Anyway, for my money, James
> Rettig ( the well-known reference specialist and former
> ALA president ) was much more nearly on target when
> he wrote almost twenty years ago, as an admonition to
> all over-zealous colleagues :  "every information seeker
> should be free of the librarian's expectations" -- in an
> article not accidentally entitled "Self-determining
> information seekers" ( RQ 32 [1992], p.158-163 ).
> Recommended.
>
>
> - Laval Hunsucker
>   Breukelen, Nederland
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David H. Rothman <davidrothman_at_POBOX.COM>
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 9:10:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Bill Clinton: Create Internet agency
>
> Thanks for the links and further thoughts, Jim.
>
> I couldn't agree with you more about the usefulness of context during
> the discovery process.
>
> Same on the handing of your globalization books. Maybe we can say that
> the role of librarians is for them to encourage patrons to be their
> own truth-seekers, just so the users have the facts to be intelligent
> about it.
>
>>  Public librarians would have much more experience than academic librarians.
>
> Definitely on appropriateness matters, given the wider range of people
> publibs serve.
>
> And yet I fear that for reasons unrelated to actual merit--for
> example, the close ties between elite universities and the social and
> finanical elites--the publibs may lose out in a joint system.
>
> Interestingly, speaking of the just-given example of globalization
> books, this is one fear I have about a common academic-publib system.
> Elite academics tend to love the cosmopolitan approach. Typical publib
> users want what is most immediately relevant to them--hence, my
> appreciation of Nate's interest in featuring local context.
>
> The solution could be to make it easy for publibs to localize the
> national publib collection, while also providing ways for patrons to
> go elsewhere if they prefer, so no one feels restricted. In fact, this
> is why I think patrons should be able to access both public and
> scholarly systems directly.
>
> All I know is that publibs should be careful: look at the fuss over
> shedding MLS librarians in favor of Ph.D. subject specialists
> (http://acrlog.org/2011/04/13/why-all-the-fuss-over-phd-academic-librarians/).
> Would a common system significantly worsen these conflicts? Very
> possibly.
>
> I love the idea of the Net expanding content possibilities for
> patrons, of delinking knowledge and geography, but if publibs lose
> their distinctive identities or someday go out of business entirely,
> because of a fixation on national and global content, then we'll all
> be the poorer.
>
> Detail--a little too much of a digression, but still irresistible: I
> dropped by the Golden Notebook and found the interface to be wanting;
> in fact, rather primitive. I'd like it to be extra-easy to drill right
> down to the sentence level, with comments displayed as the cursor
> passed over the relevant words. I'd prefer a comments interface built
> on the dictionary-highlights-and-notes system now used in the Kindle
> app on the iPad and perhaps elsewhere. Something with a "select"
> feature more precise than paragraphs. For now, the Kindle does show
> the most commented-on passages but doesn't break them into individual
> comments. Needless to say, both internal and external social
> networking features could be baked in. Do you or anyone else know of
> an interface similar to what I've proposed for both detailed viewing
> of comments and response to them? It might very well exist already! Or
> maybe Amazon has it coming.
>
> David Rothman
> Co-Founder, LibraryCity.org
> @librarycity
> 703.370.6540
> Looking for contributing writers--especially librarians
>