Laval et al,
Yes, you are asking valid questions. How do we define the stuff inside the digital resource and/or book, etc.? And then how do we assess if we are meeting the needs of users in describing and explicating this stuff? Furthermore, what stuff do we want to explicate? In the last few responses we have referred to this stuff as: "content", "information" and "learning". We might want to add the label "knowledge". How do we define this stuff, describe them, and do it in a meaningful way?
I would like to believe that the semantic web and ontologies will go a long way to solving these challenges. It's is necessary and valuable to tackle these challenges, but extremely difficult.
Joan
Joan Lussky, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Science
The Catholic University of America
(c) 302/ 299-7007
SLIS's Core Values: community, collaboration, innovation, excellence, reason, faith and service
________________________________________
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] on behalf of Laval Hunsucker [amoinsde_at_YAHOO.COM]
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 12:16 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?"
Karen asks :
> Where is our interest in the information? Why aren't we
> putting hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands
> of person-hours into developing new ways to get at
> content?
Could it [ one hopes :-) ] be because we obviously don't,
pragmatically speaking, know what "content" to get at, and
in what way ? And of course never shall ? Seeing as how only
the respective user in the respective [ unpredictable probably
even for herself, but certainly for us ] situation, and given the
particular motivation and objective that go with that situation,
can have any pertinent sense of the what and the how of
content ?
And information ?? -- That's something ( not a thing, actually,
but a process ) even more slippery and elusive and contingent
than content.
Let's just keep our feet on the ground, I'd say, and make d***ed
sure that all the content will be there to be gotten at. And the
information ? The information will take care of itself, just as it
always has ( no librarians required ).
- Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland
----- Original Message -----
> From: Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net>
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Cc:
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 4:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?"
>
> Quoting Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_ND.EDU>:
>
>
>>
>> Libraries are not about books, but rather what is inside them. We have too
> much identified ourselves with the tools of our trade as opposed the core
> purposes. Changing this perception, both from the inside as well as the outside,
> will be a l o n g time coming.
>
> And yet ... look at the cataloging rules and you will see a culture obsessed
> with the THING itself and with very little concern about the information within
> the thing. Yes, there are subject headings (3) and one (1) classification code,
> but note that those aren't addressed in the cataloging code and aren't
> being discussed today the way that RDA is. Where is our interest in the
> information? Why aren't we putting hundreds of thousands of dollars and
> thousands of person-hours into developing new ways to get at content? (And I
> don't mean expanding keyword searches over more and more databases with
> mainly descriptive metadata.)
>
> kc
>
>>
>> --
>> Eric Lease Morgan
>> University of Notre Dame
>>
>
>
>
> --Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
Received on Thu Jul 14 2011 - 12:50:35 EDT