Re: "Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?"

Below is an exchange on this thread done accidentally off list.  (With
Karen's permission I'm putting it back on.)

John

>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Karen Coyle [mailto:kcoyle_at_kcoyle.net]
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 1:51 PM
>>> To: John Dillon
>>> Subject: RE: [NGC4LIB] "Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?"
>>>
>>> I can think of a lot of things -- some based on full-text analysis,
>>> but others making use of realms of information we currently ignore.
>>> What are the 5 key texts in Subject A? Why not look at syllabi, or
do
>>> citation indexing. How about letting people add information like the
>>> "common knowledge" in Librarything (much of which could be derived
>>> from Wikipedia pages for the more popular items). How about a
>>> library-created person Memex from which people can share with
others,
>>> thus creating a multi-faceted linked data space? We are starting to
>>> get something like this from Zotero and Mendeley, but it needs to
get
>>> better.
>>>
>>> The problem is that Google will do this before libraries do -- they
>>> are undoubtedly doing some very interesting experimentation with
>>> gleaning information from full text. When they do, the library
>>> catalog will look like weak tea compared to Google's espresso.
>>>
>>> kc
>>>
>>> Quoting John Dillon <JDillon_at_Anselm.Edu>:
>>>
>>>> On Thu 7/14/2011 10:48 Karen Coyle wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 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.)
>>>>
>>>> Karen - re: "new ways to get at content" what things do you maybe
>>>> have in mind?
>>>>
>>>> Just musing... Google seems to be doing this, but I don't know that
>>>> Libraries as such are yet directly funding Google.  I suppose OCLC
is
>>>> doing an ever increasing amount of this, and Libraries give a lot
of
>>>> money to OCLC.  Libraries are also investing heavily in Hathitrust,
>>>> eBrary, Wiley, Ebsco, and also all the emerging products by
"discovery"
>>>> vendors.  So, I'm curious to hear more of what we're not doing but
maybe
>>>> realistically could be or should be to further our missions.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe I'm partly wondering what content you might be thinking of.
>>>>
>>>> thanks,
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Karen Coyle
>>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
>>> ph: 1-510-540-7596
>>> m: 1-510-435-8234
>>> skype: kcoylenet
>>