-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Janet Hill <janet.hill_at_colorado.edu> wrote:
> As I write this, I can hear the voice of Ben Tucker (Principal Descriptive Cataloger at the Library of Congress when I worked there) in my mind, saying in his gentle Carolina accent ... "The catalog is not an encyclopedia, and it is not a dictionary. It's a catalog." It can lead you to the encyclopedia or the dictionary (or biographies, films, works of fantasy, maps, etc.), where you may find the answers to your questions, but it's not there to answer those all of life's questions itself.
>
This is an interesting point, but it raises two other questions:
* If a catalog doesn't do those things, but that's want our users
actually want or need, does the catalog make sense?
Yes, I think it does. Many things take multiple steps. We don't just "be dressed" in the morning. We have to put the clothes on, one item at a time, and we have to obtain the clothes in the first place. It's not an "I dream of Jeanie" world out there where we can twitch our nose and suddenly Waldorf salad appears. And not a Star Trek world in which we can get from where we are to where we want to be in a transporter.
There is a limit to how much magic the catalog/discovery tool/whatever can perform. (There may even be a philosophical argument to be made that there should be a limit to how much magic it SHOULD perform -- it is through the process and the journey that real discoveries are made). There should be no limit to our imagination, of course, and no limit to our wanting to make finding things .... useful, relevant, serendipitous, frivolous, beautiful, dreadful, authoritative, free-wheeling things ..... easier and more powerful.
But there should also be some understanding when perfection, nirvana, utopia, or whatever is not realized.
(And we should be very very careful about generalizing about "what users actually want or need." Just think of all the politicians who bloviate about "what the American people want" and how different that is from politician to politician. Each one perceives that "want" through her/his own filter, bias, understanding, expectation, and preference)
Janet Swan Hill, Professor
University of Colorado Libraries, CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
janet.hill_at_colorado.edu
*Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way
through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion
that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your
knowledge.*
- - Isaac Asimov
Received on Thu Aug 11 2011 - 12:54:24 EDT