Janet Hill <janet.hill_at_colorado.edu> wrote:
> There may even be a philosophical argument to be made that there should
> be a limit to how much magic it SHOULD perform
You're now just appealing to "whatever it is, it is what it should be"
without addressing the principle argument against here by James (and
by me and others); is it useful? Is it relevant to what people - tax
payers and voters - want it to be?
At this point it doesn't matter if it is "just a catalog" when the
argument is that it needs to be a whole lot more.
> it is through the process and the journey that real discoveries are made.
Not every struggle produces great art.
> 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.
So, because we haven't reached our goal, we should stop and be happy
with how far we've come? I'm not sure I understand your argument here.
A lot of the things we have discussed are measurable and obtainable -
they're not some fancy utopia pie in the sky - and hence I don't find
your argument convincing ; this is about what sacrifices of the
librarian way needs to be made in order to protect the ideal. If the
catalog remains "just a catalog" when it needs to be something else,
this will just kill off the librarianship ideals we're working to
save. If the catalog needs to be even something that's unobtainable in
the near future we should *still* work hard towards that crazy goal in
the desperate hope that some of these efforts are enough to convince
people that you are relevant to their needs.
> (And we should be very very careful about generalizing about
> "what users actually want or need."
I think that's Jim's point about the FRBR user tasks; they're
generalized and, by way of modern technology and the way society is
going, largely irrelevant. (Well, at least, so goes my paraphrasing of
his argument :)
> 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)
This is by far your strongest argument, and you need to be careful
about this, indeed. However, you also need to be careful about a)
creating a tool only a librarian can love (which, most of time, is
exactly what you now got), and b) believe that whatever you build,
they will find useful and relevant to them.
Regards,
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Thu Aug 11 2011 - 16:45:54 EDT