A reaction from the "market"
More and more libraries are using EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) for
the very reasons the industry as a whole will soon reach a point where
discovery services supplant traditional catalogs. Taking patron driven
acquisition of ebooks as just one example: going the catalog route,
libraries must expend limited resources to customize, load, reload,
remove, add, and replace MARC records; going the EDS route, libraries
are able to eliminate these MARC record costs and deliver a much
better experience to users, as the ebooks are made discoverable and
accessible immediately with no dependency on MARC records.
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/09/events/qa-scott-wasinger-vice-president-of-sales-for-ebooks-and-audiobooks-at-ebsco-publishing/
Jan
2013/10/9 James Weinheimer <weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com>:
> On 09/10/2013 1.21, Peter Schlumpf wrote:
> <snip>
> At the risk of being blunt, catalogers think too much and take themselves
> too seriously. That has been their problem all along. And it is true of
> Libraryland generally. In doing so they make themselves ever more
> irrelevant.
> </snip>
>
> You can be blunt--please be blunt. One of the problems is people are not
> saying what they really think. Of course, everyone needs to be civil (as you
> are) but especially in these crazy, changing times in the information world,
> the only thing we can be sure of is that *nobody* knows what the public
> wants and even less, what they will want in two years from now. So, when
> somebody says that they know what people want, it is BS. They don't know;
> they can't. If they did know, they would keep their mouths shut and make
> outrageous amounts of money. That puts everybody in the same boat, which is
> a real advantage.
>
> Concerning John's comment that there should be "IMHOs" in my messages, I
> appreciate the thought, but no. I have the courage of my convictions and if
> somebody can demonstrate where I am wrong, please do so, and if I am wrong I
> will admit it, just as I have in the past. If someone cares to look on the
> web, they will find that I have changed my mind several times. I consider
> that not to show failure or weakness, but instead learning, change and
> adaptability.
>
> So, to return to the point, do catalogers (and librarians) think too much
> and take themselves too seriously? If we say that it is unimportant to allow
> quick, reliable, consistent, unbiased access to resources that are selected
> by experts, then that would have to be demonstrated. The Googles certainly
> work very hard and spend outrageous amounts of money to provide a type of
> quick access to materials that benefits their organizations in various ways,
> but the other points (reliable, consistent, unbiased, selected by experts)
> fall by the wayside.
>
> Would the public like to have that kind of access? I think they are
> screaming for it (and I have pointed to those voices in my podcasts and
> papers). I don't think the Googles have any interest in providing that kind
> of access for people, although they will tell you it is of vital interest to
> them, and we are supposed to believe it, that Google does no evil, that
> McDonald's does it all for me, that Starbucks cares about the rain forests,
> that Nike shoes will make me "Just do it" and so on. I, for one, do not
> believe it.
>
> The fact is, the library catalog does allow that kind of reliable,
> consistent, unbiased access to resources that are selected by experts. I can
> prove it, and have done so. The problem is: the methods the public is
> supposed to use for finding are definitely obsolete. If the library
> community refuses to update those methods to something modern and are aimed
> at the practical use of a public that refuses to sit for hours-long
> tutorials, then the library world deserves whatever it gets.
>
> --
> James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
> First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
> First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
> Cooperative Cataloging Rules
> http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
> Cataloging Matters Podcasts
> http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
--
Jan Szczepański
F.d Förste bibliotekare och chef för f.d Avdelningen för humaniora,
vid f.d. Centralbiblioteket, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek
E-post: Jan.Szczepanski63_at_gmail.com
Received on Wed Oct 09 2013 - 08:48:15 EDT