The American University of Rome Library Blog: New Subject Browse Implemented
American Univ. of Rome has created a way for people to browse a listing of the subjects in their catalog. This is a fabulous example of Tim Berners-Lee's comments about putting data out there for people - while this might not be the simplest data to parse, it's easier than trying to crawl the catalog for it.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Good enough is the new perfect
Heyhey,
Being perfect takes too long. I'm sure this applies in all sorts of other areas, but in libraries, it's something that we forget (all too often) at our own peril.
NGC4LIB is a listserv for discussing Next Generation Catalogs, but it creeps into all sorts of unruly topics like the future of libraries. One of the perennial issues discussed there is the idea of doing things right vs. just doing them. Libraries have to take notice of these things because our patrons (read "our only friends in a cold world, our raisins d'etc") are living them.
Patrons (known outside of the library world as "people") are regularly doing things without demanding that they are perfect. Exhibit A: "Inept and Satisfied, redux," an article about users of medical libraries (known [you hope!] as "your doctors") often don't find everything they are searching for but report being satisfied with their search results anyway.
There are at least 10 Reasons why the Internet is no replacement for a library (more on this in another post), but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from using the internet.
The internet is broken in many many ways. The one libraries usually jump up and down about is that it doesn't provide authoritative, structured points of access. That's what libraries do with their materials. It's also what we tried to do with the internet, but it got away from us and seems to be coming along just fine without us.
We're busy trying to be the gatekeepers to information, because that's what librarians have been. We've been the ones who could buy more books than you, and we could make you get a little card and charge you 10 cents if you didn't return the book on time.
I'm not a business person at all, but I think our business model is broken. We depend on funding from above (supporting institution or some level of gov't). We offer services that aren't available in other ways. But somehow we feel that offering those services - especially the ones that are most authoritative and structured - exempts us from competition with other services. They're not authoritative or structured enough, so who would want them?
Everyone wants them. Everyone's using them. We better figure out why anyone needs us in this climate.
Being perfect takes too long. I'm sure this applies in all sorts of other areas, but in libraries, it's something that we forget (all too often) at our own peril.
NGC4LIB is a listserv for discussing Next Generation Catalogs, but it creeps into all sorts of unruly topics like the future of libraries. One of the perennial issues discussed there is the idea of doing things right vs. just doing them. Libraries have to take notice of these things because our patrons (read "our only friends in a cold world, our raisins d'etc") are living them.
Patrons (known outside of the library world as "people") are regularly doing things without demanding that they are perfect. Exhibit A: "Inept and Satisfied, redux," an article about users of medical libraries (known [you hope!] as "your doctors") often don't find everything they are searching for but report being satisfied with their search results anyway.
There are at least 10 Reasons why the Internet is no replacement for a library (more on this in another post), but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from using the internet.
The internet is broken in many many ways. The one libraries usually jump up and down about is that it doesn't provide authoritative, structured points of access. That's what libraries do with their materials. It's also what we tried to do with the internet, but it got away from us and seems to be coming along just fine without us.
We're busy trying to be the gatekeepers to information, because that's what librarians have been. We've been the ones who could buy more books than you, and we could make you get a little card and charge you 10 cents if you didn't return the book on time.
I'm not a business person at all, but I think our business model is broken. We depend on funding from above (supporting institution or some level of gov't). We offer services that aren't available in other ways. But somehow we feel that offering those services - especially the ones that are most authoritative and structured - exempts us from competition with other services. They're not authoritative or structured enough, so who would want them?
Everyone wants them. Everyone's using them. We better figure out why anyone needs us in this climate.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Who did what for how many cookies?
There are so many good things going on in the library world (and at least as many bad things). I'll talk about both kinds.
This blog's little sister is http://yourlibrarydata.blogger.com. That site will be the home of some (you guessed it) library data. Let's see where this all goes, ok?
"Who did what for how many cookies?" is something I heard from a friend once. Who knows what it means or where the phrase originated?
Joe M.
This blog's little sister is http://yourlibrarydata.blogger.com. That site will be the home of some (you guessed it) library data. Let's see where this all goes, ok?
"Who did what for how many cookies?" is something I heard from a friend once. Who knows what it means or where the phrase originated?
Joe M.
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