Unfocused Bibliographic Rant

Stringing together a few disparate items and commentaries, somewhat interrelated. Sort of.

Comment to a like-minded colleague...

(Me, then quoting) ...More wisdom from on High at LC:

>"a future for bibliographic control that will be collaborative,

>decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based*change will

>happen quickly, and bibliographic control will be dynamic, not

>static."

Translation: "The Future of Bibliographic control will be one enormous, raging Clusterfuck" (tm).

Or "Bibliographic control??? HAAH! We don't need no steeenking bibliographic control..."

Or "Let them eat wikis..."

then this one; quote first, then comment

-----Original Message-----

From: AUTOCAT On Behalf Of [X]

Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 2:11 AM

To: AUTOCAT

Subject: Re: (reaction to) Letter from Deanna Marcum and Joint Statement on RDA

I ... think it is completely in line with the

excellent recommendation of the Working Group to "Redefine the Bibliographic

Universe" to include all potential partners who create bibliographic

information ("metadata") into this scenario. I would like to point out here

that it is not we who are the ones to define the bibliographic universe,

it's our users who define it. They can now search all kinds of databases

just as easily (or as I have written elsewhere, *more easily*) than our own

databases.

The "bibliographic universe" to an increasing number of people is defined by

Google and Yahoo and not by us. This is an amazing transformation that has

taken place in only the last 10 or 15 years! I can imagine that many

metadata managers (many of them vendors) would much prefer to fit into the

"bibliographic universe" of Google and Yahoo than into the one we proclaim.

I believe that if we are to have a chance to convince these other "metadata

groups" that they need to be included in our own "bibliographic universe,"

these groups must feel as if they have some sort of a say in the situation.

We can't just say to them, "this is what we do, and if you want to cooperate

with us, do as we say, otherwise...!" That is not cooperation.

But I believe that somewhere, somehow a type of agreement could be reached

where we can cooperate to the extent where all can become more productive

and increase quality at the same time. I know that Mike thinks otherwise,

and he has far more experience in these matters than I do, but I fully

confess that I'm a dreamer! Behind these dreams however, is the conviction

that the "bibliographic universe" of our users and that of traditional

library catalogs must begin to merge. Otherwise, our users will opt for

Google/Yahoo, just as they do today.
======================================================

This is a library manager/administrator, too, which is what worries me the most.

He states... "We [libraries] can't just say to them [online content providers, etc], 'this is what we do, and if you want to cooperate with us, do as we say, otherwise...!' "

Actually this is exactly what we should do. The above missive is to me so wrongheaded, based on such a skewed picture...We call it the *Bibliographic* Universe (rather than, I dunno, the "Infoverse") because, much as the techie heads hem and haw, discursive prose books still form the basis of a solid, thoughtful education; That is still very much "our thing" (i.e. Libraries), and Google, et. al. can just suck it, frankly.

The online resources can augment such education, no doubt, and are welcome and have their place...if the so-called "digital natives" want to get "something", "fast", by all means let them Yahoo-it and Google-it to their heart's content. No skin off my back. If they find what they think they need, great, wonderful, glad to hear it. If they eventually get frustrated and realize they need help, we [librarians] will be waiting at the Reference Desk down at the library, like we always have been. We will not dumb down our search tools or degrade the quality of our bibliographic data just for your sake, though we may give you a simplified interface as the default setting.

I realize I'm railing against prevailing, possibly inevitable trends, but prevailing trends seem to be such a gathering dirty snowball of stupid (or teh st00pid as the 'net nerds say) I can hardly help myself.

Names above have been disguised to protect the misguided.

=====================

My like-minded friend also related this to me...

"...Tried to interject Neil Postman into the meeting on the topic of “critical thinking” and was told that the age of the renaissance man was gone and we should only be concerned about knowing what works for our immediate work and personal life; the vocational vs. scholarly argument. The example of understanding “war” was summed up as being completely explained by pictures and “Band of Brothers” as opposed about reading books of sociology, history, anthropology. ….. "

I asked him straight up, "Did you respond appropriately with deep, mocking laughter?"

(rhetorical question—I know the real power relations of his workplace aren’t exactly favorable)

Just because we can’t reasonably know truly “a bit of everything” like the Renaissance men of the 18^th century, it does not therefore follow that we abdicate on understanding at all beyond narrow, instrumental vocational needs…you can still come to understand a great deal. The human mind yearns for understanding once more base needs have been satisfied by the paycheck…

Since when, by the way, was the age of the Renaissance Man repealed? Was that one of the secret provisions of the USA Patriot Act that I missed? I hear they also went and repealed Godwin's Law, too. Must've been the paragraph after that one. Nobody read the damn thing before voting on it anyway...

Anyway, on the social front, I enjoyed hanging out with the UTD Skeptics and UNT-Freethought Alliance End of Semester Bash. Good to meet fellow atheists, agnostics, etc. But also a reminder about Marx declaring something to the effect that that "criticism of religion is the beginning of critical thought"; Freeing oneself of religion is but the first step, but many seem to rest on their laurels after that, as if that was all that need be done, not recognizing powerful cultural myths (often nationalistic), that, though ostensibly secular, hold just as much power over the mind and often stand in, in place of critical consideration of unpleasant facts, wherever such deliberations may lead...

Anyway, I do look forward to their resuming campus activity in the Fall. I'm going to miss that group this summer. I guess I will take up again with the North Texas Church of Freethought, maybe check out some programs with Texas Master Naturalists and Texas Master Gardeners.

I'm definitely looking forward to the ELUNA Conference in Long Beach, California, which will be her very very soon.