[Publib] Trackball Abductions

[Robert Balliot]

That depends.  The internet can be a servant to librarians. It is relatively
easy to control and manipulate your own material.  The fact that many have
left it to vendors to develop library resources creates the paradox of
librarian as servant to the internet.  Want a web site?  Don't bother to
learn how and contract it out.  Want a catalog?  Same thing.  Want a
database?  Buy it.

In another discussion, one of the LDs  advocated that librarians could be
cataloging the internet using rational standardized taxonomies, rather than
relying on wag-the-dog folksonomies.  It certainly makes sense to me that if
librarians agressively pursued comprehensive cataloging, they would
effectively control directory searches and quality of search.  With LC
integrated with metadata, there is a fantastic potential of using the
internet to conduct controlled research along with fruitful, serendipitous
browsing.


R. Balliot
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com




On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 12:31 PM, <Backwage at aol.com> wrote:

>
> The librarian is now a servant to the Internet; is that not so?  Librarians
> relate to the internet as firemen to a furnace:  mere stokers.  Fix the
> thing; explain the thing; help others with the thing.  The internet is a
> thing as often in "broke" as in "run" mode.  A waste of time.  A
> diversion.  There are better and lower books, but the internet has no
> "classical" mode, no accepted or acceptable canon.  It is supposed to be a
> gateway to the world--and it is, depending on which world you are looking
> for.  The library used to be a gateway to the *better *world.  Now we give
> 'em all the trash they want.
>
>
> With much love,
>
> A Patron
>
> P.S.  you can have the trackballs back if you replace the lost volumes of
> the *Britannica.*
>
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>
>
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