If this isn't a hot topic for AALL, I don't know what is.
________________________________
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf
Of Edrington, Dru
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 2:53 PM
To: Michael Ginsborg; law-lib
Cc: AUTOCAT
Subject: RE: "What is Going On At the Library of Congress?" by Dr. Thomas
Mann, author of the Oxford Guide to Library Research (3d ed., 2005): the
impending loss of LC subject access to books?
I'm glad to see this getting some attention someplace else other than the
cataloging listservs. Dr. Mann expresses this much more eloquently, however
IMNSHO, management would have to be near brain dead even to contemplate these
changes. We are moving closer to a society where only the very rich and
perhaps the very scholarly will have appropriate access to information, and
what's worse, those who do not have access will not even be cognizant of that
fact. This will only serve to further widen the bridge between the haves and
the have-nots.
Dru Edrington
Librarian IV
Public Utility Commission
PO Box 13326
Austin, TX 78711-3326
512-936-7075
________________________________
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf
Of Michael Ginsborg
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 12:07 PM
To: law-lib
Subject: "What is Going On At the Library of Congress?" by Dr. Thomas Mann,
author of the Oxford Guide to Library Research (3d ed., 2005): the impending
loss of LC subject access to books?
Thomas Mann is a reference librarian in the Humanities & Social Sciences
Division of the Library of Congress (LC). He is also author of the Oxford
Guide to Library Research (3d ed., 2005). He has written two essays entitled,
"What is Going On At the Library of Conress?"
(http://www.guild2910.org/AFSCMEWhatIsGoingOn.pdf). His second paper on the
subject, and other related articles, can be found at
http://www.guild2910.org/future.htm <http://www.guild2910.org/future.htm> .
In the first of these, he presents compelling evidence that, with the
development of Amazon and Google Books, LC's management thinks
(1) it is no longer necessary to maintain LC subject headings (in an online
catalog not merged with Google);
(2) it is no longer necessary to shelve books in subject-classified order,
according to the LC Classification system; and
(3) it is no longer necessary for research libraries to keep duplicate copies
of current books when they can use warehouses instead.
He distinguishes between "general browsing," to see what is available on a
subject, and "focused searching," to identify specific facts or ideas for
scholarship. Google Books aids general browsing, or "information seeking";
LC's system of subject access aids scholarship or any sustained inquiry on a
subject. Because LC's management is preparing to dismantle LC's
subject-access system, he concludes that "the national library of the United
States is giving away the birthright of American scholars for a mess of
Internet pottage."
His findings have additional evidence in the assumptions of LC's Working
Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control
(http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/) See the Work Group's background
paper on "Users and Uses of Bibliographic Data," at
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/meetings/docs/UsersandUsesBackgroundP
aper.pdf, favorably citing research that "that users do not need to know
controlled vocabularies to conduct a successful search, there is enough
content made available for an initial relevancy decision, and navigation
between the search results and the desired resource is simple and
fulfilling."
The issues Thomas Mann has raised merit our examination and collective
concern, not just because LC's initiatives have troubling implications even
for non-research libraries, but because they challenge the very principles of
librarianship. And I doubt that anyone would make the mistake of reducing
Mann's position to a conflict between LC's union employees and LC's
management, even if anyone also thought that such conflicts involved values
of no wider consequence to the public.
(I am expressing just my own professional view here, without affiliation.)
<http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash>
____________________________________________
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:46:52 PST