Subject: [NGC4LIB] Gutenberg 2.0: Harvard’s libraries deal with disruptive change

From: "B.G. Sloan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:51:02 -0700

From the May-June issue of Harvard Magazine:
 
http://bit.ly/c4m1cy
 
An excerpt:
 
"Increasingly, in the scientific disciplines, information ranging from online journals to databases must be recent to be relevant, so Widener’s collection of books, its miles of stacks, can appear museum-like. Likewise, Google’s massive project to digitize all the books in the world will, by some accounts, cause research libraries to fade to irrelevance as mere warehouses for printed material. The skills that librarians have traditionally possessed seem devalued by the power of online search, and less sexy than a Google query launched from a mobile platform."
 
Bernie Sloan

---

From: "Jacobs, Jane W" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:02:44 -0400

Excellent article!  I found it very thoughtful and helpful.

Particularly interesting is the problem highlighted about medical
students:

"Even at Harvard," where "we spend millions of dollars" annually for
access to the databases, "many of the medical staff, graduate students,
and residents don't know how to use...," he pauses. "Well, it's worse
than that. They don't know that they exist."

A chilling thought as one spends one's healthcare dollars, and also a
good example of where most of us would agree that "good enough" isn't.
But interesting it's not, apparently, access, or even data quality
that's the problem, it's education/publicity and marketing!  

Also interesting is that, at some level, the catalog, at Harvard, at
least, IS doing it's job:

"Originally, the HD [offsite] was intended to store only low-circulation
items. But because the libraries of the Cambridge campus are "full to
bursting," says Pforzheimer University Professor Robert Darnton, the
director of the Harvard University library, "doing triage" on thousands
of little-used books from the shelves each year to make room for new
ones proved impractical. Now, most new books are simply sent to the HD.
Although some professors lament the death of shelf-browsing, others are
grateful when a book they love is sent off, because they know that when
next they want it, not only will it be found, it will be
well-preserved."

Obviously people are discovering and requesting titles, old and new, via
the catalog.  Could they be finding better resources with more
precision?  Probably, but seems to me that that is the question, not
could they have racked up more hits. Obviously if Google has digitized a
title most will access it from there. But even if Google has its way
with digitizing out of print books, new books and non-print materials
(and that would include new electronic texts) will, almost not certainly
be available there (at least not for free), and hence will still have to
be accessed through a library and very often a catalog.  That makes the
case for precision in cataloging.

JJ  

**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**

Jane Jacobs

Asst. Coord., Catalog Division

Queens Borough Public Library

89-11 Merrick Blvd.

Jamaica, NY 11432

tel.: (718) 990-0804

e-mail: [email-masked]

FAX. (718) 990-8566

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From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 11:51 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Gutenberg 2.0: Harvard's libraries deal with disruptive change

http://bit.ly/c4m1cy

An excerpt:

"Increasingly, in the scientific disciplines, information ranging from
online journals to databases must be recent to be relevant, so Widener's
collection of books, its miles of stacks, can appear museum-like.
Likewise, Google's massive project to digitize all the books in the
world will, by some accounts, cause research libraries to fade to
irrelevance as mere warehouses for printed material. The skills that
librarians have traditionally possessed seem devalued by the power of
online search, and less sexy than a Google query launched from a mobile
platform."

Bernie Sloan