libraries as platforms for user-generated content?

Kathryn at Librarians matter poses an interesting question: Should libraries host user-generated content?

My first instinct is to say "of course not; we don't have the resources."

But is that really true? How much would it cost to set up a blogging environment for users, for example? A couple of old PCs? Running Linux, of course, which might incur some costs in terms of staff training. Some staff time to provide maintenance for the machines, generally police the content (if necessary), and provide (minimal) support for users? Bandwidth?

Sure, this might be beyond the means of many smaller libraries, but we're not exactly talking big bucks either. And with many libraries becoming part of large consortia, the costs could be shared with other member libraries.

So no, not impossible at all.

But what benefits could this provide?

Well, the biggest one I can think of is to serve the community: Libraries, and especially public libraries, are at the centre of a web of social and community relationships already. Sure, they're storehouses for books and the like, but that really is the shallowest reason for a library (you may as well pack all the books in boxes and send them to a warehouse if that's all you want out of a library).

Libraries are places where anyone in the community may come in and mingle and socialise (quietly, of course) with other members of the community. They are often places where local history is on display. They represent a physical manifestation of the local culture (microculture?) of a community. They already provide resources for local groups; not just bibliographic materials like books and periodicals and access to databases, but also meeting spaces and other resources. Local history groups and genealogy groups are often based at or run by local libraries.

So why not provide the means for the local communty to express itself through a trusted community web space?

assorted cataloguing bits #1

just a few quick links:

First: Nicole quotes an AutoCat post from Mac Elrod which in turn points to a blog post by Chris which points to the URL for a lecture by Francis Miksa Brian Campbell (phew! long sentence!). It's titled "The Genius of Library Cataloging and its Possible Future." It's in Real Media format and goes for a good 90 minutes.

I haven't listened to it yet, but folk have been talking about it so I should.

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Second: Check out this post by Rory over at Library Juice; I know what I'd be telling that particular student!

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Third: A couple of weeks ago I saw this post over at Chris' Cataloging Futures blog, which included the question

How much interest is there from publishers and book vendors in the area of metadata creation?

Now there's this study bit of work done by Karen Coyle; Titles in retail and publisher data. It's not a study, as Karen herself says, and

the numbers should be considered valid only for this particular set of data,

but it's a measured, thoughtful look at how various 'bits' of data are handled by library folk and by retailers/publishers. I agree that we have to do a lot more study on how other people in the bibliographic world use/create/share their metadata, and how we as cataloguers can use/reuse/share that metadata. Unfortunately most evidence we have on the topic is anecdotal. And anectotal evidence depends on individual experiences. As one of my old teachers used to say,

one person's opinion is no damned good.

Which is why we have an armed camp of folk who say that we can only ever trust metadata we produce ourselves because only we understand the metadata structures we use, and another armed camp of folk who say that we can simply import our metadata from elsewhere, and that anyone in the first armed camp is simply

"wishing for the return of the golden age of cataloging,"

whenever and whatever that was.

Not good, people. As much as I hate the word "progress" (whenever I hear people invoke "Progress" it mostly seems to imply a White Male Utopian idea of what the future should hold) that is exactly what we need. It's no good burying our collective heads in the sand and saying "we control our metadata," but it is just as bad to say "you're just burying your heads in the sand" and leave it at that. Study. Investigate. Theorise all you want. But produce results. Don't rely on anecdote and opinion and theory itself. Test your theories. And don't denigrate folk who are simply trying to do the best they can with the metadata that's available now, not five years from now.

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Okay. I've calmed down some now.

Four: Chris posts about

the seemingly contentious section 4.2, "Realization of FRBR."

She points to an article that quotes a JSC study on FRBR Group 1 entities (here).

Really, I don't see why this should be a contentious issue at all. I'm a big fan of FRBR, but it is far from perfect (how does it deal with serials? how does it deal with losely-grouped works such as Arthurian Romances, or the Dead Sea Scrolls?). Now, this may well be anal of me, but if we're building a standard that will suit our bibliographic metadata needs for the next (say) 20 years, shouldn't we get right as much as possible right at the outset? Or do we want major reviews every 2 years or so? I'm sure that would keep certain folk employed in the longish term, but how does that help the rest of us?

Measure twice cut once, I always say.

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Finally, this one's from Chris again: She's posted about the LC Working Group.... report, with links to the text of the report and how to send in comments, but remember

The deadline for submitting comments is December 15th.

so be quick.

Bigger? no. Better, who knows?

There's been a lot of interest lately in smaller computer systems, tailored to one purpose or another, rather than the make-it-bigger, make-it-faster, generic systems we've come to expect.

I'm thinking in particular about projects like One Laptop Per Child, and systems like the Asus EEE PC (which I'm seriously considering for myself!) or the Aleutia E1.

Maybe we're heading away from the how-much-can-I-do-with-a-computer mentality and towards what-do-I-need-a-computer-for? Needs-based computing?

WARNING! WARNING!

Just a heads up; it's possible very likely that I'll be posting less and less from now on; I'm not sure whether I'll be able to fit sleep, assorted geeky stuff (like upgrading my home machine to
Fedora Core 8), eating, procrastination, romance, and blogging into my schedule, so apologies in advance.

"The greatest living Englishman?"

For some reason I just love reading Stephen Fry. And recently he's been blogging about techy-type thangs (iPhones, portable music players, etc). Sure, he's one of them (a Mac user; sure OSX is based on FreeBSD, but it's not the same), but he's still okay in my book.

Anyhoo, Fry poses the question "Is Tim Berners-Lee the greatest living Englishman?" Me, I don't know about that, but I think he's pretty damned cool.