Sacred Cow #3: Migration
Posted On Aug 24 2008Though I heard it in a much different context once, I like to apply something from religion to the world of libraries (don’t worry). Preparing the congregation for a “radical change,” a senior pastor told his flock: “There’s a difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘traditionalism’.” Tradition is what we do all the time and for some good reason. Traditionalism is what we do all the time but we can no longer recall the reason. I think libraries excel at traditionalism, and I have been giving quite a bit of thought to the processes we use to perpetuate it. In the first …
Sacred Cow #2
Posted On Aug 7 2008Sorry for the long gap between cows…I had some technical difficulties that were making it hard for me to blog. On with it… I’ve been thinking about one of the most bloated sacred cows in library management systems. No, not the MARC record–I’ll leave that one to others. I’m talking about Circulation Rules. It’s become almost cliche to compare what we do in libraries (and this accusation is pointed primarily at academic libraries) to a typical commercial customer service. Picture me at the Blockbuster checkout desk. Me: Hi, I’m visiting here for the next six months and was wondering if …
Sacred Cow #1
Posted On Jul 16 2008You’ve likely already heard that OCLC has released a new report on library advocacy. But today, I’m wishing that the previous one had gotten more attention from the library community. Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World got some serious attention from the social networking cliques, but I was really hoping that it would open the dialog about privacy expectations some more. I attended a lecture on privacy at NCSU once where the speaker mentioned that we are living in a climate where most undergraduates would trade a DNA sample for an Extra Value Meal. A nice throw-away line, …