News Items for _Journal of Internet Cataloging_

[Anne Callery]

On Friday, 1 Nov 1996, Tom Tipsword <TOM at wilbur.db.erau.edu> wrote:

> Gerry McKiernan writes:
> 
> >      As always, any and all suggestions, recommendations, or
> > candidates will be very much appreciated.
> 
> My suggestion would be to scrap both the journal and the whole idea 
> of cataloging the Internet.   Even if the  concept of bibliographic 
> control of the ever changing Internet wasn't a close cousin of trying to 
> nail Jello (tm) to a tree, applying the constraints of the MARC format 
> and cataloging rules to all the infinitely varied things on the 'net 
> is so limiting it boggles the mind.
> 
> When you think about how much time we spend seriously (!) discussing 
> things like cataloging the Internet, it's no wonder that librarians have the sort 
> of image that leads to stuff like the Packard Bell commercial which has been the 
> cause of so much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately.   Seriously, have you 
> ever heard anyone who wasn't a librarian demand that catalogers come in 
> and straighten out this messy Internet thing?
> 
> Come on folks, show a little imagination.   Melville Dewey is dead.  We 
> don't have to look at this brave and beautiful new electronic world with 
> his 19th century point of view.   

I don't know, but this might be a rather hasty judgment of the journal, 
considering that the first issue hasn't even come out yet.  The upcoming 
issue is supposed to contain an article by a colleague and me on the 
topic of how Yahoo! catalogs the web.  If you've seen Yahoo!, you 
probably know it's not exactly Dewey.

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Anne Callery                  Yahoo!                 anne at yahoo.com
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