News Items for _Journal of Internet Cataloging_

[Tom Tipsword]

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.   

Time for a paradigm shift!!

TNT

  
Tom Tipsword  
Systems Manager, Hunt Memorial Library      vox:  904-226-6601 
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University        fax:  904-226-6368
Daytona Beach, FL 32114

http://amelia.db.erau.edu/~tom/     tom at wilbur.db.erau.edu

"I just tell the stories.  You interpret them as you wish." -- Oliver Sacks.