[WEB4LIB] WEB4LIB digest 1659

[Helga Arlington]

The kitchen junk drawer is slightly off as a metaphor for the Internet too,
as the owner originally assembled the collection in it, and will recognise
all of the pieces retrieved - and will have at least half of an idea what
should or might be there. Even the world's collective junk drawer doesn't
really work, as that drawer isn't usually where you put treasures, only the
things you are not quite sure where else to put! 

Maybe we have to fact the fact that we can't have a metaphor from the past -
the idea of so much material, written or photographed or recorded for so
many purposes, at so many levels of quality, being able to be retrieved from
one's home PC - is not analogous with anything we have ever known. Being
able to speak to anyone else in the world who had a telephone must have been
a similarly mind-shifting experience - but that developed over long years.
Likewise writing and having it reproduced by printing - and so speaking to
the world. That the web has introduced the new paradigm so rapidly is what
leaves us reaching for metaphors.....
Regards
Helga

Helga Arlington
Librarian
Auckland District Law Society
PO Box 58 / DX CP 10024
AUCKLAND, New Zealand

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	web4lib at webjunction.org [SMTP:web4lib at webjunction.org]
> Sent:	Monday, December 13, 1999 7:11 AM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	[WEB4LIB] WEB4LIB digest 1659
> 
> 			    WEB4LIB Digest 1659
> 
> Topics covered in this issue include:
> 
>   1) Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> 	by Jane Neale <nealej at nylink.suny.edu>
>   2) Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> 	by "Nancy Sosna Bohm" <plum at ulink.net>
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Topic No. 1
> 
> Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 18:16:04 -0500
> From: Jane Neale <nealej at nylink.suny.edu>
> To: "'Multiple recipients of list'" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Subject: Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> Message-ID:
> <B44596D41CECD11194C80060081C26871EB7C3 at libmail.sysadm.suny.edu>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain;
> 	charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi,
> 
> For years I have used the "kitchen junk drawer" as the metaphor I use to
> describe the Internet and now web, how it is organized, and how useful the
> stuff is that one can find there. My kitchen junk drawer has lots of good
> useful stuff, mixed in with lots of useless stuff that I have no need for
> but I have kept anyway, just in case! It is not well organized. Things in
> that drawer get out of date, redundant and obsolete... When I rummage
> around
> in there to look for something, I often find something entirely different
> that is of interest..... When I pull out one item, it sometimes drags
> other
> items with it, because they are intertwined..... and so on. I think it is
> a
> great metaphor.
> 
> Jane
> 
> ___________________________________________________________
> 
> Jane C. Neale
> Information Technology Coordinator
> Nylink
> State University Plaza
> Albany, NY 12246
> e-mail: nealej at nylink.suny.edu <mailto:nealej at libmail.sysadm.suny.edu> 
> T (800) 342-3353
> F (518) 432-4346
> 
> Nylink was founded in 1973 as the SUNY/OCLC Network 
> _____________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Roy Tennant [SMTP:rtennant at library.berkeley.edu]
> Sent:	Friday, December 10, 1999 1:07 PM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> 
> I'm surprised that no one has yet taken this metaphor to task. The
> Internet is nothing like a library -- not even one with all the books on
> the floor or one that has been vandalized. I think I hardly need to
> explain what I mean to this crowd. So I'm surprised that some of us feel
> like using this metaphor when it is insulting to all that libraries are.
> How about "Doing research on the Web is like asking people randomly on the
> street." Now *that's* more like it.
> Roy
> 
> On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Brian Smith wrote:
> 
> > >Here's one that appeared in someone's signature:
> > >
> > >
> > >Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled
> > >piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."  -- Roger Ebert
> > 
> > I used that in my sig for a while.  It's from Ebert's "Critical Eye"
> column
> > in the Sept. 1998 issue of _Yahoo! Internet Life_, p. 66.
> > 
> > Brian Smith
> > Assistant Head of Adult Services
> > Villa Park (IL) Public Library
> > http://www.villapark.lib.il.us/
> > bsmith at linc.lib.il.us
> > .. But writing only on my own behalf
> > ===========
> > "If you didn't want them to think, you shouldn't have 
> > given them library cards." -- _Getting Straight_ (1970)
> > 
> > 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Topic No. 2
> 
> Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 23:50:21 -0800
> From: "Nancy Sosna Bohm" <plum at ulink.net>
> To: <nealej at nylink.suny.edu>,
> Subject: Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> Message-ID: <002c01bf4475$8adc0280$8b14a0d1 at ycxfssto>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain;
> 	charset="iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> 
> Perhaps someone will be able to put together stats on a correlation
> between
> Internet users who have junk drawers and their likelihood to use the Web
> to
> find information.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jane Neale <nealej at nylink.suny.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Sent: Saturday, December 11, 1999 3:21 PM
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> 
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > For years I have used the "kitchen junk drawer" as the metaphor I use to
> > describe the Internet and now web, how it is organized, and how useful
> the
> > stuff is that one can find there. My kitchen junk drawer has lots of
> good
> > useful stuff, mixed in with lots of useless stuff that I have no need
> for
> > but I have kept anyway, just in case! It is not well organized. Things
> in
> > that drawer get out of date, redundant and obsolete... When I rummage
> around
> > in there to look for something, I often find something entirely
> different
> > that is of interest..... When I pull out one item, it sometimes drags
> other
> > items with it, because they are intertwined..... and so on. I think it
> is
> a
> > great metaphor.
> >
> > Jane
> >
> > ___________________________________________________________
> >
> > Jane C. Neale
> > Information Technology Coordinator
> > Nylink
> > State University Plaza
> > Albany, NY 12246
> > e-mail: nealej at nylink.suny.edu <mailto:nealej at libmail.sysadm.suny.edu>
> > T (800) 342-3353
> > F (518) 432-4346
> >
> > Nylink was founded in 1973 as the SUNY/OCLC Network
> > _____________________________________________________________
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Roy Tennant [SMTP:rtennant at library.berkeley.edu]
> > Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 1:07 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list
> > Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
> >
> > I'm surprised that no one has yet taken this metaphor to task. The
> > Internet is nothing like a library -- not even one with all the books on
> > the floor or one that has been vandalized. I think I hardly need to
> > explain what I mean to this crowd. So I'm surprised that some of us feel
> > like using this metaphor when it is insulting to all that libraries are.
> > How about "Doing research on the Web is like asking people randomly on
> the
> > street." Now *that's* more like it.
> > Roy
> >
> > On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Brian Smith wrote:
> >
> > > >Here's one that appeared in someone's signature:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled
> > > >piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."  -- Roger Ebert
> > >
> > > I used that in my sig for a while.  It's from Ebert's "Critical Eye"
> > column
> > > in the Sept. 1998 issue of _Yahoo! Internet Life_, p. 66.
> > >
> > > Brian Smith
> > > Assistant Head of Adult Services
> > > Villa Park (IL) Public Library
> > > http://www.villapark.lib.il.us/
> > > bsmith at linc.lib.il.us
> > > .. But writing only on my own behalf
> > > ===========
> > > "If you didn't want them to think, you shouldn't have
> > > given them library cards." -- _Getting Straight_ (1970)
> > >
> > >
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> End of WEB4LIB Digest 1659
> **************************