[WEB4LIB] Seeing ourselves as others see us

[K.G. Schneider]

> done in real libraries. The physical book, the hushed tones, the
> monastic dedication, and (unspoken) the barriers to use, these are all
> essential characteristics of the academy today."
> 
> Interesting reading: http://tinyurl.com/5nazp

In fairness to Shirky's assessment, no less than the president-elect of ALA
published an editorial about Google Print in the LA Times that struck me as
bobble-headed to the nth degree. Among other comments, he wrote:

"The nub of the matter lies in the distinction between information (data,
facts, images, quotes and brief texts that can be used out of context) and
recorded knowledge (the cumulative exposition found in scholarly and
literary texts and in popular nonfiction). When it comes to information, a
snippet from Page 142 might be useful. When it comes to recorded knowledge,
a snippet from Page 142 must be understood in the light of pages 1 through
141, or the text was not worth writing and publishing in the first place."

And so on and so forth. I'm not suggesting that Google Print doesn't have
its issues and anomalies, but I felt it was remarkably short-sighted to say
that Google Print wasn't "useful" because, in essence, books are only useful
if they are accessible in predetermined dead-tree format blobs (i.e.,
books). Most of the editorial struck me as last-gen, hoity-toity word
pudding that pandered to the anti-technology crowd more than it provided any
meaningful critiques of Google Print. What we needed was some lively,
intelligent insights into the nexus of libraries and Google, but this
editorial simply confirmed what everyone, such as Shirky, "knows" about
libraries these days, even though major libraries are collaborating with
Google on this project. 

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com