[Web4lib] Re: Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-less Arizona public library

[B.G. Sloan]

I've been following this thread with a lot of interest. I'd originally just passed it along as an FYI, but it seems like it's taken on a life of its own.

Two reactions to the discussion:

1. Several people have taken issue with the use of the word "innovation", i.e., trying to dismiss the Arizona experiment by saying it's not an innovation. I think the experiment qualifies as an incremental innovation, building on something used for another purpose...taking a bookstore collection organization model and applying it to a library. Using BISAC (or other schemes not used in a library) to organize a bookstore collection is not an innovation, but trying it out in a library setting is an incremental innovation.

2. I don't understand the big outcry against this project in some quarters. I think we should encourage people to experiment like this. They may fail, but everyone might learn by their failure. And they might well come up with a model that would offer an improvement in customer service for some sectors of the library world.

Bernie Sloan

"B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote: 
There was a discussion of innovation on this list recently...

I think the Dewey-less public library branch in Gilbert Arizona might have been mentioned during the innovation discussion, but I wanted to point out an article from yesterday's (July 14) NY Times. It's listed as the fourth most e-mailed article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/14dewey.html 

Librarians in general seem to come off as fuddy-duddies resistant to change and innovation, e.g., "On Web sites where librarians frequently post, the abandonment of Dewey has not been welcome. One blogger titled her entry 'Heresy!' Another called the Perry Branch’s approach 'idiotic.'"

Bernie Sloan
        

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