[Web4lib] The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate?

[K.G. Schneider]

> Also, the logic is very flawed in saying "if it's hung around this
> long, it must be doing something right!".  Our systems are built
> around the preservation and transport of the MARC record; this doesn't
> mean that the format is superior, it only means that the
> infrastructure in place supports it and nothing else.  The fact that
> libraries handed over stewardship of the infrastructure to the vendors
> has ensured that the status quo will remain.  It's not in the
> financial best interest of the vendors to change and it's not feasible
> for the libraries to take on an endeavor that would be incompatible
> with all of the services and systems they use daily.

This is an eerie echo of the posts to PUBLIB that seriously dissed Maricopa
County's experiment to use BISAC headings in place of Dewey in its new Perry
Branch, something else discussed at the "innovation" thing (which despite
that LITA blog post did not really feature me repeating "You whippersnappers
need to innovate cuz us old'ns are too senile to handle new ideas"). 

Joe, Stephen, and I were on the page about how incredibly wrong it was to
argue that because something had worked in the past, it does not need to be
replaced. (Then there are questions about just how well Dewey has worked in
the past, but never mind.) Plus how crazy it is for librarians to be dissing
a library's experiment before it has even started... an experiment that
arose from repeated user input, and has yet to receive a single complaint
from the public. And we wonder why librarians don't innovate as much as they
should?!

Oh, and several times I mentioned Umlaut by Ross as an example of
innovation. 

Karen G. "not dead yet" Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com