“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh.” Happy 25th! Saturday, January 24, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Computers, Culture.add a comment
I first saw the original Apple Macintosh computer in 1984 at the Team Electronics store in Duluth, Minnesota. I was blown away! It was so “uncomputer-like.” The compact form-factor, and the use of a mouse input device was very unique. But it was especially that black-on-white graphical display that held me mesmerized. It was like watching TV! I knew I wanted one. But since my wife and I lived pretty much hand-to-mouth at the time, I was not in the position to buy.
That moment would have to wait for roughly three years. It was 1987, and my wife and I were then living in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada. Swift Current was a town of about 15,000. If you can believe it, they had a computer store—one that sold Apple computers. That I would purchase a Mac was all but assured by a very clever sales strategy—the owner let me take one home for the weekend! I had to take out a loan (about $3,500 Canadian!), but I made the purchase—a 512Ke with an ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer. It’s been Macs for me ever since!
Here is a great blog site run by Andy Hertzfeld called Folklore.org. Andy was one of the principal members of the original Mac developer team. The blog is a collection of stories surrounding the creation of the Macintosh computer, and served as the basis of his book Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made (O’Reilly, 2004).
I’ve become a “helicopter parent,” but I hope I don’t “hover” that much Thursday, January 22, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Culture, Information Literacy, Library Services.1 comment so far
My wife and I sent our oldest daughter off to college this fall. She isn’t our first child to go to college, but she is the first to go to a college that is a very long day’s drive away from home. After that initial bout of homesickness, she’s been doing OK—great actually. She is engaged with a positive and supportive group of friends from her dorm and the dance program. She is being challenged academically, she studies hard, and it is showing in her grades. It’s especially heartening for me, the librarian dad, to have her report that she also spends a lot of time studying in the library!
Practically born with a mouse (a computer mouse) in her hand, my daughter is part of a generational group called “Millennials,” also known as “digital natives” or the “Net Generation” from the standpoint of “from day one” familiarity with and use of computer and network technology. All my children grew up with computers and Internet access in the home. We started with an Apple Macintosh 512ke back in 1987, and first got “connected” to the Internet with a 14.4Kbit dial-up modem in 1994. (Incidentally, I recall that in 1994 Yahoo! was little more than a running list of web page links. The “search engine” we all take for granted had not yet been invented, and Google did not yet exist.) When we first went with broadband “high speed Internet access” around 2000, it was such a great experience for everyone that I could actually feign threats of a return to dial-up if the kids were misbehaving!
I have read a fair amount of the literature to prepare our library to respond to how “Net Geners” are inclined to interact with libraries and the larger information environment over the course of their college career. Two especially good treatments I read last year included: Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester, edited by Nancy Fried Foster and Susan Gibbons (ACRL, 2007), and Susan Gibbons’ related The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student (ALA, 2007). In describing Millennial or Net Generation students, the University of Rochester study observed characteristics in their own students echoing the larger literature (e.g., the now classic study of Neil Howe and William Strauss, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation [Vintage, 2000]), including the observation that
“Our students seem to be much more in touch with their parents than in previous generations,… The University of Rochester students we studied mentioned a great deal of communication with their parents as well as parental involvement in their research papers, such as in the search for a topic or in proofreading drafts. Several mentioned communicating with their parents via instant messaging. Clearly, and somewhat to our surprise, these students maintain quite close ties back home” (65-66).
The explanation offered for this close parent-child relationship is that Baby Boom parents have tended to shelter their children more than they themselves were sheltered, reflected in changing American cultural attitudes toward children, and rising concerns about child safety. The study continues
“Some Boomers even want colleges to return to in loco parentis [serving as substitute parents]. These attitudes have given rise to what is now referred to as the ‘helicopter parent,’ who hovers over a child’s college experience, trying to exert as much control as possible and generally interfering in even the smallest details of the student’s life” (66).
In her treatment, Susan Gibbons refers to a 2006 College Parents of America survey revealing that “81.6% of parents rated their level of involvement with their college-bound children to be either ‘more involved’ or ‘much more involved’ than they experienced when in college” (77). This high level of involvement is facilitated by now common communication technologies such as cell phones, email, and instant messaging.
I read all this last year with considerable interest, intent on making the appropriate connections with my library context. But I was otherwise personally detached from this experience. I was even inclined to disparage this description of parents who “hover” over their child’s life in college. All that changed this year, now that my daughter is in college. It seems I’ve now become a “helicopter parent.”
I’ve become a “helicopter parent,” but I hope I don’t “hover” that much. I concur that my wife and I are more involved with our daughter’s college experience than our parents were involved with us. But I would like to think that my wife and I are not seeking to control or interfere in our daughter’s college life. Yes, we sent her off with a cell phone, and we have our IM clients open whenever we’re at our computers. We’re all on Facebook, and we even have webcams for periodic video chatting. We want to communicate that we are supportive of and available to our daughter if she needs or wants to connect with us. We are thankful for the technology that facilitates this connection.
I would echo from our own recent experience what was observed in the University of Rochester study. Although there is a writing center on campus, and our daughter has made use of this service more than once, she prefers and routinely solicits our involvement in topic development and proofreading of her writing assignments and research papers.
My daughter’s experience has led me to consider with greater personal interest the approach taken by the libraries at the University of Rochester to the helicopter parent. The tone of the study document excerpted above seems to communicate that they were perhaps put-off by the level of parental “interference.” But the study was a learning experience for the library organization, too. The tone had changed in what Susan Gibbons subsequently relates in her book. In 2006, the libraries revamped their freshmen orientation activities, and instead of trying to get a message across to distracted and overwhelmed in-coming students, they actually decided to focus on the parents.
“While conversing with [parents] the librarians delivered a simple, concise message: ‘Every class has a librarian.’ If the parents retain that message, when their son or daughter calls home for advice and help on a class assignment, perhaps they will suggest that their child make contact with the librarians” (15).
This is a great idea—to simultaneously reassure parents and encourage them to advocate for the library and librarians with their children. I suppose that as an academic librarian it is natural that I should already be doing this with my daughter. But again, I’m seeing this whole dynamic in a new light now that I am personally (and not merely professionally) involved. My wife and I bring a fairly high level of educational experience that may not be shared by all parents of college students. But this makes me wonder if librarians might extend their advocacy and strengthen their collaboration through the development of a program of information literacy instruction for parents. What might it mean to give added tools to parents when their children call home for help? Hmm, let me give this some further thought.
Plato, the invention of writing, and the e-book Monday, January 19, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Culture, Information Literacy, Nature of Information, e-Books.add a comment
The following is a two-part email I sent to my good friend and colleague (he is chair of the faculty Library Committee) on March 27 and 29, 2006, after he sent me an editorial written by Edward Tenner in The New York Times, entitled “Searching for Dummies” (March 26, 2006). My friend is a history professor and an avid bibliophile. Though he has largely “come around” to my way of thinking regarding the benefits of electronic delivery of journal literature, he is far more resistive when it comes to surrendering the marvelous technology expressed as the printed book. He knows he has been socialized into this preference, but insists that a full embrace of computer and electronic information resource technology is damaging his students’ capacity to think through complex ideas in a sustained and deep way. I retort that our task should not be rejection of the technology but the instruction into its proper use, and building an awareness (understanding) both of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge. In my argument I drew an analogy from another ancient technology—writing itself.
Greetings. Further to our on-going conversation (print vs. electronic information resources), here is an interesting excerpt from Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates tells a story of the Egyptian god Theuth, the inventor of, among other things, writing. I have not read the full piece, but it is interesting here to see Plato’s critique of the losses sustained by writing (and reading) as a new technology over oral culture and true memory.
At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters [grammata=writing]. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. Theuth came to him and showed his inventions [technas, "arts"], desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them. Thamus enquired about their several uses, and as Theuth enumerated them, Thamus praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts [technai]. But when they came to letters [grammata], Theuth said, “This invention, O King, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; I have discovered a remedy [pharmakon: potion, medicine, drug] both for the memory and for wisdom.” Thamus replied: “O most ingenious [technikotate] Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a power opposite to that which they in fact possess. For this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memories, but, trusting in external, foreign marks [graphes], they will not bring things to remembrance from within themselves. You have discovered a remedy [pharmakon] not for memory, but for reminding. You offer your students the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom. They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”
This is all very ironic in view of our conversation. We long ago adopted the writing technology of Theuth. We frankly no longer know what we lost through its adoption, since we have lived under its ideological assumptions for so long. Neil Postman, in his book Technolopy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Vintage, 1992) alludes to this story in rightly claiming the non-neutral and ideological function of every technology and technological adoption.
I have contended in our conversation that print books are every bit as much a technological invention of information transmission, and laden with ideology, as any book in electronic format. Postman urges caution, in deference to your concerns. I am not insensitive to these, of course. I am no heedless technophile any more than you are a heedless technophobe. My real point is offered by Postman where he writes: “[Thamus] would allow, I imagine, that a technology may be barred entry to a culture…But…once a technology is admitted, it plays out its hand; it does what it is designed to do. Our task is to understand what that design is—that is to say, when we admit a new technology to the culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open.” (p. 7, emphasis added)
For good or ill, electronic information technology has been admitted into our culture. Since this technology has become proliferated into every facet of our students’ lives, it no longer makes sense to bar it here at Milligan College Library as some well-meaning bulwark against the flood. That is the surest recipe for irrelevance. Yes, we can and should keep the books around and in plain sight as an act of ideological subversion. But I believe our mandate now is to fight, not by insisting that our students use the books, but by building understanding instead of heedlessness. This is the instructional role of a comprehensive program of information literacy. Data is not information; information is not knowledge; and knowledge is not yet wisdom. Wisdom comes through passionate, responsible (ethical), critical (discerning) and mature use of information, and the organization of information that forms into structures of knowledge. This, it seems to me, has always been our task. Only now we can’t take anything for granted.
* * *
Plato, by having Socrates tell this story, is engaging in a form of rhetoric. Everything here is inescapably in written form! But for Plato this is also a concession and (what we are calling “ironic” in our current conversation) really a paradox. Plato writes to critique writing! But not all writing, as not all speech, is of equal value. For Plato, writing that preserves the living dialogical (mind-to-mind conversational) nature of true human (philosophical) knowledge, and which asks more questions than it answers, is the best. Incidentally, much of Plato’s writing is construed as dialogue between great philosophical minds. But he would say that even his writing is a concession, if only because of the inherent limitations of written communication. [See Robin Waterfield’s excellent commentary on this in the section of his Introduction to Plato’s Phaedrus (Oxford World's Classics, 2002) entitled, “Dialectic and the Weakness of Writing,” pages xxxvii-xlii.]
My original allusion to this story, and giving it out as ironic, is a technical (pun intended!) misuse of Plato’s intention. But my warrant for it (as also picked-up by Neil Postman) is that Theuth is said to have invented writing. As such, writing is unmistakably recognized as a technology. As a tool, technology requires instruction for its proper use, and (because it is not value neutral) requires an awareness (understanding) of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge.
I think this is really the point of Plato’s critique. I imagine Plato would prefer not to use writing in human discourse because of its inherent limitations. But paradoxically, he has no choice to use writing if he wants his ideas disseminated and preserved (for reminding, not for true memory, as Thamus notes!). So, given the inherent limitations of writing, he must instruct his readers (in the guise of the highly-esteemed Socrates) into an awareness through critique of how this technology functions, and what is the most profitable writing form—the form that best preserves dialogical nature of human knowledge.
By analogy, you (and I) have come to view the writing of and reading from printed books as the best form for preserving and engaging the accumulated ideas of human knowledge. (You may quibble on my wording, but the basic gist is there, right?) We honestly believe and assume that a living conversation is still preserved within those pages for fresh engagement. We are no longer troubled by Plato’s concerns because we have come to view the book as a most acceptable means of disseminating and preserving ideas. To us, it is no longer a mere concession. Rather, it has been (for the last several thousands of years) the primary technology for this very purpose. Praise be to Theuth for his miraculous invention!
But now, after a very lengthy and productive stint with the printed form of the book, along comes a new technology that proposes a new form—an electronic/digital form. [I’m still in analogy mode here.] How do we react to this? Well, we may sense that this new technology will, to quote Thamus, “create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memories, but, trusting in external, foreign [virtual!] marks, they will not bring things to remembrance from within themselves.” We offer appropriate critique. To use this new technology implies a concession (but not the same level of paradox, since it still involves the use of writing [with multimedia capabilities thrown-in]). The preferred use or non-use of this technology does not (yet?) place a person in a “I have no choice” position as it did for Plato. But the use of this technology does involve certain advantages and certain limitations. And so, the use of this technology requires instruction for its proper use, and (because it is not value neutral) requires an awareness (understanding) of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge.
So, I would argue that Plato makes my case—though not because he is forced (paradoxically/ironically) to use writing even while critiquing it. The analogy is not in equating the move from printed book to digital book with Plato’s paradoxical move from using a pure form of human knowledge transmission (oral communication) and preservation (memory) to a compromised form through writing and (mere) reminding. The analogy, rather, is that given the invention of the electronic/digital form of the book and its inevitable/increasing use, we now need to instruct in its proper use and build an awareness of its advantages/limitations and its cultural impact. Thamus critiqued writing at its invention (in the ancient time of the myth). Plato critiques it (as it were) after long use. Thamus could warn the god of the dire unintended consequences of its use. Plato can allude to those warnings in order to offer contemporary instruction, even as he himself uses the technology!
I would say Plato was doing a form of information literacy. And so the New York Times Op-Ed piece [Edward Tenner, "Searching for Dummies," March 26, 2006]. Information literacy is a “fighting back” strategy to the (dire?) unintended consequences of the miraculous invention called the Internet … and information resource access via electronic databases. Information literacy is instruction in the proper use and awareness-building of this new technology. What do you think?
In the mobile environment no one cares about pagination, part 2 Sunday, January 18, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Library Services, Mobile Computing, Mobile Web.add a comment
As an Apple fanboy, I have a long-socialized antipathy for “evil” Microsoft. But I did take a gander at the keynote Steve Ballmer presented the other day at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Something he said there bears on my continuing train of thought:
“It’s no longer just about the desktop,…Technology is converging upon three screens, the phone, the PC and the TV. And they’re really evolving together into a single, seamless ecosystem of any time, anywhere computing….Today much of the stuff that we all care about fits in silos across your PC, your phone, the Web. Your experiences are disconnected when you move from one to the other. Increasingly, those barriers are going away.” (Click here for a transcript, or here for a video link to Ballmer’s keynote.)
“It’s no longer just about the desktop.” Ballmer went on to say that more and more people worldwide will increasingly experience computing (many for the first time) from a screen on a mobile phone. With over a billion mobile phones sold each year worldwide, there is strong business incentive for Microsoft (and other computing companies) to be in this market and force down those content silos in support of an “ecosystem of any time, anywhere computing.”
This assessment is echoed in a recent report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, The Future of the Internet III, where 77% of expert respondents and 81% of all respondents answered in the affirmative to the statement: “By 2020, the mobile phone [because of more significant computing power] is the primary connection tool for most people in the world.”
The Pew report focuses on larger world-wide trends, including how growth in mobile Internet connectivity might be realized in the bottom three-quarters of the world’s population, which as of 2007 represented only 30% access. A much more rapidly evolving picture is presented by Lorcan Dempsey, Programs and Research Vice President and Chief Strategist at OCLC, in an article appearing in First Monday (January 5, 2009), entitled “Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity.”
Dempsey draws from research conducted by Manuel Castells, et al. (Mobile Communication and Society, MIT Press, 2007) and elsewhere, affirming:
“Mobile communication has been more widely adopted more quickly than any other technology ever. It represents a diffusion of communications and computational capacity into a growing part of our research, learning and social activities. It has resonated with emerging youth behavior, providing support for distinctive patterns of social interaction and group formation, information use and personal expression.”
Dempsey is interested in drawing some of the implications of this trend for libraries. For example, he anticipated the experience I already related in part 1. We have been and continue to be geared-up to engage our user community online as they sit in front of desktop or laptop computers. But we have yet to gear-up to fully engage our community in the mobile environment. He writes:
“[E]xclusive focus on the institutional Web site as the primary delivery mechanism and the browser as the primary consumption environment is increasingly partial….Libraries have been working to develop network-ready services. Mobile communication intensifies this activity and adds new challenges as they look at what it means to be mobile-ready” (emphasis mine).
I would commend the article to you for reading. Dempsey also shares some helpful insights in how to adapt/reconfigure library space, physical collections, and in-person services and expertise to the increasingly networked world. But here are a few of the high points and implications of “always on” connectivity I pulled out:
* Youth culture (i.e., the majority of our students) is especially open, comfortable, and attuned to the capacities of wireless and other connected technologies that support social relations, shape collective and individual identity, reinforce consumerism, and provide entertainment. Where does the library fit in this space?
* “The university, library, or work environment can no longer expect to provide a more sophisticated digital environment than that which is available in the general consumer space; in fact, the formal learning or work environment may appear increasingly clunky beside the social networking and consumer sites which increasingly set our expectations.” I can relate to this. When an operations committee was first formed over a year ago to support the systems librarian in our growing shared catalog consortium, I pushed to get a slot created to represent the user-side of the ILS. I was rewarded by getting nominated to the committee as OPAC representative. But I have been in rant-mode ever since because too much emphasis continues to be placed on the system back-end (supporting librarian ways of doing things), while desperately needed changes with the user interface (OPAC) are not given a high enough priority. I fear this thinking, not to mention the boring, ugly and inflexible user catalog, is driving away our primary audience.
* The boundary between ‘mobile’ and fixed is dissolving “into multiple connection points, each with its own grade of experience.” The user experience on a computer display cannot be duplicated on a cell phone. Users realize this. They are not looking for a duplicated experience. They are looking for an experience that delivers convenience and contextual relevance. Content providers, including libraries, must begin to realize this. Dempsey refers to the article “Always connected, but hard to reach” by Raju Rishi (Educause Quarterly, Volume 30, Number 2, 2007), who talks about how students “choose the communication channel that best suits them ‘in the moment’, and this will vary with situation and communication group.” Again, this would suggest that if a library has anything to offer, it has to tailor its services to function effectively in a variety of online channels.
* “This is an environment of abundant substitute or alternative information resources and scarce attention. The library cannot expect its users to build their workflow around the library; it must reach out into the workflows its users are creating on the network. This means providing a higher level of network- and mobile-ready services than now exist.” I’m getting the message!
* “The library has a visibility and brand challenge….The library needs a brand which is meaningful and engaging, which communicates its value, and which transcends the caricatural impression many have based around the building and print collections.”
(Potential) library users are looking for increasingly social, personalized, engaged, timely, and contextually relevant connected experiences with information. The library may feel its grip of control slipping away—if by loss of control we mean everything is no longer neat and tidy, and nicely anchored down. But if we choose, the library has a continuing role to play. We just have to start learning how to tag along with our users. They are already mobile. We need to get mobile.
In the mobile environment no one cares about pagination, part 1 Saturday, January 17, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Library Services, Mobile Computing, Mobile Web.add a comment
I still don’t carry a cell phone. But when it comes to mobile computing, there’s an increasing chance you will find me on my iPod touch rather than a laptop these days. Who wants to lug around a 5 pound computer (even an Apple MacBook, which I otherwise love), when a 4 ounce wireless device addresses most of my connectivity needs? OK, I do wish some company would make an external keyboard for the touch, or Apple would come out with a larger touch device with a nice on-screen keyboard for a guy with fat fingers. Man, I’d be all over that thing so fast…
The touch has significantly impacted my information seeking and consumption behavior. It is altering the way I access and interact with online content, and how I communicate with others (even without a phone built-in). Mobile computing and the Mobile Web is quickly becoming a viable stand-in for “traditional” (ironic) network and computing methods. From a device that fits in my shirt pocket in range of an available wireless network, I can email, IM, download and read all my RSS feeds and news content (e.g., BBC Mobile, The New York Times Mobile Edition, etc.), download and read ebooks, download and listen/watch audio and video podcasts, blog, twitter, google (the verb), search the Encyclopaedia Britannica (through our library subscription) or Wikipedia, do the Facebook thing, and even buy stuff off Amazon.com.
There is still a problem, however—a barrier to being able to take full and comfortable advantage of all this great connectivity. You can see it for yourself if you surf over to our library website, or our online catalog…
Ouch! The difference from the screenshots above is immediately and painfully evident. The Web browser on my iPod is dutifully rendering these pages as they would look on a desktop or laptop display. This isn’t the iPod’s fault. These web pages were designed with the assumption that they would be viewed on a desktop or laptop display. They are not optimized for viewing on a small mobile device screen. Sure, with a two-finger pinch gesture I can zoom in to see things better. But then I will have to continually reposition the page to get to the links I’m after.
This happens repeatedly as I drill down to the specific information resource I’m after. While the links to all the library’s electronic resources are proxied to enable our users to access them remotely—I was very proud when we rolled out this service a few years ago—none of the databases we currently subscribe to are optimized for mobile device searching. Further, I can download and read pdf journal articles from these databases on my iPod—I was very excited about this capability when I first got it—but article pdfs typically aren’t optimzed for reading on a small screen either. Again, I can zoom in, but if the margins are narrow I have to keep scrolling back and forth from line to line as I read. What a pain! Just a few years ago I was extolling the superiority of pdf journal article delivery because pdf images are more “print-like” and retain the print version pagination. It made the task of citation much easier for students (and an easier sell of electronic full-text journal literature to our print-biased faculty!). But now I find I’m looking for plain old html full-text as much more user-friendly on my mobile device.
I will persist to work within these limitations and inconveniences because I’m already familiar with the channels of access, and I can keep my expectations realistic. Also, since a majority of my student life was spent in a world of print-only formats, I suspect I’m still carrying around some residual wonder at electronic full-text delivery. For me, for now, access wins out over optimization. I’m willing to adapt.
But what about our students? Something tells me they are less inclined to hassle with an interface mismatch. Will this create another disincentive for them to use library resources? I’m thinking I need to start seriously planning a redesign of the library website that is scalable and device aware. At the very least, we need to provide a mobile version of our site. But that’s still only the top layer of access. Next, I need to start lobbying database vendors and publishers to rethink how they serve-up and display content in the mobile environment.
In the mobile environment no one cares about pagination. It’s all about getting to the stuff. This is a challenge for libraries as we quest to remain relevant to our user communities. Providing remote network access to library resources was a coup for us just a few years ago. It’s no longer enough. Remote access is assumed and expected. The question now is whether this access will play nice with a variety of connected devices.
A “real” card catalog…online! Sunday, January 11, 2009
Posted by librarygary in Culture, Library Services, Nature of Information, Software.add a comment
We all had a little chuckle in the library the other day. The Public Services Librarian was telling me about a conversation he overheard between an admissions counselor and a prospective student and his parents. The library is a stop on the campus tour…
I need to interject here that the library has come a long way with the Admissions Office in recent years. The library itself has come a long way in recent years (I may say more about this in a future post). It wasn’t too long ago that counselors and campus tour guides were actually discouraged from bringing prospective students into the library because it was such a depressing place and thought to turn people off (not a very good selling point for the college): “…and this is the library. OK, quickly moving along…” We still occasionally have to do some message control with admissions counselors. Having a campus tour guide boast about how he got through four years of college without coming into the library even once isn’t exactly the best way to present or promote the library to a prospective student. But at least tours now routinely bring folk into the library.
Anyway, the most recent overheard conversation was far less damaging from a PR standpoint, but more humorous for its unexpected anachronistic quality: “…and from these computers over here you can search the library’s card catalog.” Card catalog?! We have faculty who still remember and even opine about the superiority (for browsing and serendipitous discovery) of the literal, physical card catalog, whose maple cabinetry and drawers filled with 3-by-5 inch cream colored cards once graced the library floor. But it’s unlikely that any of our admissions counselors, most hired as relatively recent graduates of the school, would have used the physical card catalog while a student. We switched to the online catalog in the mid-1990s, well over 10 years ago.
That’s when it dawned on me that the fellow wasn’t thinking about a literal card catalog at all. Rather, for him, that “thing” over there on the computers where you search for books and stuff in the library was just called a card catalog. Perhaps he had used a physical card catalog in highschool and the terminology stuck. The process transcended the physical object but the original name was retained.
This anachronism took a decidedly “Web 2.0″ and doubly humorous turn (i.e., humor in the “isn’t that interesting?” sense) when I heard about The University of Bristol Library – Card Catalogue Online. That’s right, a “real” card catalogue (British spelling) online! The University of Bristol Library is engaged in the retrospective conversion of holdings prior to 1978 into its online online catalog. As an interim access solution for users, the Library has scanned the catalog cards of these holdings, and made them browsable online. They did this using a Java-based program called Chopin, produced by German company Schneider. Using optical character recognition to pull data off the scanned cards, users can also search the cards to aid in content discovery.
Here is the home page of the Card Catalogue Online:
Here’s the “Browse the cards” page, where I initiated a search for “Shakespeare”:
The column on the left provides hyperlinks to refine your browse starting point. I selected “Shakespeare, William 01. Collected works.” The cards show in the viewer pane. You can navigate your browse forward or backward, one card at a time, or a range, using the buttons below the card viewer.
The home page notes that “as information is added to the Library Catalogue, it will be removed from Card Catalogue Online.” So this is not intended as a permanent service. Besides, physical card catalog purists will no doubt complain that it is far quicker to browse with fingers than with mouse clicks. Still, it is kind of neat to see this anachronism come to life in the virtual environment. Check it out.
