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- | # Constant Disruption | ||
- | ## Date: Wed 23 Jan 2019 | ||
- | The first listed reading we have this week is by Marshall Breeding. | ||
- | Astute observers will note that Breeding is one of the first people | ||
- | cited in the two additional readings we have this week. We'll read more | ||
- | from Breeding later in the semester, but I bring him up now because he | ||
- | also oversees a website titled [Library Technology Guides][1] at | ||
- | librarytechnology.org. If you would like to keep abreast of the recent | ||
- | news on the electronic resource industry, Breeding' | ||
- | at the top of your list. | ||
- | |||
- | Breeding' | ||
- | week. He provides not only a nice outline of the various components of | ||
- | electronic resources, but he also provides some historical context for | ||
- | those components. One caveat: Breeding, as well as the other two | ||
- | articles on our list this week, is focused on academic libraries. I'm | ||
- | afraid that there isn't much literature (that I have seen, at least) | ||
- | that provides the same kind of information from other library types. I | ||
- | think this is because librarians in other libraries publish less often | ||
- | than academic librarians, who are often required to publish to acquire | ||
- | tenure, and when they do publish, they generally publish on other | ||
- | topics. However, the same processes that our articles describe generally | ||
- | hold for other types of libraries. Differences in processes and in some | ||
- | details will arise, though, because of organizational or other | ||
- | contextual issues. For example, public libraries are often tightly | ||
- | connected to municipalities or county governments, | ||
- | state libraries. Not only does that raises organizational challenges, | ||
- | but it also highlights the fact that municipal, county, or state laws | ||
- | will define how some processes must be handled and who must handle them. | ||
- | The same is true for public schools, and in such cases, school boards | ||
- | and school districts will likely be involved. Other issues may impact | ||
- | things a bit too. As some of you have noted, public libraries provide | ||
- | more ebooks and audiobooks and less ejournals than academic libraries. | ||
- | That will change the emphasis on some aspects of the ERM work flow. | ||
- | |||
- | That said, I understand that some of the terms he uses and the | ||
- | technologies he describes might still be foreign to some of you. I'm not | ||
- | going to rehash or summarize these articles here -- we'll simply discuss | ||
- | them on the boards, but I do want to spend some time providing some | ||
- | additional background information -- and highlight some of the things to | ||
- | look for in these three articles. | ||
- | |||
- | As I've previously mentioned, librarians have been migrating to some | ||
- | kind of electronic management since the 1970s. Breeding mentions this, | ||
- | too. It actually started well before this -- in fact, I published a | ||
- | paper a few years ago that provides a historical account of the first | ||
- | library automation project, which took place in the 1930s with punched | ||
- | cards. However, around the 1960s, the primary use of computers was to | ||
- | manage circulation, | ||
- | became available to manage and search bibliographic records. That is, | ||
- | computers were first used mostly to manage circulation of books, then to | ||
- | add patron records, which allowed patrons to check out works | ||
- | electronically, | ||
- | was located using these tools, then that work could be retrieved from | ||
- | the shelves or ordered via interlibrary loan by snail mail. Full text, | ||
- | by and large, came much later and is largely the result of the | ||
- | introduction of the web in the early 1990s, which at its heart is | ||
- | nothing more than a big document retrieval system, as well as with the | ||
- | introduction of bigger storage devices, such as CD-ROMs. | ||
- | |||
- | In the process of migrating from print to electronic, all sorts of | ||
- | things had to change, but they all rest on the major premise of all | ||
- | librarianship -- *that we organize information in order to retrieve | ||
- | information*. Although you may have often heard that libraries are | ||
- | ancient things, libraries and librarianship didn't truly modernize until | ||
- | the 1920s and 1930s when some in the profession began to hone in on the | ||
- | major complexities and challenges involved in organizing and retrieving | ||
- | information. The challenges with organizing and retrieving information | ||
- | that they identified nearly 100 years ago were indeed major and | ||
- | problematic, | ||
- | called *library science*. | ||
- | |||
- | Yet consider that when those people laid the groundwork for a library | ||
- | science, librarians only managed print and the primary means of | ||
- | accessing print collections was through a physical building. With the | ||
- | introduction of the computers in the 1960s and with networking | ||
- | technologies in the 1990s, issues with organizing and retrieving | ||
- | information grew exponentially, | ||
- | complex issues launched an entire new field, what we now call | ||
- | *information science*. | ||
- | |||
- | All right -- back to the ground level. Let me highlight some of the key | ||
- | terms in Breeding' | ||
- | |||
- | * Finding aids | ||
- | * Knowledge bases | ||
- | * OpenURL link resolvers | ||
- | * ERM systems | ||
- | * Library service platforms | ||
- | * Integrated library systems (ILS) | ||
- | |||
- | Unless you already have some solid experience with these things, and | ||
- | even after reading Breeding' | ||
- | abstract for you all. So, this week, you have two major tasks: | ||
- | |||
- | 1. Find real, practical examples. Pick one or two of the above terms and | ||
- | see how they work in practice. Then come back here and tell us what | ||
- | you found. | ||
- | 2. Locate how these terms appear in either the Cote & Ostergaard (2017) | ||
- | | ||
- | in those two articles and comment on the role they play in the ERM | ||
- | work flow and the migration process. | ||
- | |||
- | As you work on this, I ask that you pay attention to the emphasis on | ||
- | work flow. We're reading the Cote & Ostergaard article and the Fu & | ||
- | Carmen article not just because migrating to new systems is a big deal, | ||
- | but also because it's significant that there' | ||
- | publish articles on migration topics. In the print era, there were some | ||
- | cases where librarians might migrate to a new system. For example, some | ||
- | research libraries in the U.S. started off by classifying their works | ||
- | using the Dewey Decimal Classification system, but then began to convert | ||
- | to the Library of Congress Classification system. This was no small | ||
- | task, but it was also not that common. Today, migration is big business, | ||
- | so to speak, in the library world because the technology changes so fast | ||
- | and because there are a number of competing electronic resource | ||
- | management products that librarians have to choose from, and do when | ||
- | those products provide advantages to their users, communities, | ||
- | themselves. | ||
- | |||
- | [1]: | ||
- | </ |