<snip> I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is not characterizing the user tasks accurately. He says: "I don't believe that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works, expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they never did." </snip>
I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I think that people do want to find items by their authors and subjects (less by titles). The users I have worked with believe they can do this now in Google because Google has been very successfully designed to give results that make people "happy," but of course they are happy with an author search only because they don't know what they are missing. Research has shown, and my own experience concurs, that most people believe they are good searchers. In the information literacy classes I teach, I mention that most people believe they are good searchers, but then I ask them, "Do I think I'm a good searcher?" and to the inevitable silence, I continue, "I don't know if I'm a good searcher because I don't have any kind of yardstick to measure myself by. When I search Google, Yahoo, Google Books, Google Scholar, and so on, I don't know what I am searching, so I don't know what I am missing. Also, I don't know if a specific search is "good" or "bad" based only on the number of keyword hits. In a library catalog, I can search "wwii" as a keyword, or "Samuel Clemens" and I can know exactly what I am missing, and this way I can determine if I am a good searcher, or not. In the Google-type searching, there is nothing like this. In a library catalog, I can say that I am a good searcher, but in Google, I don't know." I can go on and ! on and on about the problems of Google. But I realize that it doesn't matter what I say. While I may make a difference to the few people in the classroom who aren't asleep, my words make very little difference in the scheme of things. People like keyword searching. I do too. People think they are good searchers. And Google searches can be very useful. I don't have to go on about this. This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would be better used in different areas. I may be wrong, but I think it is vital to discuss it. If we want to be able to find resources by their authors, titles, and subjects, our systems all allow for it right now. There are huge problems we are facing today in the entire workflow from selection to description and organization, to access and reference. Libraries need to change in fundamental ways if they want to make a dent in that ever-widening "information universe" of our users. I don't see how, if FRBR/RDA were fully implemented right now, this moment, how it would change anything. We need to focus on things that make a difference. Does it mean we have to throw it all out? No. I still maintain that people want tr aditional library access, and many think they are getting it in Google now when they definitely are not. But I believe there should be a general re-evaluation of many things, most specifically, are FRBR user tasks what is needed in the modern world? And we should do this before we begin a huge, and expensive, restructuring. Of course, this is only restating what the Working Group said. (At least, that's my reading of their conclusions!) Jim Weinheimer
