05.12.2013 10:29, James Weinheimer:
Whether we like it or whether we don't, libraries are not the main places where people go to for their information needs. When was the last time you saw in a movie or TV show that when someone needed information, they were told: Go to a library and ask a librarian. No--it's always Google and they always find exactly what they need quickly and easily. That is the popular mind today.
It is indeed. In this 2011 book: www.amazon.com/Digital-Ideas-Really-Need-Know/dp/0857385461/ref=sr_1_1?s=books-intl-de&ie=UTF8&qid=1386241386&sr=1-1&keywords=chatfield+ideas "50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know" library catalogs or digital libraries, eBooks, eJournals ... are never mentioned, not even in passing or in a reference, in all of the 50 4-page chapters. There's a chapter "Search engines", AGWS, largely about G. of course (which is mentioned on every other page as well), and the word "catalog" is searched there in vain, too. So, the poor popular mind is on its own now to figure out about libraries and catalogs and how or where they fit in today. You are therefore completely right in saying,
So, from the user's standpoint--which must take precedence (as we have always claimed but have rarely lived up to)--the number of places to get information is going up at an exponential pace, while the library-created information becomes an ever-diminishing fraction of the whole of that. Everybody knows this, but yet we are supposed to think that all of those information providers need and want to become compatible with *us*? Why? If we wait for that, we wait forever....
The next step for catalogers is to deal seriously with the reality of keyword searching.
Ironically, Google Booksearch is making use of LCSH terms as these were part of the data they obtained from OCLC. Search for "machine-readable bibliographic data" and find titles indexed by libraries with this term, but they don't show the subject terms under their "Bibliographic information". Presumably because that would irritate the searcher? But they give you a whole cloud of frequent and mostly relevant terms to choose from. Now figure out how they create that. Yes, we ought to have sat down and think, quite a while ago. B.Eversberg
