[ARSCLIST] Libaries in the XXI Jahrhundert--was other stuff...

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reading to children is a huge boom thng for libraries. I notice it at our
little library in Bedford
> Hills. The horse-farm set's kids mix and mingle with the working-parents
set's kids. The aupairs
> bring the rich kids and then all sit outside smoking on the patio. The
other kids get bussed over
> from daycare. Basically, it's just tax-subsidized babysitting. I hate to
sound old (again) but back
> in the day, parents read to their kids at home.
>
When dealing with current parents, there are at least two reasons for this.
The rich folks want to give their offspring every possible advantage in
the status battles they will have to face...so having them read to by
(presumably) educated library staff may inspire them (the offsprings)
to start reading earlier! Meanwhile, the poor folks (who are, of course,
woefully underpaid by the rich folks in order to increase dividends) have
to do something with THEIR offspring, because both parents have to work
in order to enjoy such things as living indoors and eating regularly...

> The big advance for libraries, at least as far as my use goes, was getting
everyhing networked so I
> can arrange a grab-hold-and-send-to-local-place online, get an e-mail when
it's ready and just walk
> in and pick it up. I don't have to fuss with Dewey Decimal card catalogs
(totally user-hostile
> invention if there ever was one) or prowl the thin stacks in the little
local library, or ask
> questions of a librarian who may well be super-smart and very helpful or
could be an ancient/cranky
> or young/stupid volunteer. Instead, it's all there at a computer -- easily
searchable, easy to get
> into my hands and super-convenient. That innovation in itself should
preserve libraries for a long
> time.
>
"Grab-Hold..." of WOT? Are you taking belongings for repair? Buying
replacements?
Winning things on eBay? Or e-mailing your lunch order to some digitally-
accessible eatery?

And I agree...both Dewey-Decimal and the newer LOC cataloguing system,
while they do enable the library staff to keep the books in an (arbitary)
predictable order, were never intended to make sense to users! That's
why they used to have card catalogs...and now have proprietary computer
systems which allow one to see all the books of a given sort...but only
when one becomes used to the counter-intuitive operation of the hardware/
software combination...

However, the future you predict for libraries would seem to render them
of minimal value to anyone who has a reasonably up-to-date computer
(my old 80286 DOS-based machine need not apply) and, if at all possible,
high-speed Internet access...since it effectively reduces the local
library to a terminal for some vast (or half-vast?!) network!

OTOH...IF spam can somehow be eliminated (apparently it now makes
up well over half of the e-mail traffic!) and IF some method can be
put in place to identify and designate web facilitie with reasonably
accurate content...by, say, 2050 (usual caveat), the Internet will
replace all older technology for the interchange of information...

Steven C. Barr