[1482] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Chained Books
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Wed Oct 14 10:18:09 1992
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 09:07:38 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
2 Messages, 79 Lines
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From: Patricia Erwin <erwin@trollope.mayo.edu>
Subject: Re: Chained Books
Cheers to Lee Jaffe. I wish I'd said it that well, or at all.
Pat Erwin (erwin.patricia@trollope.mayo.edu)
Mayo Medical Library
Rochester MN 55905
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From: Steve Stone <stone@bradley.bradley.edu>
Subject: Re: Chained Books & Unchained Ideas
> So let's start talking about
> how the technology can help real librarians dealing with real problems,
> which has been, I believe, at the foundation of this profession.
Hear, hear! But let's not be afraid to come up with some imaginitive
ideas to real, old problems.
For instance: author-title-subject access made sense for card catalogs.
But computerized catalogs aren't limited by that at all. We can have
a lot more access than a-t-s.
A half-baked idea I have been kicking around is one where all the
students at a given university would have access to an open bulletin board
--or newsgroup, listserv, etc.--where they could post the BIBLIOGRAPHIES
of their papers. The subject access would not be too much of a problem,
because they would be divided by department, or perhaps class --
english 101 or poli sci 452. Then if a student wanted to see some
good books on a given topic, she would know which books have been
used before with some sucess and be able to email her colleagues to
see if the book was really good. Before you know it --or am I dreaming--
you would have students talking, critically, about books and ideas.
And the bibliography--useless afterthoughts if I remember what I
thought as an undergrad--would become something that all of campus
was going to see, so you would want to be proud of it.
Of course, the down-side is that it could lead to wide-spread cheating,
but I would think that would be too easily traceable. Papers get
recycled now, I am sure, in dorms and greek houses. Why would I
turn in a complete stranger's work?
Chances are, the student wanting to cheat might read several
other student's papers and end up cutting and pasting and putting
in their own ideas to the point where they have put some original
thought into it. Granted, it is not as good a going back to proven
experts--if that is what authors are--but it is research of a sort,
and I am _NOT_ advocating the posting of papers, just BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
With the hope that this will provide a different sort of access to
information for the students.
Anybody already doing this? Or using any other signals as part of
the catalog or outside the catalog --on a book by book and perhaps
even article by article basis -- as to which information is "better"
than others?
> And let's
> not scorn colleagues who, because of their institutional affiliations or
> the nature of their clientele, choose a different path than the one we
> think leads to the shining future. We have a job to do, we have users to
> serve, and we are still in the best position to decide how to do it.
>
> -- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu
I agree, Lee. Thank goodness that there are Special Collections Librarians
preserving old and rare materials. Because I have almost no interest in
that area, but I see that it is valuable, important work.
I also have no idea why your posting lead me to think of variations
on catalogs, but it did. All part of the community of the 'net, I suppose.
Steven A. Stone Bradley University
Electronic Services Librarian Peoria, Illinois 61625
stone@bradley.bradley.edu (309) 677-2839
