One of the most thoughtful library bloggers, Rory Litwin recently wrote on his blog, Library Juice:
These days, when reading the library literature or a conference program it’s hard to find much that is not about the Library 2.0 idea. It seems to me that many librarians have forgotten that there is something worthwhile in what we do already, and that “Library 2.0″ is an update rather than something completely new. Lots of people would not want to hear this, but I think many librarians should have more respect for librarianship as a profession and don’t know as much about what they are doing as they should. If there were a little bit more about librarianship per-se in our professional discourse it would be harder to dismiss our own profession in favor of a mode of information (access, organization, use, and conceptualization) that others have invented. [emphasis mine]
Looking at this quote in terms of cataloging (this blog's niche). I agree with Rory, that traditional cataloging often get short shrift in our professional discourse. Our legacy cataloging standards and tools were awesome for their time. For example, I worked with a card catalog for almost nine years. It's a pretty cool pre-computer device. So, taking some time to understand our library legacy is key. Yes, we should have a healthy self-respect for and understanding of our profession.
But to play devil's advocate, the cataloging community needs to take more seriously that the Web is the communication device of choice for our users. The first line of library communication has changed to digital mode. This shift requires us to rethink everything--the how, what, and why of cataloging. We need to have an openness and willingness to incorporate the new and unfamiliar (I write this at a time when I'm studying XPath and XQuery--didn't foresee this trajectory back in library school!). So, I don't think we're there yet. I think we're only just beginning to come to terms with Web technology and what it can do for us cataloger-types. We're not exploiting it and using it fully. So, a little bit of nudging from the Library 2.0 crowd is a good thing.
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