Thomas Mann's response to the LC working group report

Thomas Mann responses to the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control report in his new paper: "On the Record" but Off the Track [pdf]. This 38-page paper is a must-read for the future of cataloging debate.

Comments

[arkham]

I wish I'd noticed it was a 38-page paper before I began.
However, for my comment on the content:
First, I ended up skipping a large amount of it, when it became abundantly clear that the majority of the paper is a long rant (and lecture) on how important LCSH and LCSH left-anchored browse are and how they work - and don't work in an Amazoogle environment. Not that Mann doesn't have good points, he does - in fact, I intend to mention to my boss that WorldCat doesn't allow LCSH browse, as we're about to join the pilot on WorldCat Local - but the LONG lecture and exhaustive detail...I get it, I'm a cataloger, I don't need 30 pages of convincing.

I ended up skipping much of his argument to get to the end of the paper for his recommendation on how to integrate the library catalog with Web 2.0 functionality. I was...underwhelmed. I don't really think that it's necessary to completely separate tagging, folksonomy, etc. from the library catalog - or at least from the OPAC. I don't see any reason not to have tagging, folksonomy, etc., provided by users integrated more than Mann suggests. Having it on a completely separate webpage...I don't think that's a great solution.

A few other minor things (good and bad) caught my attention, but nothing else meriting specific mention.

[K.G. Schneider]

How could I *not* love this report? I've been forwarding it, I'll blog about it, I may list it on my c.v.

[Nathan]

askham,

you say: "I get it, I'm a cataloger, I don't need 30 pages of convincing."

My guess would be that Mann would say something to the effect that if you are going to go on and say that "I don't really think that it's necessary to completely separate tagging, folksonomy, etc. from the library catalog" that he isn't sure if you get it (I'm not claiming I do, either, by the way). I only say that because Mann seems to think that his recommendations follow from his lengthy argument.

Perhaps when he talks about keeping them separate, he is just thinking that it ought to be more like Citizendium (where experts keep an eye on what's been added and have more authority to do what they think is best with it - while hopefully not stifling the urge to add content too much) than Wikipedia?

In other words, maybe he is open to Wikis (though qualified)... earlier in the paper he talks about it would be good for more persons to use LC's subject headings, which also might mean putting it on the open web for persons to use and play with...

I'm going to ask him about these things.