With all due respect, I don't think your reply deals with Jay Smith's point, "But we should not abandon what we are >> already doing well because some intriguing slide presentation seduces us >> into thinking we should offer the entire universe." What worries me most about RDA is that it will be so broad that I will not be able to use it to do the cataloging I need to do to perform basic user tasks such as finding, selecting, navigating, collocating, let alone new tasks. Of course, what we hear from Diane Hillman is that RDA won't allow us to take advantage of the new ways of gathering and processing information either.
The other point I worry about is that some of what you have talked about with RDA does not seem like it will enable me to distinguish one edition from another or one work from another without careful examination of texts. The library catalog allows me to do that without examining the text (or sound recording or visual work) itself. When I add this sort of confusion to the behavior of research library administrators who are buying into the notion that cataloging and the tasks it serves are irrelevant, I come close to despair about the future of the organization of information. -- Laurence S. Creider Head, General Cataloging Unit & Special Collections Librarian New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 88003 Work: 505-646-4707, 505-646-7227 Fax: 505-646-7477 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Thu, October 11, 2007 6:16 pm, Karen Coyle wrote: > How do we measure "what we are already doing well?" It's one of the > questions that is coming up in the LC work on the Future of > Bibliographic Control. I had hoped to find some answers in user studies, > and even got a copy of: > Donald O. Case. Looking for Information: A survey of research on > information seeking, needs, and behavior. 2nd edition. > > This is mainly about studies of how people seek information (not how > they use library catalogs, and I was hoping for more of that latter). > There are some interesting conclusions, however, such as one analysis > that identifies these behaviors: > starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, extracting > (p. 260) > > Then someone adding these on to that list: > accessing, networking, verifying, information managing (p.261) > > Someone else came up with this: > identifying, locating or accessing, consulting or reading (p. 263) > > In other words, when research is done, there are a variety of models > that arise for information seeking. There's nothing to say that they are > more legitimate than the FRBR tasks, but that really begs the question, > which is: what is our unit of measure? And where is our evidence? > > What I do like about this survey is that it is about information seeking > and not just catalog use, although I would like to see a good discussion > of how the two intersect. In any case, I do recommend the introductory > chapters of this book as a review of theory -- kind of a refresher course. > > kc > > Jay Smith wrote: >> I would say two things. >> >> One is that, as regards the Statement of Responsibility, its direct use >> to the libary user is unclear in most cases; rather, it is needed by a >> cataloger to help make distinctions among similar authors and aimilar >> titles, so that library users can find what they want and FIND LIKE >> THINGS TOGETHER. >> >> Another is that we cannot possibly satisfy all users' information needs. >> We may be able to identify means of satisfying MORE of them, or we may >> in fact find that with the needs clearly stated we ALREADY DO go some >> way toward satisfying them. But we should not abandon what we are >> already doing well because some intriguing slide presentation seduces us >> into thinking we should offer the entire universe. >> >> Jay Towne Smith >> Senior Cataloger >> San Francisco Public Library >> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> >> >>
