This statement made me pause for thought: "Also, please demonstrate how on the web, you can 'select' something in Google without already 'obtaining' it. I cannot do it. In Google with full-text, I select whether I want materials only AFTER I obtain it. I cannot do anything else. If I am wrong, please show me how. This is yet another reason why I maintain the FRBR user tasks are based on *physical objects* not virtual ones."
Who is to say that there needs to be a definite order of the FRBR tasks? As you say, we must free out minds from preconceived notions- maybe we can mix things up a bit and leave room for such things as obtaining something before selecting it. I can't help but wonder how many times this happens for patrons. Someone finds a resource, digital or physical, that might be useful, they obtain it, only to find that it isn't that great. I can't tell you how many times I had that problem as a graduate student--yikes! Additionally, I have used Google and Google Scholar, which may or may not provide snippets of information that the user may read directly under the link-whether these actually match up with what is actually contained in the resource is only seen when the user selects the link they think they want, but I think there is still a form of selection method in this approach. I don't believe libraries are going to disappear anytime soon. We have been able to adapt thus far, I have every confidence that we will continue to do so in future. Don't give up hope! I haven't. Just my two cents. ----------------------- Lizzy Walker, MLS Metadata and Digital Initiatives Librarian http://works.bepress.com/lizzy_walker/ 316-978-5138 Wichita State University Libraries 1845 Fairmount St. Wichita, KS 67260-0068 From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of James Weinheimer Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:05 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] ] The "A" in RDA On 30/07/2013 20:14, Kevin M Randall wrote: <snip> And yet again I get a long, rambling response that goes nowhere near answering my question. The only thing that comes remotely close is the statement: Today, there are brand new ways of searching, by keyword, by citations, by "likes" of others, or of your friends, of your friend's friends, or even their friends, by the idiosyncracies of your own personal profile, and by who knows what else, but the method uses all kinds of algorithms. And yet all of these things are very clearly part of the FRBR user tasks. They are all about FINDing, IDENTIFYing, SELECTing, and OBTAINing entities based on various criteria. How you can fail to see that is just beyond my comprehension. It is certainly possible to perform the FRBR user tasks in Google, in Yahoo, in Amazon, in the LC online catalog, or in an old card catalog. But they all have certain limitations, some minor and some very crippling. The FRBR user tasks are simply a description of what users have always done, and we can only assume will always be doing. They have nothing themselves to do with technology. We use technology to aid us in performing the tasks: in the modern era, we have used card catalogs, microfiche and microfilm catalogs, online catalogs, etc. The FRBR report merely identifies the entities and attributes that have traditionally made up the bibliographic metadata used in libraries, and how they operate to help the user FIND, IDENTIFY, SELECT, and OBTAIN the resources they are in search of. And RDA, with its basis on the FRBR report, is helping us to further refine the bibliographic metadata to work better in supporting the user tasks. If you want to deny that people no longer want to FIND, IDENTIFY, SELECT, or OBTAIN anything, then I don't know what world you are living in. Because everybody I know still wants to do that-all the time. (Yes, they also want to use things once they obtain them, but that's for other tools and applications to worry about. The bibliographic metadata are to help them get the things first, because users can't use things without first getting them.) </snip> Pardon, I did not provide rambling response but very specific examples. Please, actually watch the video of that fellow from Google (please: watch it!) and demonstrate to all of us exactly how his example of when he shows the photo of the building, how the question: what is the phone number of the office where that picture was taken from? How is that an example of the FRBR user tasks? [I can provide other examples of such questions] Perhaps it would be possible to argue that an automobile is really a horse-and-buggy: both have wheels and a place to sit, both have engine that ingests fuel and both output (pardon!) waste. Such an argument might be interesting and even diverting. Also, one may argue that the periodic table of elements are not really different from anything before, but are just variations of the "real" elements of fire, water, earth and air. In reality of course, such attitudes shed more insight into those who advance them than into the topics themselves. The table of elements have nothing to do with fire, water, earth and air, while thinking so only retards everything. Automobiles are fundamentally different from horses and buggies. In the same way, I maintain that what is happening now in "search" is fundamentally different from the 19th-century FRBR user tasks. It is obvious, once you see it. Show us how you can do the FRBR user tasks in Google: to find/identify/select/obtain-->*works* *expressions* *manifestations* *items* by their AUTHORS, TITLES and SUBJECTS. Also, please demonstrate how on the web, you can "select" something in Google without already "obtaining" it. I cannot do it. In Google with full-text, I select whether I want materials only AFTER I obtain it. I cannot do anything else. If I am wrong, please show me how. This is yet another reason why I maintain the FRBR user tasks are based on *physical objects* not virtual ones. And then, demonstrate why most people really and truly want to obtain items only after selecting them, and how this fits in with identify and the new ideas of find (as the fellow at Google demonstrates). When you say that people no longer "want to FIND, IDENTIFY, SELECT, or OBTAIN anything" please note that I didn't mention "anything". I explicitly pointed out that *I* actually want to do those tasks occasionally, but I confess that I am an inveterate bookman, while the vast majority of people are not. Perhaps you don't know what world I am living in, but I fear that you are stuck in the 1880s. The refusal to accept that 99% of people do not fit into these little pre-conceived FRBR user tasks is why I think that perhaps librarianship may be destined for extinction. We must free our minds from these pre-conceptions! It makes me very sad, but it may be. -- James Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com<mailto:weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com> First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus Cooperative Cataloging Rules http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/ Cataloging Matters Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
