dws (03/01/83)
Thoughts about libraries:
please comment about public libraries resources and services.
very few library science courses include work in the field
of behavior, psychology and sociology.
in boston, the library science program should be alligned
with the city's library, yet there are no continuing education
nor seminars for library students in the public library--available
to the staff as part of personnel services. there are teaching
hospitals--why not teaching libraries with regular programs for the
employees much like university activities.
turner (03/11/83)
#R:mitccc:-40600:ucbesvax:13500004:000:2389
ucbesvax!turner Mar 7 11:28:00 1983
"janetr" has some interesting things to say (based, amazingly,
on personal experience) on the subject of libraries as workplaces.
As always, the quality of a service has more to with the people
providing it than any other single thing.
The observation that interested me most was about how working in
a library was about as different from working as a programmer as you
could get, especially in terms of age-range.
This brings up the following question: what will WE all be like
when we're in our fifties, surrounded by a huge, global electronic
library (consisting of software services AND books, or things like
books, in electronic form)?
I would like to suggest that the respective fates of programmers
and librarians are intertwined -- not least, because programmers might
want to automate librarians, out of exasperation. The ironic thing
about this is that, in a way, a good programmer is ALREADY a hen-
pecked librarian, badgered by bosses and neophytes alike on matters
of system arcana. (Some "programmers" I've known have fallen quite
complacently into this role -- to the point of writing almost no code!)
At U.C. Berkeley, library automation is just getting to its feet --
and may soon fall back to its knees. (I think they still use OS360 for
a lot of things.) This service, of course, had to pull free of the
twin tar-pits of LIBRARY bureaucracy and D.P. CENTER bureaucracy!
In other words, it's amazing that anything got done at all.
Years ago, when I was a mere tad, first learning programming, I
thought: f-ck school -- gimme a computer terminal attached to an
encyclopedic database, and I'm set for life. Since then, the technology
for such things has advanced by a couple orders of magnitude, but
we are hardly much closer to this goal. (No, CDC learning centers
don't count, in my view -- nor do APPLE drill-and-stupefy computer
pseudo-games.) What is in the way? Well, the pyramid of Cheops tells
us: technology is useless without being applied in a common-sense
manner.
Encyclopedia Electronica, anyone?
thots & comments welcome,
Michael Turner
P.S. Pardon the kaleidoscopic presentation -- yes, my thinking is
usually about as incoherent as the foregoing. Perhaps it's
more likely to spark interesting conversation?idhopper (03/13/83)
I, too, have wished many times for a good electronic library (especially when I have spent hours walking up and down between the stacks and the card catalogue, following the bibliography trail or my own meandering thoughts). The best attempt at such a thing (read: the one that I would most like to use) is the long-awaited Xanadu project, shepherded by Ted Nelson. His most recent book, "Literary Machines", outlines the project in a fair bit of detail, and a newsletter I received from him indicates that it is soon to be released. The basic idea of Xanadu is "hypertext" -- non-sequential writing, writing with links and branches, and multiple co-existent versions of the same document, and other nifty stuff. The system is apparently running on the Sun, soon to be released (when have I heard *that* before?). The main drawback will be that there will be no document base when it is released. Off the nitty-gritty stuff, on to the more general issues. When such a system comes into existence, (be it Xanadu or something else), with sufficient flexibility to handle pictures, movies, sound, and text with a single clean, simple mechanism, what then? How much of our society is dedicated to distributing information, of all kinds? (record companies, film distributors, radio, television, *schools*) I think (and hope, here in an educational system that is doing more to hinder my learning than help it) that the biggest effect could be on the educational system -- and thereby on the whole of society: since Plato, everyone has known that the educational system is the most powerful means for social control around. Imagine Yehudi Menuhin's "Music of Man" or Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" television series' enhanced by the flexibility such a system would offer. General discussions about, say, Newton's theory of light could lead on to more detailed animations, then into the mathematics, into the new theories of light, etc. *if the student's interest was sparked by the presentation*. If not, he/she would continue until something interesting does come along. I think that the potential is enormous; whether it will in fact be realized is another matter. The resistance to change can be enormous, especially from those whose vested interests will be threatened by such a change -- and the government falls into this category, as it gets from the educational system, for the most part, nice docile citizens willing to let someone else do their thinking. Time will tell. --ravi p.s. Interesting books on the subject: Fuller, R. Buckminster. "Education Automation: Freeing the Scholar to Return to his Studies" Watson, Patrick J. "Conspirators in Silence" Illich, Ivan. "Deschooling Society" Nelson, Theodor. "Computer Lib/Dream Machines", "The Home Computer Revolution", "Literary Machines"