Outsourcing
april bohannan
that most of what I've heard about it is purely economical. It's cheaper,
or not, to outsource some items. School librarians and librarians in
small libraries have been purchasing their cards (and now their MARC
records) for years - they haven't the time to catalog or the money to
hire someone to do it. But let's look at it from another viewpoint - the
social (as in society not party).
Remember when libraries were designed for the people who used them? Do we
EVER think about that anymore? So much emphasis has been put on meeting
standards for input into MASSIVE databases that little thought seems to
be given to what library users need - how they look for things.
Personally I think this is a mistake. I'm not against standards but the
folks at L.C. don't know the folks who use my library. No reason they
should.
There are a lot of people who call themselves catalogers but who,
in actuality only accept, or enhance, L.C. copy or follow L.C. practice
in creating cataloging records. (Two simple cases in point - not adding
subject headings to works of fiction, not analyzing collected works) If
that's all we're going to do then we deserve to lose our jobs (or worse
yet - be put on the reference desk ;-)
Librarianship is one of the few professions in the world where the
customer has always been of primary concern. It bothers me to see
cataloging go the way of home delivery of milk and special ordering by
department and grocery stores. To me it says we just don't care enough
about the people we're paid to serve.
End of lecture, down off soapbox, back to work.
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April Bohannan / Everyone has so much
School of Library & Info Sciences / information that they've
North Carolina Central University / lost their common sense!
919-560-5212 /
/ Gertrude Stein
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