Comment Passed this along to my librarian sister... (Score 1) 485
Haha, after reading this LOC thing on /. I just had to forward the link to my sister who's a technical archivist for a university. I found her reply to be quite humorous.
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So I went, I read, I cracked up. Those smarty pants don't even know what they are talking about. They are so focused on the technology side of this they don't even see the rest of the pie. One of my personal favorites is the one who asks that folks contact their representatives and ask that the books be digitized. He even provides a
link to find out how to contact your representatives.
I'm at a loss of words on this one. I'm just dumbfounded.
And as to the guy who thinks we librarians are hording information becuase we want to be the keepers of ALL the Books so that we will have that "personal" contact. Yeah, right. we ought to just digitize everything. And then we librarians won't be needed. Because folks can get to whatever they want right at the click of a button. I mean we all know how easy the internet is. If we could just dump all printed materials in one easy to access location the research problems of the world would be solved. If someone
needs to find out exactly what ingrediant it is that makes a deoderant dry, or perhaps someone is writing on Michael Jackson and wants to know who his dermatatolgist is- well then hey, all they need to do is click that button.
And, the library IS a community thing. Those nerd heads just don't go to the library. Sure, it's not the thing for everyone but you tell folks who do enter into a library on a regular basis that it is not a community thing and see what they say.... AND the Library of Congress isn't just
about books. A library represents a specific community and preserves and stores that community's heritage. Do you suppose that only takes place with hardback books. What about those pamphlets. People have less access to those
pamphlets and the LOC is losing it's battle to preserve what it has got now. There simply isn't enough time, space, energy, or money to attack every single little aspect of the library with a digitiztion plan.
If these folks want to see every bloody book digitize tell them to get a degree, learn about what a real library is and then volunteer.
And one last thing - how often do you suppose these folks make use of Project Guttenberg? What about the virtual libraries various states have set up or the Internet Public Library for that matter? I mean exactly how much do these people even know about what they are saying. Do you suppose that most of those folks have even explore the LOC website to see what they are doing?
That's all for now. I've got stuff to archive.
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So I went, I read, I cracked up. Those smarty pants don't even know what they are talking about. They are so focused on the technology side of this they don't even see the rest of the pie. One of my personal favorites is the one who asks that folks contact their representatives and ask that the books be digitized. He even provides a
link to find out how to contact your representatives.
I'm at a loss of words on this one. I'm just dumbfounded.
And as to the guy who thinks we librarians are hording information becuase we want to be the keepers of ALL the Books so that we will have that "personal" contact. Yeah, right. we ought to just digitize everything. And then we librarians won't be needed. Because folks can get to whatever they want right at the click of a button. I mean we all know how easy the internet is. If we could just dump all printed materials in one easy to access location the research problems of the world would be solved. If someone
needs to find out exactly what ingrediant it is that makes a deoderant dry, or perhaps someone is writing on Michael Jackson and wants to know who his dermatatolgist is- well then hey, all they need to do is click that button.
And, the library IS a community thing. Those nerd heads just don't go to the library. Sure, it's not the thing for everyone but you tell folks who do enter into a library on a regular basis that it is not a community thing and see what they say.... AND the Library of Congress isn't just
about books. A library represents a specific community and preserves and stores that community's heritage. Do you suppose that only takes place with hardback books. What about those pamphlets. People have less access to those
pamphlets and the LOC is losing it's battle to preserve what it has got now. There simply isn't enough time, space, energy, or money to attack every single little aspect of the library with a digitiztion plan.
If these folks want to see every bloody book digitize tell them to get a degree, learn about what a real library is and then volunteer.
And one last thing - how often do you suppose these folks make use of Project Guttenberg? What about the virtual libraries various states have set up or the Internet Public Library for that matter? I mean exactly how much do these people even know about what they are saying. Do you suppose that most of those folks have even explore the LOC website to see what they are doing?
That's all for now. I've got stuff to archive.
