http://thesecretmirror.com/conferences/library-camp-east-post-mortem EAD: Everything Ain't Done. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:42:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://thesecretmirror.com/conferences/library-camp-east-post-mortem/comment-page-1#comment-596 thesecretmirror.com » Blog Archive » Is Open Data the Point? Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:02:07 +0000 http://thesecretmirror.com/conferences/library-camp-east-post-mortem#comment-596 <p>[...] Dan already emphasized that much of the discussion ignores existing collaborative workflows and that catalogers around the world are busting their humps to create this data. Listening to the Talis podcast with Tim Spalding of LibraryThing and Ross Singer (among others), I was a little surprised that Tim said “Librarians are very restricted in terms of what they can do with [bibliographic data].” I can really respect that people want to experiment with bibliographic data to improve access to information or just for the fun of hacking through it, but the assumption that librarians are very restricted in what they do with it seems a little misguided. I guess some are, but my gut reaction to this comment is something that I ended up leading a discussion about at Library Camp East last September: the divide between “techies” and “librarians,” something that’s often a false dichotomy yet often very real. I get this feeling often when I read threads on the NGC4LIB list, too. Maybe it’s not quite the same divide, but I feel that those who want to play with our catalog data aren’t talking to the catalogers. I realize some are expressing fear, uncertainty and doubt that anyone can mark up the sacred cow of an OPAC, but for every one of them I feel like there are several of us that are willing to play along and even help do the work. In nearly any situation, I’d be glad to provide a dump of a catalog to whomever wanted it as long as they gave me at least a vague idea of what they wanted to do with it. Technorati Tags: Casey Bisson, Cataloging, MARC, OPAC, Open Data, Talis, WPopac [...]</p> [...] Dan already emphasized that much of the discussion ignores existing collaborative workflows and that catalogers around the world are busting their humps to create this data. Listening to the Talis podcast with Tim Spalding of LibraryThing and Ross Singer (among others), I was a little surprised that Tim said “Librarians are very restricted in terms of what they can do with [bibliographic data].” I can really respect that people want to experiment with bibliographic data to improve access to information or just for the fun of hacking through it, but the assumption that librarians are very restricted in what they do with it seems a little misguided. I guess some are, but my gut reaction to this comment is something that I ended up leading a discussion about at Library Camp East last September: the divide between “techies” and “librarians,” something that’s often a false dichotomy yet often very real. I get this feeling often when I read threads on the NGC4LIB list, too. Maybe it’s not quite the same divide, but I feel that those who want to play with our catalog data aren’t talking to the catalogers. I realize some are expressing fear, uncertainty and doubt that anyone can mark up the sacred cow of an OPAC, but for every one of them I feel like there are several of us that are willing to play along and even help do the work. In nearly any situation, I’d be glad to provide a dump of a catalog to whomever wanted it as long as they gave me at least a vague idea of what they wanted to do with it. Technorati Tags: Casey Bisson, Cataloging, MARC, OPAC, Open Data, Talis, WPopac [...]

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