hey mum
hey mum. how come you don't select books much anymore?
ah. how can i explain. it's all part of an ongoing historical process leading to the Age of Collection Underdevelopment I mean Under Development (a transitional phase!)
when i started we were trained at a Collection Development Camp in Bonegilla. Training was mainly simulated Armed Combat with myriad of Suppliers all offering the same wares but slightly different Christmas cards. [see photo of a male colleague at training].
this training has all gone to waste - we have been disarmed & given lots of output driven things to do......
historically, the decline began with the amalgamation of local government areas. the end result was the merging of library services into larger and hey presto more efficient components.
the Councils themselves now had illusions of grandeur and began seeing themselves as CORPORATIONS.
At the same time CCT (Compulsory Competitive Tendering) was introduced- and the whole business began to acquire an air of the compulsive and convulsive.
being part of corporations we were fed a diet of corporate lettuce and BRANDED. As council officers we began to dance to the tune of Economic Rationalism accompanied by the music of the most trendy management theory of the time.
at the same time publishing conglomerates were arising from the depths of the post-capitalist world like some Atlantean behemoths with our suppliers in tow.
we began to feel as if we were part of some pseudo-criminal culture having to provide PROFILES of the needs of our library users. We were now part of the Grand Prix of Supplier Driven Collections.
It’s all different now Kollection Development Kommunes provide certificated training at the end of which you are qualified to employ Library Supply Kompanies such as Simple Simon Pty Ltd which not only process your items but can select them for you too. All you have to do is supply a PROFILE and the company will supply you with more than a collection – in other words A VALUE ADDED COLLECTION!
You’re kidding Mum!
No. I’m fair dinkum. Simple Simon Ltd have specially trained staff who can accurately interpret your profiles and irrespective of whether you serve a small rural community or a large metropolitan one, they guarantee to satisfy your needs.
Wow Mum. That’s unbelievable. I guess they must be as gifted as those serial killer profilers in the TV crime shows.
I guess so. Just last week we received a book called Scorpions as pets As you can see they are way ahead of me in predicting trends.
But don’t you miss selecting stuff?
Yean sure. But really where would I find the time. There are all those meetings (sometimes meetings about meetings), there’s professional development training, staff management issues, etc., etc.
As I was saying, Local government Areas were amalgamated to achieve operational efficiencies.
Within this model library services were merged to provide our citizens with bigger & better.
This was not necessarily a bad thing in itself. The problem was that our local governments were now under the illusion that they were big Korporations and started to feel the need to behave in the appropriate manner.
They adopted the cloaks of big business corporations.
Began BRAINSTORMING.
Butchers paper became a staple of stationery supplies.
Newer & Better ways of doing things
When the first twinges of pain were felt they called in the SPIN DOCTORS.
Of course. OUTSOURCE was the key.
And as you can see lots of staff were freed up to do other things - you can see them wandering around providing personal services like interpreting the logic of Dewey numbers and the necessity of Library of Congress subject headings.
- Q.: how come books on child development written for parents are not shelved in the parenting section?
- Q.: why aren’t the books on Word for Windows shelved with the rest of the computing books?
Well we gotta follow DDC you see in the old days Word Processing was really typing which went in to the business section……..
As you can see all the redundant technical services staff are really useful out there on the floor to answer some embarrassing questions.
Well we haven’t actually catalogued those items madam. The records are all downloaded and have been done by fully qualified and very experienced staff. You see they create a cataloguing record which can be used by the smallest rural library, the biggest metropolitan library and the university library - irrespective of the needs of the library users.
What’s that? Why are the so many entries for the author Isaac Asimov. Now let me see.
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Ah. Oh yes. Well sure I guess he would be pleased to be remembered so many times in the one catalogue.
But seriously you see when we outsourced there was no one left to do, or even care about authority file maintenance. It’s an old skill....... I used to practise it.
Anyway all you have to do is select the one with 62 works attached. If you don’t find the title you need. Then select the one with 1 work attached.
I’m sorry. I know it’s a computerised system but you can’t select both of those at once to see all the works.
There are lots of author entries like that – we’ve learned to live with them.
I see. It’s like a cloning experiment gone a bit haywire.
Of course you can ask me a question madam – after all that’s what I’m here for.
Yes that right. If you type in libaian when you do a google search you will be asked if you meant librarian.
No I’m sorry our computerised catalogue does not have that skill I agree it would be really handy but…..
Yes its quite true the automated library catalogue is full of strange and illogical things – but please accept them as the idionsyncrasies of a library world which has to live with the symptoms of automation and outsourcing which to a tiny degree have gotten out of control.
But never fear WEB 2.0 will care of all of that.
And the future is exciting
You know the new 13 digit ISBN number will ultimately be replaced by a 31 digit ISBN.
Except that it will be MORE than just an ISBN.
It will be encoded with all sorts of information.
Library suppliers will be a thing of the past. The multinational publishing companies will be dealing with us directly. We will supply them with quite detailed PROFILES. These will be checked against the 31 digit code and bingo if there is a match both a hard and soft copy will be dispatched to the library.
