Who is the user?

Many of you may have noticed this site yesterday. It was featured in wordpress’ “hot blogs of the day” or whatever they call it.

In light of our discussions on “who is the user?” It is sometimes interesting to gain a perspective from someone not connected to Library Science. This blog shows one perspective on the lay person’s view of the library:

“It’s been a long time since I got an overdue notice from the library. That’s because it’s years since I’ve been to a public library. The folks at Barnes and Noble are much nicer, and the bathrooms are cleaner too.”

http://anneandper.wordpress.com/

Note of thanks from Karen Calhoun

Below is a note of thanks from Karen Calhoun.  If you have thoughts or comments about her visit with class, please share them:

Just a quick note to let you know how much I enjoyed “talking” with your students and guests yesterday afternoon.  I’m grateful that you had the idea of inviting me.  I hope that it was a productive experience for all; I’d be interested in any feedback you have to pass on or offer yourself.

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Audio recording of tonight's session now available

Mark Lindner informed me a short while ago that the audio recording of this evening’s session is now available via the archives.  Thanks, Mark!

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Fred Kilgour and Henriette Avram

As noted in the posting I just add to the class blog previously (thanks, Anthony!), Fred Kilgour, a visionary pioneer for transforming libraries, died earlier this week at the age of 92.  He was the founder and creator of OCLC and I highly recommend that in addition to the obituary Anthony mentions, you take a look at this post from the It’s All Good blog, a blog maintained by several OCLC staffers, which talks quite a bit about Mr. Kilgour’s legacy and background.  Then there is another site where memories of Kilgour are being compiled.

How interesting that Mr. Kilgour’s death comes relatively soon after the death of another giant in our field, Henriette Avram.  Mrs. Avram was the creator of the MARC record structure.  Upon her retirement she was also the Chief of the Cataloging Division at the Library of Congress, I believe.

I cannot overstate the importance and impact of the work of these two people on technical services and libraries in general.

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Founder and creator of OCLC dies

Anthony asked me to communicate this announcement to the rest of the class:

I wanted to pass this along to the class today, but it didn’t
seem to come up on the main blog page.  I linked it to my
own “theobiblos.wordsmith.com” blog;

Here’s the obit:
http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/07/31/da
ily12.html

Question about Calhoun Report

Hi all,

I’ve been reviewing the Calhoun Report for our class tomorrow and have a question about something that I am hoping you can help me with. On page 10, she states that catalogs have moved from “characters-based” to “client-server based.” By “characters-based” I am assuming she doesn’t mean catalogs that are honest and true–is she talking about characters as in data?

Thanks,

Colleen

Amazon muscles in on libraries

LISNews.org | Amazon Introduces End-to-End Library Processing

This news item follows an announcement late yesterday from a library vendor, TLC, about an agreement with Amazon to provide pretty much the same thing:  shelf ready material.  As you know from a few of the readings assigned for the course, library vendors such as Yankee Book Peddler and Blackwell have been providing this kind of service for a number of years.  One has to wonder how this might affect their business.

I find this development apropos to come at this time and at the end of this course.  It clearly shows the magnitude of constant change faced by those working in technical services in libraries.

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