Just got a link in my del.icio.us inbox that the university down the highway from me, McMaster is disbanding their catalouging department.
I seem to remember my Bibliographic Control professor mentioning the name of one US institution which attempted to stop cataloging but lived to regret it, but the name has slipped my mind. Does […]
I don’t feel prepared to weigh in on the whole folksonomy/tagging debate yet. I do feel that I need to work more with tags in order to make a coherent judgement of their usefulness. However, I am having problems with a certain use of tags that I don’t think would be as bad under a […]
The critique I can give to her position is that classification schemes give only the illusion of order and hierarchy where it doesn’t truly exist. We all know that classifications have their own cultural–i.e. relativist–biases. What we don’t like to admit is that these classification systems come from not only group discussion and agreement amongst professionals, but also the cultural environment where the system is developed. And societies will cover over the fact that the classification systems used to define its reality have no fundamental basis (Foucault). Peterson doesn’t consider the possibility that reality is relativist, thereby making “traditional” classification are static, possibly not reflective of current cultural beliefs, or even the tool of dominate power structures. This is not something I am arguing is true, mind you, but traditional classifications do have their own philosophical problems.
Finally, finally, U of T has added their collection to WorldCat. I was looking for a book which was out from Robarts, hoping that someone close had it, and the very first link was a link to the U of T copy.
I’ve tried searching for books before, but U of T wasn’t ever on the […]
Staincliffe, Paul (2004) Has cataloguing become too simple? : why it matters for cataloguers, catalogues and clients. New Zealand libraries 49(10).
I love that I have only taken a month of cataloguing and I can understand every single word in this paper. Not only that, but I found it really interesting. Maybe I am […]
