Readings for February 7

Moody, G. (2011).  The Koha Saga: A Gift That Keeps on Giving.

Moody’s article discusses the evolution of an open-source library system (Koha) developed when a library in New Zeeland found that theirs was no longer functional.  One of the supporting businesses (LibLime) was sold the copyright for the coding among other things, and gradually began to take over the project and use a private source rather than a public one for coding.

I had a hard time understanding just what Koha was.  The term “library system” is somewhat vague.  I assume it covers cataloging and basic operating systems for a library.  I wasn’t sure that I completely understood the problem, consequently, of switching from public to private.  Because a public library is in large part a community center, this outsourcing may have undermined the area’s sense of familiarity.  It wasn’t really clear if the quality was affected in a positive way or negative, though. 

This kind of outsourcing and big company takeover is not uncommon, however.  As more and more issues arise with ownership and copyright in relation to web resources, I can only see this getting worse.  I was reminded of DOAJ, a resource we discussed in my reference class last semester, which allowed authors of journal articles and research to make the information freely accessible.  Although these issues are different in many ways, the result of online news sites has resulted in deteriorating quality of newspapers and reporting.  Magazines are going out of business, and publishing houses are experiencing issues from the ebooks.  It’s easy to argue for free access because it’s popular.  But we need to think of long term effects on quality and usefulness. Just because we want something to be free, doesn’t mean we should have it…

Yang, S. Q., & Hofmann, M. A. (2010). The Next Generation Library

Catalog: A Comparative Study of the OPACs of Koha, Evergreen, and

Voyager.  

Yang’s article provided more insight into Koha and open source catalogs.  Among the features included in these catalogs were visual appeal, media inclusion, single source searches, relevancy, recommendations, and suggested corrections.  These are all elements that are being worked into the proprietary models of catalogs as well, presumably after being discovered in part from Koha.  If that’s true, then I have to change my argument somewhat in favor of the open access.  I find it surprising that the service quality went up with the less formal construction, but then again, all services should be focused on user-friendliness.

McGuire, S. (2011) Across the Digital Divide.  Rose Owls and Pumpkin

Girls: The Journal of Seanan McGuire,

This article focuses on the rising popularity of digital materials and specifically ebooks.  McGuire asserts that ebooks are a slap in the face to people living in poverty, and should definitely not take the place of hard copy books at the risk of making books entirely inaccessible to the poor.

I can’t recall which class I was in, but one student seemed to be asserting that libraries shouldn’t carry ebooks, or ereaders because it isn’t fair to those living in poverty.  At the time this argument seemed unreasonable to me.  After all, not everyone has access to gaming systems, but libraries sometimes have games.  Not everyone has access to dvd players or blueray, but libraries carry those.  On a more basic level, not everyone has access to expensive cookware, but we will still carry cookbooks that use double boilers, copper pans, and quail eggs.  I think it is important not to limit the extent of our services to what everyone can use, because then a huge amount of people don’t have access to important resources.

However, I can see that it starts small.  At first we buy one copy of an obscure title for ereaders, and have 3 hard copies.  Then as they wear out, we don’t replace them.  We decide that so few people would read the hard copy, we might as well only carry it in ebook form.  Gradually we have less print sources available to those who can’t afford ereaders.  Technology is insidious that way.

I’m not sure there is a solution to this aside from a personal responsibility of collection developers to keep in mind the portion of the population who still reads print.

Joss, M. (2011). Examining the Role of Libraries in an E-book World.

This article offered some insight into how ebooks are changing and growing in popularity.  My own public library had the Harper Collins system of 26 uses before a copy disappears, and it caused widespread outrage among patron and staff.  A hard copy book lasts much longer than that, often up to 150 uses per book.  An online copy may not need to be repaired, but a hard copy at least has the option.  I don’t think any library should give in to this system.  I’d rather give up ebooks altogether than pay six times the price of every book.

Yang, S. Q., & Hofmann, M. A. (2010). The Next Generation Library

Catalog: A Comparative Study of the OPACs of Koha, Evergreen, and

Voyager.

Caldwell-Stone, D. (2010). Chapter 6: RFID in Libraries.

This article shows the argument over privacy violations in relation to RFID technology in libraries.

I’ve honestly never thought about issues of privacy in relation to this technology.  I’m not even sure I noticed a change from not having it to having it, since I must have been young when it occurred.  For me, the privacy of patrons is violated in so many other small ways, that this seems a bit ridiculous.  For instance, we often shelve hold books by patron last name, so that anyone can see what another person is reading (an issue of contention for some members of my family).  Computer screens are rarely sunken as MCPL’s are, so anyone can walk past and see what you’re looking at.  At some point in your library experience, someone is going to see what book you’re reading, with or without this technology.  When you check books out, when you return them, when you pay a fine…management of this information is more important than trying to keep everything under wraps.