Ghost of BiB Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Computers work the world... What do you do in a pinch when your computer craps out? It is good to have a standby. 390965[/snapback] I was just reading through this, and wondered if schools still teach the card catalogue? I'll just make the assumption libraries still use them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuntheDamnBall Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 I was just reading through this, and wondered if schools still teach the card catalogue? I'll just make the assumption libraries still use them. 391703[/snapback] Do you mean library schools, or grade schools? I assume you mean the latter. My wife is a children's librarian, she finished her master's at Pratt a couple years ago, and she had to take several cataloguing and classification classes. Still use Dewey decimal, all that. Her library still has the catalogs but they are definitely secondary to the computer systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of BiB Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Do you mean library schools, or grade schools? I assume you mean the latter. My wife is a children's librarian, she finished her master's at Pratt a couple years ago, and she had to take several cataloguing and classification classes. Still use Dewey decimal, all that. Her library still has the catalogs but they are definitely secondary to the computer systems. 391714[/snapback] I was referring to grade schools. Maybe middle. It's been a long time, but I remember learning that pretty early. Public School, Alden in the 60's. I'm glad to hear they still use Dewey as a back up, at least. It's important to be able to learn how to find things without a search window. Sadly, we know plenty of people who can't acomplish that much. Well, at least one anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Live&DieBillsFootball Posted July 28, 2005 Share Posted July 28, 2005 I was just reading through this, and wondered if schools still teach the card catalogue? I'll just make the assumption libraries still use them. 391703[/snapback] "The Dewey decimal system. What a scam that was!" - One of my all-time favorite lines on Seinfeld. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 I was just reading through this, and wondered if schools still teach the card catalogue? I'll just make the assumption libraries still use them. 391703[/snapback] No. Just as we don't use slide rules anymore... Maybe small independent libraries? Even they are probably with the times when they order books? Dewey is used here in Illinois... At least in the MLS (Metropolitan Library System) which are predominantly south suburban libraries. Very few here use Library of Congress like they do in Erie County... I don't even think I can name one library here that uses LoC? Cataloging is a thing of the past. When my wife took over the Steger-South Chicago Heights Public Library District back in 1998... They were already doing away with it. I mentioned how they raised money (NO TAX INCREASE ) to build a children's wing... Some of the money came from an auction of the card catalog cards that were signed by authors and famous people. When she took over the Park Forest library, the catalog had already become inactive and had been non-updated for about 3 years! It was a big behemoth just taking up valuable space... A useless, non-maintained dinosaur... She moved it to the basement... Only one patron came in to voice his opinion... An 80 something year old man, claiming "she ripped out his heart!" Cataloging can be outsourced. You can get the info. already printed up from suppliers... Learning how to catalog is even being phased out in MLS programs (She got her MLIS (Masters in Library and Information Science) at UofI and I think she didn't take a cataloging course!). It has gone the way of the slide rule. What would be the reason to go back to it? Valuable library resources can be freed up for other things that time-consuming, laborious catalog maintenance takes up. I take teaching kids how to use a paper card catalog is like still teaching them to use an interpolation table in trig? Why... It is all about priorities. I don't necessarily like what technology has done to our cognitive ability but, it has been happening since humans have been devising new technology. There are pros and cons but, nothiing stops the march of technology. Think how the prior rules and cognitive ability in navigation were thrown out the window when inventions like the compass, sextant and chronograpgh were invented? Did it make us worse sailors? Heck no... It made us more efficent sailors. I will stop now before I really begin to ramble... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpile Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 My experieince is that card catalogs are a thing of the past and you can forget about getting books returned or checked out, if the computer is down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 No. Just as we don't use slide rules anymore... 393010[/snapback] Maybe you don't... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VABills Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Think how the prior rules and cognitive ability in navigation were thrown out the window when inventions like the compass, sextant and chronograpgh were invented? Did it make us worse sailors? Heck no... It made us more efficent sailors. 393010[/snapback] Actually these skills are still taught at the Academy and one is required to pass them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpile Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Maybe you don't... 393106[/snapback] I suppose you use yours to be sure the kid at the McDonalds cash register hit the right pictures on the keypad. Ding! Gotta go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Actually these skills are still taught at the Academy and one is required to pass them. 393111[/snapback] I was thinking that VA. After you pass them, I guess you just don't practice them and sharpen them? (oops... There it is again. : ) Just as in cataloging... Even know you might not need it, people like my wife know the cataloging rules... She doesn't use them everyday and practice all the subtle nuances when compiling them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 My experieince is that card catalogs are a thing of the past and you can forget about getting books returned or checked out, if the computer is down. 393039[/snapback] Back-up system... Then if that is down (very seldom): You can still return them and get credit for checking them out... They will update your records at a later time when the computer gets. Same thing for checking out... This means they write it on paper and you go about your business. When you need to find a book and the search is down... Either get a staff member to find it or search the stacks. The staff member or librarian is the quickest. Same can be said for when the online card catalog is up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Sorry for the start-and-stop posts... I was putting boaters first. That being said, are libraries putting patrons first? Or is it a "sit and spin" mentality where the librarian just sits there and points to where things are? Just as in my job, every lockage is recorded to an oracle database. We record everything from tonnage, number of passengers, to ever single stage time in the lockage. The average commercial lockage requires 6 separate times. Entrance and exit is also recorded. Years ago, this was all done on paper. Now it is done live and processed automatically. This data can be used by congress to determine appropriations. That being said, when our oracle database goes down, things can be saved locally on the HD and updated to the main database at a later time. We still have to do it semi-manually... I take it could run automatically where you would never even know the syaytem is down? On that note, I would take that libraries would have back-up too. Most libraries are members of large consortia, so when the systems go down... They don't go down for long. Again... BECPL has to take a long hard look at where they are at and where they want to go. Taxpayers and patrons must come first. That doesn't mean throwing money at the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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