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Some Possibilities for Technical Services LibrarianshipEric Lease Morgan, Systems Librarian, Digital Initiatives Department, North Carolina State UniversityMr. Morgan began his talk with a definition of librarianship which draws on the "Ladder of Understanding" derived from Mortimer Adler. In this view, the crucial function of librarianship is to help people move up the ladder, from simply amassing data and organizing it as information, to acquiring knowledge and developing wisdom. He coined the term "arscient" to describe librarianship, as a discipline which combines the outlooks of the scientist as well as the artist. Specific practices which librarians may adopt toward patrons' enhancing understanding include digitizing and making available unique items in our collections, adding qualitative data to catalog records, and forming consortia in order to speak with more authority in the marketplace. Mr. Morgan then turned to a live demonstration of several services developed in the Digital Initiatives Department at NCSU. The Index Morganagus, a descendent of the "Mr. Serials" collection of electronic serials distributed via email, is a Web-based database of library-related serials. The Index uses the Harvest search engine to collect and index new issues every two weeks, resulting in a Library Literature-like search tool. The Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts is a collection of works in American and English literature and Western philosophy. This database allows searching of multiple texts simultaneously, the creation of personalized "bookcases" of selected texts, and the ability to customize PDF-formatted selections for reading offline. MyLibrary@NCState, the most complex of the services demonstrated, is a "portal application" which allows the user to create an individual interface to the online resources of the NCSU Libraries. These materials are indexed using a controlled vocabulary which mirrors the disciplinary structure of the university, providing a base from which users may add and delete resources according to their preferences. Additionally, users may bookmark online resources not provided by NCSU, creating a personal list available from any login location. Among the many additional features of MyLibrary, the SDI-like Current Awareness Manager provides information on new resources which fit the profiles that individuals develop for themselves. Mr. Morgan concluded with a challenge: that as we assist library users to move up the Ladder of Understanding, we make efforts to move up the ladder ourselves, "playing a more significant role in the creation of knowledge." Mr. Morgan has provided a background document on his talk, and has also placed a travel diary, with photographs and stories including his trip to Worcester, on the Web. Reported by: |