Cataloguing Library Search Pros and Cons

We read with interest the article “Libraries Caught in Transition of Computer Age” (Aug. 10). The article makes many interesting points but regrettably leaves the false impression that public libraries and institutions of higher learning have callously forced unwieldy technologies on their users and are doing little or nothing to assist them in using these tools effectively. As information professionals who have dedicated our lives to bringing people, technology and information together, we find the reality of contemporary libraries to be quite different indeed.

The article in part focuses on what seem to be shortcomings of on-line library catalogues without exploring their enormous value in accessing and retrieving information in powerful new ways unimaginable only a few years ago. Ability to use the catalogue from home or work, search portions of records unsearchable in a card catalogue, search for words or phrases anywhere in titles and other portions of records and, perhaps most important, almost instantly access library catalogues across the continent and around the world certainly are attributes that should be weighed when assessing the relative merits of card and electronic catalogues.

One should also consider that card catalogues are by no means without their own mysterious ways known only to initiates, and in fact typically contain many erroneous records or simply are missing records altogether--it being far easier to rip out a catalogue card than to delete a protected on-line record.

Most disturbing, however, is the unwitting implication that libraries and librarians are not working hard to make on-line resources easier to use even as we are making them more powerful tools for an information-rich and democratic society. The article’s key quote in this respect is that “electronic access is, and always will be, limited to the technologically adept.” This simply is not true, as any public services librarian and many, many library users will attest, based on their experiences with extensive instruction programs in contemporary library research methods, patient support and direction by information professionals, and the development of increasingly easy-to-use interfaces.

Readers should know this article focuses inordinately on some who have not adapted well or have chosen not to adopt the new technologies, and they should know that for every such person there are many more who have transcended these same apparent barriers and flourished with the assistance of dedicated information professionals working in innovative new teaching and learning environments.

CHRIS FERGUSON

Director

Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library, USC

JULIE KWAN

Head of Science

and Engineering Library, USC

*

Amen to the article on the problems of many of us older patrons in the libraries’ replacement of the card catalogue with computers. I was glad to read that I was far from alone in my problems of getting the information I want among all the stuff the computer puts out, and its refusal to tell me what I want to know.

A librarian friend was complaining to me recently about the loss of the information carried on cards in the catalogue, and it’s ironic to read that “in a gesture to the affection many feel for the old card catalogue,” a few old cards are being plastered on a wall in a new piece of artwork in a San Francisco library.

For a reference library with patrons who need “retrieval of multimedia services,” no doubt the computerized catalogue is a great advance over older methods. But is it truly cost-effective to put these expensive high-tech systems into all the libraries serving the average reader and patron? Maybe I’ve outlived my time, but I do use our local library at least once a week, I do a certain amount of research, and the computer frustrates me every time I try to use it.

BESS CHRISTENSEN

Lompoc