LCSH Incarnate

I have been enjoying the active discussions on the recently formed Future of Subject Headings list run by the American Library Association. The Library of Congress has already abandoned keeping track of series headings; now we are nervous that subject headings may be the next thing to go.

Of course, librarians by constitution tend to be a bit nervous. We enjoy predicting our own doom, and have been doing so regularly for quite some time now. Whether it was Melvil Dewey attempting to standardize library practices, the advent of the card catalog, the end of the Mansell project (somebody did finish it, right?), ordering catalog cards from OCLC instead of Library of Congress, the end of Prism, keyword searching, or predictions of a post-literate society, we have been sure that the Next Big Thing will spell the end of professional librarianship as we know it. (Click here for a delightful article about touring the Vatican library, including reminiscences about the Vatican's first card catalog.) Add to that budget cuts, spiraling serial prices, and animated librarians, and it's no wonder that some of us aren't sleeping so well these days.

Thus the discussion of subject headings on the Future of Subject Headings listserv. If most students use keyword searches to find their materials, why do we need subject headings in the first place? Subject headings may make librarians happy, but what do they do for the average library patron? The Future of Subject Headings list has already generated an impressive analysis of what is both good and bad about subject headings. Like most good/bad lists, the things that are good or bad about subject headings are heavily dependent on context. The Google-ing down of search strategies is going to force us to change--again--the way we teach students to search for resources; the role that subject headings will play in the future will to some extent depend on how well we can adapt the controlled vocabularies of LCSH to a keyword-based environment.

Which brings me back to the threatened demise of librarians. One of the luxuries of being a theological librarian, particularly in a seminary context, is that you get immersed in religion and theology in a way that makes it easier to navigate theological resources by feel. It's a deep subject, and we Protestants have done our best to make sure that areas like ecclesiology are as complicated as possible. (Have you ever imagined a world where you would only need the term "Church" and everyone would know what you were talking about?) But it is a manageable subject, and with time, there is a growing familiarity and capability with the terms and history of theology.

So, too, with any discipline that any librarian loves and spends time with over the years. Because we are librarians, we may never gain the subject expertise of a practitioner in our field, but because we are librarians, we do gain a facility with navigation--with association--that allows us to organize and locate good resources. We are LCSH incarnate. No one of us holds the entirety of the Big Red Books in his or her head, but we know our own areas, and we are very good at collaborating. We may not control the budgets and the programming that will determine whether LCSH survives another generation, but people who want to find resources in a sea of information will still be glad to have us around.

futureofthebook.org

I'm indebted to the Chronicle's Daily Report for twigging me on to futureofthebook.org. A collaborative (and eclectic) group of authors, social scientists, systems engineers, programmers, bikers, graphic designers, and entrepreneurs have come together to chronicle the shift away from the printed page toward the networked screen, "and impact its development in a positive direction". They have an excellent blog -- if:book -- and support the "haystack" project -- http://www.futureofthebook.org/HASTAC/learningreport/about, a collaborative paper entitled The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age.

There seems to be a glaring absence in all this collaboration of any input from theologians or clergy (or, dare I say it, librarians). Some of this, no doubt, is because many of us are still way behind the technology curve and are less than actively engaged in the digital dialogues blooming all around us. Some of this may reflect the internal bias of the collaborators themselves who, while not opposed to well-thought-out intellectual debate about religion and belief, seem to largely view that debate as passé as, well, television (witness their Without Gods project).

So where is a theological librarian to stand in the midst of this swirling change? That is one of the themes I intend to keep revisiting in this blog. I remain committed to God's Word as an enduring story that will live into the digital age and beyond. The history of that story is a written one -- a textual one -- but that does not mean that it is in opposition to networked media. Whether we want one or not, I'm sure someone will eventually put together an iPod Bible complete with video clips, "contemporary" Christian music, and links to web-based commentaries and resources. If the iPod Bible is to be truly well done and a benefit to the Church, we will need to listen carefully to the voices of people like the futureofthebook collaborators. People like me bring a passion for the biblical story; people like them bring a passion for networking information well. Hopefully, we can both learn from each other.

The History of Tech Support

For my first posting, I am choosing a humorous look at the history of tech support. Having a good sense of humor makes survival in a field undergoing volatile changes much more pleasant. The following YouTube video is a good reminder that, in some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same.



Click here to view Medieval Help Desk

I think most theological librarians are conservative by nature, regardless of the bent of their theology. We have a past that we treasure, that we think is worth the sweat of our brows and the years of our lives to preserve, and yet new technologies are forcing us to reconsider the fundamental definitions of what constitutes a work, to ask how to recognize God's word in a post-literate era. We fear, among all the transitions, to have some of our text disappear.