Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 13:22:48 -0500 From: [log in to unmask] Digital card catalogs. I love certain aspects of them - I don't have to stand up, move around, I can find out if they library has the book I need from my lab, and I know if the book is checked out and when it will be returned. But last week I was in one of Yale's main libraries and had to wait for 10 minutes before I could get a terminal in order to find a call number. Don't get me wrong, they have a lot of terminals - at least 35. But the same amount of space that those terminals employ holds the entire card catalog. I'd estimate that at least 100 people could simultaneously use the real card catalog. Sure, there are times when you might need the same drawer that another person is using. But chances are that the person won't need it for a whole 10 minutes. When people do online searches they can easily use the terminal for a long time - 20 minutes or more, effectively stopping anyone from using that slot to access the entire card catalog. Of course, the argument is *yeah, but next year we'll have 20 more terminals and this won't be a problem*. Right. So instead of supporting a method that has worked well (for patrons, at least) for many years, I've been put into digital purgatory always waiting for the next installment of new machines, faster processors, new versions of software. It is hard to say if things are better or worse, sometimes. Can this be true? At libraries I am familar with, the physical card catalog is HUGE. At NYU, the old card catalog, which has had no additions for around 15 years is in an area that could support a zillion (ok, I'm exagerating) terminals. Unlike the computer system, it also has to be onsite, taking up space that books could be using. Oh yes. Onsite. Ummm. So why is it you were doing a catalog search at the library? Before I head out on an adventure to NY Public Library (a closed stacks, noncirculating experience), I do almost all my searching at home via the internet. Then I can be there working with the resources. Yep. NYU (an open stacks, circulating experience) too. In fact, when I sit in my advisors office, and she thinks of yet another book I should read, she telnets over to NYU's online catalog, and can get a call number for me. Ah, Access. I dunno what it is like at Yale, but at NYU there are a dozen or so terminals scattered in the stacks, as well as a bunch around the old card catalog, so when that last minute insite strikes me, I can get to the card catalog. Wait a second. I wonder if yale has any books relevant to my thesis. Let me do a subject search here....Nope. Whew. I guess I won't have to stop in New Haven on my way up to Boston, to review some resources there I found via the internet version of their card catalog. Hmmm. Oh. Wait a second. Their online catalog only goes back to 1977. I guess I'll never know. Foo. (Ok. I admit that's flame bait. But wait. Yale isn't known in my area as far as I know. I'd never have gone to New Haven, but it's taken me more time to type this paragraph, than it did to do a cursory check of the Yale Library. Image if I'd found something - which I actually did at another university. My little toes would be wiggling!). Access. Ah, Access. Unfortunately, much of my thesis work is precomputer indexed, so I have the pleasure of using real card catalogs. Go ahead, ask me. Which is easier to follow the "see also" categories, running around a huge room of card catalogs, or typing: N, S=new subject? Oh yes. And what about hard subjects? I had a reference "Report to the Federal Coordinator of Transportation ..." with no author from 1936. Using RLIN and auw (I think) I discovered the author as "United States. Federal Coordinator of Transportation." With that I could look it up in the online catalog. It actually turned out that though NYU had a bunch of the FCT reports it didn't have the one I needed. (Actually if anyone is an expert on the Federal Coordinator of Transportation and wouldn't mind being asked a question - please contact me). Ok. I admit it. Online catalogs are my friend. So if you believe museums are about access and preservation, electronic media has been in my experience excellent for access. Preservation is harder. Certainly if you choose to preserve something electronically, you have to plan for the forseeable future to regularly, periodically move it to new media. As has been well pointed out by others, it isn' the deteriation of the media it is the changing technology. It's a cost, just like environment control. Which preservation technology to choose is much harder when the choice is to document the artifact and then lose it, or just lose it. Look. Since most of my current work is in the 1950's I want to have a popular view as well as a more technical one. One thing I've done is look at old copies of Newsweek, Fortune, etc. Go ahead. Ask me. Which would I prefer using: the physical object or a microfilm. Microfilm has to be one of the most culture destroying technologies ever invented. Worse than mold. Color is lost. Photographs are lost. Small text is mostly lost. All those wonderful Scientific American illustrations are compromised. Blech. Obviously a choice is being made to document these magazines in microfilm, and I believe important characteristics are lost in this form of documentation. I guess I'd argue we are making these choices even as I type and electronic media should be considered. Having spent some time in archives, or just handling 1930's books, the time is nearing (or maybe its here) when these objects will have to be documented and lost (yep. I can't tell you my repeated disappointment at finding what I need having been deaccessed. Not even documented. Just gone.) I believe that electronic technology holds real promise, especially since you often get improved access for almost free. My other guess is with all the digital library experiments in progress, the resolution of many of these issues will start happening over the next few years. Mark.