Feedback

By Staff -- Library Journal, 7/15/2006

White's wisdom

Thanks for the plug for Herbert White (Francine Fialkoff, “Too Clever by Half,” Editorial, LJ 5/15/06).... I first read White in library school and have found him to be a source of thoughtful professional commentary ever since....

White is at his best when he is challenging us to promote ourselves and our profession better. As Fialkoff points out, if we continue simply to do more with less, then our funding bodies will come to expect that of us. We are so often unwilling to point out to our funders that there will be consequences to budget cuts. We want to shield our users from those consequences, but, in doing so, we lose the opportunity to remind our users that the things that they value in libraries come with a cost. In these days of constant tax-cutting, people have lost the connection between funding for government services and the level of services that they receive, but it is there. Librarians should heed White's charge to demand that we receive the support to do the jobs that we are expected to do.—Barry Trott, Adult Svcs. Dir., Williamsburg Regional Library, VA

New catalogers are here

I couldn't agree more with Roy Tennant's “The New Cataloger” (Digital Libraries, LJ 4/15/06). His statement that the “modern cataloger will one day be a software-enabled specialist who can gather, subset, normalize, and enrich piles of records for a specific audience or purpose” rings true from my experience. Several members of the Metadata Services Department here at UCSD Libraries do exactly this kind of work now in the ILS environment, using both internal, system-provided tools (such as global update, customized load tables, and macros) and external software (MARCEdit and CUFTS). We are able to leverage and sustain our cataloging for the UC-wide Shared Cataloging Program by using these techniques. While the tools for the digital library environment are still under development, we envision an increased rather than decreased need for large-scale data manipulation.—Linda Barnhart, Head, Metadata Svcs., Univ. of California, San Diego

A fad, not a faith

I found [your] Spiritual Living Supplement (LJ 5/1/06) very interesting, but I have a reaction to the game on page 5 where readers are asked to match celebrities with “faiths.”

Kabala is a complex and, at least up until about ten years ago, esoteric body of knowledge that began to emerge within Judaism in the 13th century. It is not a faith. Individuals who were able to study Kabala (and it was very restricted) were Jews. The celebrities and others today who embrace what they call Kabala seem to be identifying some sort of practice that is not necessarily connected to Judaism. In any case, “Kabalist” doesn't really refer either to a faith or to an individual per se. I would characterize it more as a fad.... I realize that a growing number of books try to incorporate aspects of Kabala into everyday life, but I am not aware that anyone regards this as a distinct faith or belief system.

Of course, George Carlin might agree with you that atheism is a faith, but I think that's also stretching it.—Celia Rabinowitz, Dir. of the Lib. & Media Svcs., St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland, St. Mary's City

Not for liberals?

I must take issue with Ann Burns's review of Joseph C. Phillips's He Talk Like a White Boy (LJ 6/1/06). After accolades for the work, her final comments struck me as peculiar and counterintuitive. Burns's conclusion states, “Recommended for conservative readers and fans of the author.” Are we to take this to mean that liberals or even centrists would not be sufficiently tolerant and open-minded to read such a book, much less include it in their collections? That is a unique interpretation of the liberal mind-set (wink, wink).—Jason Kaloudis, Jericho P.L., NY

Print what you like!

Stan Pollakoff (“Why not the F word?” Feedback, LJ 6/1/06) contends that if someone speaks or writes a certain word, a publication should print it as is. The editors of LJ can print whatever they like in their magazine. Pollakoff is free to publish his own choice of words.—Amy Allison, Libn., Mercer Univ., Atlanta

We appreciate mentors

Three cheers for John Berry's “Start a Corps, Not a Corpse” (Blatant Berry, LJ 5/1/06). Some may consider Berry part of the Corpse (library retirees with obsolete ideas and set in their ways) because of his age. He includes himself in that category, but his thoughts are as young and fresh as if he had just marched down the aisle with his new MLS.... We are lucky to have an advocate like Berry, who believes in us “newbie librarians.” At the same time, us “newbies” value the experience of those who have worked in the trenches of librarianship and are willing to mentor us just a little while giving us freedom and space for our fresh ideas and new energy.—Annie Eastmond, a new librarian, Salt Lake Cty. Lib. Svcs., Salt Lake City