A CATALOG CARD SYSTEM I CAN LIVE
WITH?
You are familiar with my arguments about the primitive
nature of the catalog card production systems I’ve seen (see also
Contest of WLN (not the bibliographic utility)). I like
BS/BT ala FLB for the programming and ability to transfer data from
the other pieces of the system, but it needs an LCA chip on the
Plus. PB in S Sick has a dynamite bibliographic record (closest to
AACRII) but the programming needs a lot of help. Well, the company
with the number one selling library utility program may pick it up
and work their magic on it; if so you’ll read about it first in
WLN (not the bibliographic utility).
WHAT ABOUT THIS ELIXER?
A major vendor is about to announce a product that will
blow your socks off, so to speak. It involves receiving materials
for you shelves complete with a microcomputer
catalog/circulation records downloaded from another famous data
base. Hello nirvana, goodbye keyboarding.
WHAT ABOUT THEM
PUBLIKS?
MloNI has been doing a lot of work lately helping our
public cousins get in the micro move. Several underlying tenets are
being followed and I quold like to take a little of my own paper to
share the, and some other neat notes with you.
1) The microcomputer is not a cure all – it takes time to
get used to working with it
staff who are willing to work with it , a good deal of trial and errorand a willingness to
change
2) The micro will do somethings well, somethings adequately and
won’t handle
other tasks
3) Initial dollar investment needs to be broken down into three
areas:
hardware:50-60% software:20-30% training: at least 20%
(and not some ya-hoo from the local computer store who is a junior
whiz kid machine language programmer but-someone who at least
realizes that libraries circulate things.
4) Bigger and better things are down the road-use the
intervening time with a
micro to get you, your staff, your users and your board used to
getting information from the micro.
5) Start slow and make steady improvement. Learning means
making mistakes;
and if you can learn from how you screwed it up the last time
hopefully you won’t make the same exact mistake again.
The library is a natural place for people to have access
to computers (isn’t that sort of one of the underlying thoughts
behind Computertown?) but you can’t be so paranoid that
people will destroy the hardware/software that you can’t let them
use it.
We have circulated our hardware software to our
students and staff (they have to sign a liability waiver of course)
for two years and have never had anything messed up. One of
the local (Sick) universities was going to have a computer workshop
this summer and require each person to bring their own micros. They
had to cancel-too many lard a++
administrators wouldn’t let their own staff’s take the hardware to a
workshop. PHLLLGGGG!
To conclude: go out of your way and make contact with
your public library and ask them if they would like to use a little
of your expertise. By all means charge for your service-but don’t
rip them off! If WLN (not the bibliographic utility) hears
of any subscriber (?) ripping off public (or any other library for
that matter we will personally:
Rip your fingers off above the top knuckle (try and
keyboard then sucker!)
Send “Swedish” mail bombs to your computer containing
vast amounts of flat coca cola that will be disguised as a disk and
completely blow your system up when booted (beware of the squishy
disk!)
And/or cancel your subscription; whichever is worse.
