Ethan Fenichel 🐲

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3 Following
30 Posts
O Rare Tech Services generalist... also husband, dad, soccer fan, cat fan.
@annasophia but also, hell yes to management being a problem.
@annasophia I'll be interested in your experiences. I've only worked with 1 library directly and some other folks through consortial work. My experience is that many of the highly skilled folks have great depth of knowledge in their workflows. as those workflows are altered to meet changing needs they are less comfortable applying their skills in new ways. The discomfort can lead to frustration, of course. I'm thinking about e.g. working with KBART files instead of works in hand.

(cont) like, certainly some description. But the majority of the work is likely to be project management, metadata work, web design, etc. I think a lot of this is covered in DH lit, right? So, lib directors don't want to reskill. How do TS workers get there? AND are we going to still be paid as catalogers for doing PM and Web Design work?

Ugh... and what if the library can't convince scholars to produce collections and doesn't have much?

Alright, I'll stop. But this is where my heads at

(cont) Cultural heritage collection development - which seems to be where most of the coolest work in the lib metadata sector is happening anyhow. I mean unique collections. Things that scholars create or that universities happen to own. Applying ethical standards means ensuring these aren't all white-men things and that description is inclusive and accessible, right? But what traditional skills of catalogers will translate to this sort of work? (cont)

(cont) Instead, lib directors would rather the ethical component went into Info Lit training which it doesn't seem the rest of the faculty think their students need - or at least doesn't think of the library to provide it. So, perhaps for lib directors, this is not the thing but just another thing. Spaces are a big part of lib $, too, but great lib spaces shouldn't be unique WRT study spaces on campus.

So, I go back to cultural heritage collection development and access. (cont)

thinking about libraries... gonna try this space. There is so much about technical services that seems to be out of style in Ac libraries. I think that is in part because Ac libraries are short on budgets and need to show value. The processing and provision of access to resources has largely been outsourced so that now it is just a bit of processing and not much original metadata work. So all the ethical training in the world for TS libs won't really result in expanded work. (cont)
@ruth we should call it a "Gorsuch"
@spellproof will try to add quotes into my conversation with her surreptitiously.
@Netanel sometimes toes need to be stepped on... good luck!