Tim Spalding谈LibraryThing和图书馆(员)

    因为LibraryThing个人在线目录新推出以“作品”集中图书的方式,引起国外一些FRBR的图林博客的兴趣。LibraryThing拥有者Tim Spalding在FRBR Blog和See Also下留言,谈到LibraryThing的“作品”组合方法是“什么”、不是“什么”:

  • It’s Wikipedia, not Britannica.
    是《维基百科》,不是《不列颠百科全书》。(有规则,但由众人共同参与,而不是由权威决定)
  • It&aposs Del.icio.us not Google.
    是“美味书签”,不是Google。(由众人共同参与,而不是由机器算法决定)

    See Also说起LibraryThing的“作品”好似盗版了FRBR。虽然Tim在FRBR Blog留言中说那是开玩笑,但仍在See Also博文的留言中,“嘲弄”了一番图书馆、图书馆员:

  • I am well aware that books can be related to each other in an extraordinary number of ways. Librarians shouldn&apost imagine FRBR or any other system captures them all either.
    我很清楚图书能够以相当多的途径互相关联。图书馆员也不应当想象FRBR或任何其他系统能全部掌控这些途径。
  • LibraryThing&aposs understanding of relatedness is designed to compliment its explicitly user- and social-centered goal. That too is pretty novel; traditional cataloging is author- and publisher-centered.
    LibraryThing对关联性的理解被设计达到其明确的“用户与社会性为中心”的目标。这也是相当新颖的。传统编目是“以作者、出版者为中心的”。
  • I considered using the ISBNx project as a base. … I just wanted to try something new. … public cataloging is not bad cataloging. The people who really KNOW Asimov are his fans.
    我考虑过使用[OCLC的]ISBNx项目作为一个基础…[但]我只是想要尝试一些新的…公众编目是不差的编目。[LibraryThing的用户]确实“了解”阿西莫夫,是他的粉丝。

关于最后一点,Tim在说明LibraryThing系统新功能的博文中不无自豪地举了这样一个用户提出的例子:

  • Isaac Asimov&aposs Nightfall the short story collection, is distinct from Nightfall the novel and from Nightfall One. Do libraries know that? Does Amazon?
    阿西莫夫的短篇小说集《黄昏》不同于小说《黄昏》与《黄昏I》。图书馆知道吗?亚马逊呢?

而他这篇博文的标题正是:每个人都是图书馆员。

参见:
The FRBR Blog: LibraryThing has works (2006/2/22)

See Also (Steve Lawson): LibraryThing Reverse Engineering FRBR? (2006/2/23)

LibraryThing Blog: LibraryThing leaps forward: Everyone a librarian (2006/2/23)