Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ive. People tend to believe what they want to believe, and reading can support or
challenge understandings; readers must be critical of the sources they cite.
The blogosphere has been described as an “echo chamber,” and people tend to
seek out those blogs, Web sites, radio stations, and television stations that support
their views. In recent years, many mass-media news sources, including television,
radio, and newspapers, have abandoned a dedication to objective news reporting
to report news with a point of view. On television Fox News leans to reporting with
a Republican or conservative perspective, while MSNBC espouses a Democratic
or liberal perspective.
Information professionals must be aware of the perspectives espoused by news
media, publishers, organizations, and leaders. When helping people during an in-
formation search, information professionals must be alert to multiple perspectives
on issues and inform clients when ideologies are encountered. In this digital age,
multiple perspectives must be recognized and valued.
As we explained when we discussed diffusion (Chapter 6), the role of an in-
formation professional is to support diffusion and utilization, which means that we
must do what we can to help people understand the information and knowledge
that they encounter. This is a vital task of the information infrastructure.
Technical Services Are Outsourced
The cataloging of topics and maintenance of a card catalog was a major activity
of libraries before technology invaded our world. Large libraries maintained a staff
of professionals and paraprofessionals to catalog topics, assign subject heading,
prepare catalog cards, and file the cards in the catalog. Gradually, this catalo-
ging operation was replaced by “copy cataloging”; a library staff member (often
a paraprofessional) is trained to locate cataloging information and to download it.
Very little original cataloging is done, even in the largest libraries. We find the in-
formation that we can download from a topic jobber. Few libraries now maintain a
position called “cataloger.” However, a catalog is essential for defining the location
of a library's resources. The metadata librarian is the cataloger in the digital age.
Technical services could make a difference if users can add their own tags to
topics. Perhaps library catalogs should be viewed as a social medium. A client
could add a tag on a local level, even though it may not be a Library of Congress
subject heading. Information professionals should be willing to enable clients to
have input in catalogs and other guides to collections as a way of encouraging dif-
fusion.
Lifelong Learning
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