Idaho Librarian |
Pearl |
| Nancy, I want to thank you for granting the
interview, and I know that you've … I've read in various Web sites and other places a
bit about your life. But could you tell the Idaho
Librarian a bit about your education and your background in libraries? How did you
first become interested in libraries? |
Well, I first became interested in libraries … In fact, I
became a librarian … I'm going to talk about this at lunch today, so don't be bored,
but you'll hear it again … because of a librarian in a branch library [Parkman Branch
Library] in Detroit, Michigan, which was my branch library, and it was a wonderful,
wonderful woman named Agnes Whitehead, and she really showed me that there were worlds
beyond the world that I knew, and I knew when I was ten years old that I wanted to be a
children's librarian just like Miss Whitehead. And so I got my library degree from the University
of Michigan, back when it was a library school, and … [pause] now it's a school of
information, I believe. |
| At Ann Arbor? |
Ann Arbor.
And then I … and then got my first job at the Detroit Public Library right back where
I grew up. |
| What part of Detroit? |
In the northwest section of Detroit. |
| I have friends from Warren and Grosse Pointe and Hamtramck. The
Polish neighborhood. |
Yes, all of those are around Detroit. So, and then I left …
when I left Detroit, when my husband got a job in Oklahoma, I sort of left the library
world for a while and had children and then went back into the world of books through
managing a bookstore and then went back into the library. |
| And this was an independent bookstore? |
It was a wonderful independent bookstore in Tulsa. |
| In Tulsa? |
Yes. |
| Was there … Did you … In library school did you emphasize
in children's librarianship or was there … When did you get the degree? |
I got my degree in 1967. |
| Was there an emphasis … such an emphasis at the time? |
There were children's … [pause] No. Not that I recall. In
other … Of course, the one course I do recall besides cataloging and reference is a
course in controversial novels, controversial books, so for a semester we actually read
nothing but controversial fiction and talked about it. |
| That's right up my alley. |
And it was so interesting. |
| I got my degree from St. John's University in Queens, New York, in
2002. I was 15 years in New York City as a graduate student and went to library school,
and on the faculty there is the children’s author Marilyn Kaye, or the young adult
librarian … |
Oh, yes … |
| So there's a big emphasis on young adult and children's literature
there, and I imagine other library schools now have the same … similar options. |
I think most library schools now—no matter what they do with
adult Readers' Advisory courses—do have children's lit courses, if nothing else, and
that's … good. |
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******* |
| I really appreciated … really valued the opportunity to get
your perspective yesterday on Readers' Advisory service. I really enjoyed the
preconference. But I wanted to ask you something about the value of novel reading …
because Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey defends the novel as the source
of "the most thorough knowledge of human nature," but people say all the time,
don't they, "I don't read novels. I only read nonfiction." Could you give
us your own point of view on the value of novel reading? Is there a morality of
reading? I know we talked about this a bit yesterday. |
You know, I do think … I have to agree with Jane Austen. I do
think that if you're not strictly … if you don't need, as you do in nonfiction, to
strictly adhere to the truth of a situation, that one of the things that you can do is use
that situation to bring out other truths or other views. And I do think that novel reading
gives us a really good picture of the varieties of human nature and that it isn't a
waste of time. I know a lot of people … maybe not so much now, nowadays, as it was
back in Jane Austen's day, when it was believed that novel reading would put ideas into
your head that shouldn't be there. I think that people … most people nowadays would
recognize that the novel has a place in people's reading interest, if only for
entertainment or relaxation or escape. |
| Austen in Northanger Abbey is reacting, of course, against
criticisms of women's fiction, Gothic fiction, and she defends … although she
has her own criticisms of that genre, because it puts unrealistic ideas into the head of
the heroine or the protagonist of the novel, yet she still defends the novel, and I think
that's remarkable. |
And there's actually a very good book out, just out, by Jane Smiley
called Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, and it's a history of the novel. It
really does three things in this book. The first part is a history of the novel, and the
second part is really good advice on how to write a novel, down to earth, welcoming, just
the sort of statement that says, "Do you want to write a novel? You can write
a novel. All you need is the desire to write a novel." And then the last of
the book, the majority of the book, is really a look at a hundred of her … a hundred
novels that she read over a period of about a year and an analysis of those novels and how
they work as fiction. I think that, Phil, you'd really like that book. |
| Yes, I would. It occurs to me, too, that a professor when I was in
graduate school was asked by an undergraduate how she could learn to write. What was the
best way that she could learn to write? And he said, "Read." |
Right. And Ernest Gaines … the author Ernest Gaines who wrote A
Lesson Before Dying, when he's asked that question, he says, "I can give you the
answer in eight words: read, read, read, read; write, write, write, write." |
| And so what you're saying is that there's a great deal more value
to novel reading than entertainment. |
Oh, absolutely. Yes. But even granted that its only entertainment
… I mean, if you went so far as to say that the only benefit of reading a novel is
escape or entertainment, I'm not sure I'd see anything wrong with that. |
| It wouldn't be different from movie viewing or television
watching? |
No, not at all.
Although I think that what a novel can do … I mean, certainly a novel offers …
[pause] depth in the same way that the best movies do. I mean … so there's that sort
of benefit to novel reading, as well. |
| Does it engage you intellectually more than, say, a movie would? |
I think some books do, but some books don't. |
| So some books are just pure escape … |
Right … |
| … as escape, and there's value in that. |
… and I think there's still value in that. I mean, I
think a lifetime of fluff is a little sad, but if that's what gives people pleasure, I
think that's fine. |
|
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******* |
| We talked a little bit yesterday, too, about the concept of
morality in reading. Austen seems to think that it's … that an immoral book would be
a book which would give you a … would lead you to misjudge another person. Is there a
morality of reading? |
I don't think I ever thought of it in those terms. I think that
… there are books in which I feel that if I … that there are books in which I
find the characters so … did they do such terribly cruel
things to other
people emotionally or physically, whatever … psychologically … that those books
I don't care to read. But I'm not sure that there's a morality in reading, as such.
Although I'm not sure I … |
| That's not to say that some books might … To say that a
book has a moral, and not … perhaps not all books have morals … |
I think definitely books … all books do not have morals. |
| … but I wonder whether reading doesn't always have some
morality, and I'm not … that's not to say … you know, we equate it with
sexual morality today. |
Right. I … you know, in the sense that reading can teach you
different ways of looking at the world, of widening your perspective, broadening your
perspective, I think that's a moral attribute of reading. |
| Of reading. Or sharpening your perspective … |
Or sharpening your
perspective, or teaching you to look below the surface of somebody. |
| I think that's exactly what Austen is saying. |
Yes. I think that that's a benefit, a moral
good that reading can give. I think the problem with talking about a morality of reading
is the way that sexual morality has hijacked that term so that's all we think about. |
| Yes. So that … what I consider to be important is distasteful
to us because of that. Really interesting. |
|
******* |
******* |
| Nancy, I want … Could you tell us now something about Readers'
Advisory service. What is it, and what is its history? |
Readers' Advisory service, I believe, is a
conversation between somebody who is at the lib— a librarian … and someone who
comes up to that librarian and says, "Can you recommend a good book? Can you help me
find something good to read?" And the Reader— and Readers' Advisory service is
that dialogue that follows, where the librarian, through asking particular questions,
elicits from that person in front of them what it is they're looking for, what kind of
book they're looking for, what they're in the mood for, and then proceeds to make some
suggestions that might fulfill that patron's reading desires. |
| Would you consider it a type of reference interview, then? |
It is a type of reference interview, and it's
harder than a reference interview, though, because reference interviews have right and
wrong answers. I mean, if somebody says to you, "What's the population of Idaho?"
they expect a number, and they expect that number to be as current as you have access to.
But if somebody says, "Can you recommend a book that I'll like?" there are
any number of answers. |
| That's from the … That's the service provided by the
librarian, which differs. Is there also a difference in a typical reference interview and
a Readers' Advisor interview from the perspective of the patron that makes Readers'
Advisory service more difficult? |
[Pause] I think that with Readers' Advisory
service the patron is sharing more of a personal … When you talk about what you like
to read, you say something about who you are … whether you want to or not. I mean,
your choice of books is a reflection of the deepest part of you. And so for somebody to
say, "Oh, I really loved Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides or Caleb Carr's The
Alienist. Can you help me to find another book like it?" I as the librarian make
certain assumptions, after talking to you, based on what you say, that will help guide me
to find other books. But in a reference interview, I don't know anything about you, except
that you need to know this fact: who wrote "The
Highwayman?" You know, what poet wrote "The Highwayman"?—that
doesn't say anything about you. |
| So the ref— the Readers' Advisory service can be more
emotional. |
It's a much more personal …
[pause] connection between the librarian and the library patron, which is one reason why I
think that Readers' Advisory service is so important, because it's a way of letting people
in your community, whether that community is a college community or a cit— a town or
a city, know— realize that the library is … plays this central role in the heart
of that community … through that personalized interaction. |
| It seems to me that a librarian can put herself on the line just as
much as a patron doing Readers' Advisory service. |
Oh, absolutely. Doing the Readers' Advisory? |
| Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. |
Right. I mean, the big problem with the
reference interview is that you, as the librarian, won't be able to find the
answer; but
when you have a myriad of correct answers as you would in a Readers' Advisory interview,
that's hard. |
|
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******* |
| I see that it's much more difficult. What is the Readers' Advisory
… what is the history? |
The history. Well, actually, the history of
Readers' Advisory service is, I think, very interesting, and it grew out of the early
years of the public library, where the public library really served as an educational
institution … |
| You mentioned this yesterday. |
… primarily … maybe not primarily,
but certainly for all the immigrants who were coming to the United States in the beginning
of … at the turn of the 20th century. And the librarian would actually set up a
curriculum, a reading curriculum, for those patrons. So the librarian was really seen as
an educator, not as an information provider, but somebody who would help the patron ascend
to knowledge, which is what Carnegie believed, which is why Carnegie libraries are always
built for stairs going up … |
| Interesting. |
… because he believed you ascended to
knowledge, and that was a metaphor for what happens in the library. And, of course,
those were the days when fiction … In the early days of the library, fiction was not
considered, as we were saying at the beginning, it wasn't considered worthy of
inclusion in the public library. And for that reason Readers' Advisory service really
began with non-fiction in that kind of educational … [pause] leaning that it had. But
nowadays Readers' Advisory service is much more thought in terms of recommending fiction,
although, I think, that's changing and we're starting to see the--which I am very
happy about--starting to see the library as a much more … Reader's Advisory
service in a much more holistic way. |
| So would you say that there's a contemporary move in public
libraries toward librarians as educators? |
I think that, for a long time, since the
advent of the Internet, and how we saw how the Internet really was so exciting and a
useful tool, that many public libraries and many schools of library and information
science have leaned very heavily on the library as information provider, to the exclusion
of nearly every other service. But I think that what's happening now, maybe, is that we're
beginning to see that there are other very important functions to the library, and one is
education, and the other is what I would call … which includes … the education
includes the kind of lifelong learning that reading for pleasure gives one. |
| Indeed, I see a similar parallel in academic libraries with the
transition from bibliographic instruction to information literacy … |
Yes, right. |
| … teaching students … trying to prepare them to be
information literate throughout their lifetime … |
Right. |
| … and not just, you know, to find the resources to write the
paper. |
Right. And I think that if libraries could
all bear eggs in the information basket we're going to become dinosaurs in the near
future, which is why I believe that libraries need to do much more than just provide
information. |
| What you said about Carnegie in the early days of libraries, too,
is interesting, because Charles Cutter, for whom the Cutter number was named, says in the
fourth edition of his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, published in 1904, over a
hundred years ago, that catalogs "assist in the choice of a book as to its literary
character" so as to "direct the attention of persons not familiar with
literature to the best books" … |
Yes. |
| … so this is exactly what you were saying. |
Right. Although Cutter was just referring to
non-fiction, wasn't he? … because … |
| Interesting. You know, I don't know. |
Yes. |
| He may very well … You know, I may have to go back and look
… |
I don't know. |
| … and that would be interesting. |
That would be. |
|
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| Does Readers' Advisory service, per se, have a place in academic
libraries? |
I think it does. I am not as clear … I
have thought about this, but probably not as much as I need to think about it. I certainly
think that when you're going to college you don't have a lot of time for recreational
reading. On the other hand, I think that in almost every class that you take there is the
opportunity to broaden the appeal of that course through that kind of recreational
learning. If it's a geology course, for example, assigning the books by John McPhee would
be very interesting; or if it was a course in American history, why stick with a textbook
when you could do David McCullough's biographies or other people's biographies? |
| I was a tour guide for The Bronx County Historical Society, and I
often advised people, you know, when asked, "How would I get a sense of this
place?" I would recommend that they read novels … |
Absolutely. |
| … because I think that novels give a flavor of place … |
Yes. Right. |
| … more than books of non-fiction do. In fact, I repeat what
our Circulation … Head of Circulation at Oboler Library said, that "books put
you in their place" … |
Yes. |
| … and I think that was very well said and always give her
credit for it. |
Yes. Books give you the truth … In some
ways, books give you the truth in history … by getting at it slantwise, as Emily
Dickinson sort of would say. I think because there … because fiction doesn't
necessarily depend on a dry recitation of dates and places, or even not so dry, but by
bringing that alive I think it does a very special thing. |
| People don't live history, do they? I mean, we're not living
history. |
No. |
| We're living life. |
Right. |
| Dates and facts, the stuff of history, aren't enough. |
And yesterday, when we … during the
Preconference, was it you who said that if a book is character driven, the character is
… was that you or Larry who said that? … or the character does, and if a
character does, then it's story driven. |
| Yes, I called attention to that. |
I thought about that last night. That is so
interesting. |
| That's what I heard in the descriptions. |
Yes. Right. And I tried to separate in my own
mind books that were clearly … books that I would say are clearly character
driven, and they are the is-es. |
| The is-es rather than the does-es. |
Yes, I think so. |
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******* |
| You'd mentioned … and I ran through my notes here. I can't
find it … You mentioned the type of … the name of the type of tool, like the
Genreflecting books. |
Oh, there's a tool called
NoveList. |
| Well, no, not the specific but the type of tool, like the something
list? … like a bibliography, or … ? |
A read-alike list. |
| A read-alike list. That's it. |
Yes. |
| Obviously, read-alike lists are important Readers' Advisory tools,
but what are the standard tools, and what, in your opinion, are the best tools? |
I think the best tool is a knowledgeable and
willing-to-read-and-learn librarian. That's the best tool for Readers' Advisory service
and cannot be beat. I think there is a whole series … and maybe I should have talked
more about this more yesterday … a whole series of passive Readers' Advisory tools:
read-alike lists of award winners, those kind of great bookmarks that people … that
libraries can produce. And then there's a whole sect— a whole series of tools that
one can use for Readers' Advisory service. Libraries Unlimited does a whole series on
… called Genreflecting … the Genreflecting series … which … with
different books that focus on different genres in fiction. And now they're coming out with
a new non-fiction book that I'm … Readers' Advisory non-fiction book that I'm really
looking forward to. So those are very useful, the Libraries Unlimited series. I think that
libraries—academic and public—would do well to acquire that series. |
| Now, your two volumes of Now Read This are in that series? |
They are
in that series. |
| And what genre do those …? |
Those are mainstream fiction. |
| What is a mainstream fiction book? |
A mainstream is when it doesn't fit into a
genre. It's sort of the absence of a genre. You know, the definition of genre fiction is
that it's … and I say this without intending to make this sound negative in any way
… but genre fiction is written to a formula. You know in a romance novel that
it's going to end happily, as Jayne Ann Krentz said: the definition of a romance is
"the answer is always 'Yes.'" You know in a mystery that it's going to end with
the mystery solved and the good people rewarded and the bad people punished. You know in a
Western that the good guys are going to win and the bad guys are going to leave town. With
science fiction, those are a little less formulaic, but you know that if a book has
unicorns and dragons, it's fantasy, and if it has, you know, a spaceship on the cover,
it's probably science fiction. Mainstream … liter— what they used to call
literary fiction or mainstream fiction is fiction that is not predictable, that you
don't know when you start and this couple meet and fall in love that they're going to be
together at the end. Or with the books that you talked about [at the Preconference] that you
liked where the books were, you know, had got kind of ambiguous endings, where you had to
figure out … and your opinion of what happened would be very different from somebody
else's opinion of what happened. So that's the kind of non-genre fiction that Now Read
This and Now Read This II are referring to. |
| Is that type of fiction more difficult to discern from a patron and
to suggest to a patron? |
It's only … it's more difficult because
there aren't a lot of tools that allow us to access those. With the genre fiction, there
are many tools, and there are many books devoted to horror, all different kinds. If
somebody says, "I like paranormal romances," you can go to, you know, look up
lists of paranormal romances; but if somebody says, "I really like books with
ambiguous endings," that would depend on my own memory. |
| Yes, we talked about that yesterday, and, after all, a Readers'
Advisor will not recommend a book or suggest a book on the basis of genre but rather on
the basis of appeal. |
Right. Although if somebody says, you know,
"I just love mysteries. I'm looking for another mystery just like … this other
mystery," then, you know, you … then you could … it's a pretty easy
question because you can use NoveList, the online tool that is available to all the Idaho
libraries. |
| Another passive tool? |
It's passive in the sense that you don't have
to do anything as a librarian. I mean, you can assist the patron in finding the stuff, but
you don’t have to dredge up things from your own mind. |
| So a Readers' Advisor is the only active … |
Yes. |
| … Readers' Advisory tool. |
Yes. You know, yourself. You interacting with
the patron, right? |
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******* |
| Nancy, a lot of things have been said in the library literature
about Readers' Advisory service in libraries, but very little has been written about
Readers'— the Readers' Advisory function of library catalogs. That is something
particularly of interest to me. Do catalogs have such a function, and, if so, in your
opinion, what are they? |
I think, now, that they have that Syndetics
… you know, that Syndetics really helps people who are looking through the catalog to
find out just broad subject headings. And so I think in that sense Readers' Advisory
… catalogs can serve that function. |
| So bibliographic enrichment, in other words. |
Bibliographic enrichment. Right. But, you
know, all that a catalog can do … Catalogs … The thing that's missing from
catalogs or from many of the Readers' Advisory tools is this whole notion of appeal. You
know, what it is that makes you like the books that you like. Is it the good writing? Is
it the interesting charac— Is it the fact that the characters are so three-dimensional? Is it that you want to … that the setting is so beautifully evoked? And
those you can't … Those nobody's yet figured out how to do. And as soon as
somebody … I mean, that's like the Holy Grail of Readers' Advisory service … as
soon as somebody does that, it will be a huge help. But, as somebody pointed out in the
workshop yesterday, appeal is, in many ways, very arbitrary. In fact … When I think
of the appeal … It's arbitrary and yet not arbitrary. I mean, I think there's general
… It sounds like it's arbitrary: "Oh, the appeal is Anne Tyler's
character." But, yet, I think that, in fact, there's going to be general agreement
about what the appeals of what certain books … of certain books are. There're going
to be a few where it's going to be toss up: could be one, could be the other; so you could
do both, if you wanted, if you were using the catalog that way. |
| So there's some room for catalogs to improve in the area of
Readers' Advisory service. |
I think that would be very exciting. |
| Is there a … almost an irreconcilable difference or
contradiction here, though? With the OPAC, the catalogs are being searched now more and
more from home. |
Right. |
| There's really more software than warmware in today's libraries,
and yet … |
And that's why we need Readers' Advisory
service to bring people into the library … back into the library. And we need to
… And the way to do that is … I mean, I totally agree what happens is people sit
at home, they read People magazine or Newsweek, they see a review of a book,
they go into their OPAC, they put it on hold, and the only trip they make to the library is
when they learn the book is there, and then they don't go any further than the checkout
desk. I mean, what we need to do is get them to go behind … back into the
library and discover all the treasures that are hidden there, and maybe that's a …
maybe the … you know, one of the solutions to that is to have somebody, when you're
checking out the book, have your Readers' Advisor sitting at the checkout desk … you
know, saying, "Oh, well if you like that, here's another book that you might think
… you might take a look at, as well," or something like that. |
| Where does the Readers' Advisor generally sit? |
In most libraries … At the Marshall
Public Library here in Pocatello there's a desk, actually, that says, on the very first
floor … on the first floor … that says "Readers' Advisory." In some,
you know, the big libraries, there's … the big urban libraries, like Seattle Public
Library ... there's a fiction desk, just a whole fiction section. But I'm not sure … You
know, a lot of that kind of interaction that I'm talking about goes on at the circulation
desk, and I think that it … that it's those circulation people that we need to train
in Readers' Advisory service just like we train librarians. |
| Or perhaps put a Readers' Advisor behind the circulation desk. |
Yes, right. It would be interesting. |
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******* |
| What about subject headings for fiction? There's been a recent
discussion on AUTOCAT, the library cataloging listserv, concerning subject headings for
fiction. Some catalogers, I think primarily in public libraries, are for them, because
they fulfill this … |
Right. |
| … function; but others, in academic libraries, think that
subject headings for fiction will mislead library users into thinking that novels are
works of non-fiction. |
You know … [sigh] Well, I think that's
underestimating … [sigh] people to say that they would be misled into thinking that
they were novels. I mean, children's books have had subject headings for decades.
And they also have that lovely one-sentence summary. Why couldn't there be a lovely
one-sentence summary for … |
| Indeed. |
… adult books? Why can't there be
subject headings and a summary of the book ... in just the … you know, with the
original cataloging? Let's do a summary of the novel, as well. |
| I don't see how otherwise a patron can find a novel about a
subject. |
Right. Except through using something like
NoveList. |
| I also like the subject headings for fictional characters. |
Yes. |
| I think those are very helpful. |
Those are extremely helpful. And see,
because … I mean, the reason that NoveList is so useful is because it does those
functions that the catalog does not. |
******* |
******* |
Nancy, we've spoken
about those summaries in a catalog record, and those are only one of the many types of
notes that are possible in a bib record. And I'd like to … your perspective on an
issue that's interested me for several years: notes in catalog records for what I call
"bad books," that is, books compromised by age, or by error, or by bias. They
might be bowdlerized or expurgated. They might be fraudulent, plagiarized, in violation of
copyright, libelous, or just controversial.
The issue of censorship is frequently
raised against such notes, yet library systems—and you mentioned, well you mentioned
a software like Syndetic Solutions—but library systems such as Horizon, as well as
projects such as the Library of Congress's BEAT, or Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory
Team, are already bypassing librarians to pull content automatically into bibliographic
records. And just last month, in September 2005, OCLC launched its new Wiki-D project,
which is even now allowing readers to contribute their own comments and reviews, in
the flavor of Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com, to WorldCat records, which are available
through Open WorldCat … you know, when you google "find in a library" and a
book title … and soon those comments will be available in the OCLC WorldCat records
through the FirstSearch interface.
The ALA Council just recently revised
its statement on labeling, now called "Labels and Rating Systems," at the 2005
ALA Midwinter Meeting, and that revision seems to concede to user desire for more
information in library catalogs, because it omits the statement about the inclusion of
labels in "bibliographic records, library catalogs, or other finding aids."
What is your view … your opinion on
such record enrichment in library catalogs? |
Well [sigh], that's a really hard question. I
mean, there's … I have always been against any kind of labeling because it seems to
me that it narrows the world of reading rather than broadens it. … I'm reminded of a
novel … [pause] Let's see, what it is called? I have to think of it. I might have to
e-mail you the name of it … But the main character is an African-American writer, and
he writes very, very postmodern novels that have nothing to do with the African-American
experience at all. And, in fact, his books are still labeled and shelved in bookstores or
in libraries under African-American books. Now, what he says is—the novelist—"What
if I wrote a book on plumbing? Would you still put that in the African-American
section?" |
| Good point. Just because he's Black doesn't
mean that it's in African-American literature. |
Exactly. And how much would you … And
how … [pause] how sad that … the assumption is … that that book
would only be read if it were in the African-American section rather than in the
fiction section. |
| So in this way it severely limits … |
It does limit. So labeling in that
sense has always meant to me limiting rather than broadening, and my view … my
feeling has always been that as librarians the best— one of the best things we could
do is broaden and expand people's reading to the extent … you know, to the very
extent that they will allow us to. [Sigh] So if … but … you know, if a
book has been … [pause] And then, you see, I'm not sure about the whole notion of
debunking, I mean, thinking of Stephen Ambrose's books, or … you know, how far would
you go with that? James Michener didn't … I mean, his research was all done by,
as I understand it, by other people. And, I mean, what about all the … You know, do
you want to say Jane Fonda didn't write this book, or …? You know, there's
another novel called Author from a Savage People by Bette Pesetsky about a women
who's a ghost writer, and the guy she ghost writes for wins the Noble Prize,
[chuckle] and she feels she should get that Nobel Prize because she wrote it. So, I
mean, would you put that? You know, "This book was ghost written?" I mean, how
far would you go? [pause] And then, how much would depend on the cataloger's view of it? |
| It's a very difficult … The opportunity
… Or as something was said today, the … something of the oppression of
subjectivity is such an issue here. |
It is. It is. And that's in a sense why
… you know, sometimes I think in my sort of wildest imagination [laughter] we should
just throw all the books into the library, arrange them alphabetically by author—fiction
or non-fiction, it doesn't matter—and just let people have at it. And I know you
couldn't do that. But without sort of those … oh, those, in many ways, arbitrary
distinctions that we make—fiction versus literature. What's literature and what's
fiction? Shakespeare's plays? Shouldn't those be in fiction? So why do we put them in
Dewey in the 800s? |
| You mentioned yesterday at the Preconference,
too, on the other hand, the benefits of labeling … |
Right. |
| … of guiding readers to books. |
Right. And whether the labeling … [sigh]
Labeling helps guide readers to books, definitely. I mean, if they're interested in
mysteries, and you have a mystery section in the library, that will guide them. But, on
the other hand, it also limits them, because … if they like a particular author,
and that author is found … many of his books or her books are found in the mystery
section, but then there has been a cataloger in years past who decided that one or two of
those author's books aren't mysteries, then you'll miss those. |
| Although the access points or the headings in
the catalog should lead the user … |
But I think a lot of people don't use the
catalog that much or they don't … I think we forget that there are a lot of
patrons who never will check the catalog or will never come up and ask us for
anything who will expect to find it on the shelf. |
| So the issue doesn't seem to be then the
labeling as a limit or as a directional tool, because all labels do both. |
Right. |
| What is the issue? Because, obviously, we
want to guide our users to books, and yet … but we don't to limit their experience. |
I think the issue is how you decide what a
book is when you put a label on it. How you decide if a book is a mystery. And each
cataloger probably has the same general notion: there's a detective and a murder. But
… [pause] what if you make a mistake? I mean, I just think the chances … [sigh] |
| Is it just the case, then, that we just do
the best we can do? |
Oh, I think that's how … I think,
definitely, we just do the best we can do. |
| We recognize our own limitations and … |
Right. Yes. I think that's a good way of
putting it. … Although it's very interesting. This whole notion of what the catalog
can do I've never thought about. You know, I've never sat down and talked to a
cataloger who has a, you know, sort of an intellectual interest in a … in the
catalog. |
| It's fascinating to me, because I can see
that, ideally, a cataloger, as I said in my NACO presentation … my previous
presentation … A catalog should be created so … as if to put a reference
librarian out of … to make them obsolete. |
Right. |
| And that's not to say … I say that
tongue-in-cheek. But … a catalog should be able to … should try to do the very
same thing that a warm-blooded librarian can do. And, yet, I find our catalogs so
deficient in that regard, and notes in the records … |
But isn't that like the Turing test? You
know, the catalog … the interface with the catalog should be … The person should
be unaware of whether they're talking to the catalog [chuckle] … you know, a catalog
or a living person. |
| What do you call this? |
The Alan Turing. The T-U-R-I-N-G. The big
test of … |
| Usability. |
… of artificial intelligence … |
| Oh? Yes? |
… is if you don't know whether you're
talking to a computer. If a, you know … if a computer … is how I understand it—and
my understanding might not be correct … but if you can't distinguish between a
computer's responses and a person's responses. |
| Maybe a cataloger should try to blur that
distinction as much as possible. |
Although we don't want people not to … |
| Of course not. |
… you know, come to talk to us. We want
people to … |
| Of course not. |
|
******* |
******* |
| Nancy, my last question for you is How
do you spell Readers' Advisory? |
You know, that is … I … That is a great
question, and I just spell it … I was so happy to see that question …
because I just spell it however the person writing to me spells it. I mean, I … If
they want to spell it R-E-A-D-E-R-apostrophe-S Advisory, I do it that way. I think
probably it should be R-E-A-D-E-R-S-apostrophe. |
| As the Library of Congress spells it in the
LCSH. |
Yes. Right. |
| By the way, the former heading was Reader
guidance. |
Yes. |
| I found that interesting because that seems
to reflect the … |
It does … the educational … |
| Yes. |
And the building of curriculum for reading
… |
| From which we've kind of strayed … I
mean, we've strayed … |
Totally strayed. |
| Yes. |
Right. And then … But, you know, what
people object to about that reading guidance thing is that people … that it implies
that some books are better than others … you know, that you start with … the
most … [pause] steamiest romance and then gradually your taste improves so you'll end
up with Jane Austen. And that kind of progression through … from bad to good is
something that … it doesn't … is not palatable in our … generally in
society today. |
| Yes, and particularly in Readers' Advisory
service. |
And in Readers' Advisory service … a key
… [pause] That's another area of fruitful discussion. |
| Would you say that there's such a thing as a
bad book? |
[Pause] I would say that there are books that
are … better written than others. I would say that there are books in which the
characters are better … more, you know … more multi-dimensional than others.
[Pause] I would say that there are many, many, many books that I don't like and therefore
I believe … because it's me … that they're … I mean, because they're
… it's my taste … that they're bad books. But does that mean that I think
that somebody else wouldn't enjoy those books? No. |
| But you would be able to describe to someone
why you dislike a certain book? |
Yes. |
| So, in that sense, there are better books for
you … and there are worse books. |
Yes. I mean, there are books … Maybe a
better way of thinking about it would be there are books that meet my particular reading
needs, and they're different from somebody else's reading needs. |
| Interesting. Nancy, thank you very much for
your time. I sure appreciate it. |
Oh, thank you, Phil. It was just great. |
