Monday, August 30, 2010
Muddiest Point
I am going to hold Zachary Sharrow (a.k.a. pittlis2600) and John Seberger (a.k.a. jsslis2600) responsible for corrupting me on this issue. Whenever I read anything, I try to be as unbiased as possible. I feared that if I show bias to what I am reading, then I am not absorbing the information properly. This is why I considered this so-called “Muddiest Point” as a ridiculous part of the course and feared that I would not make much progress in the area. However, this began to change after I read and commented on the notes of those two students. Apparently, both seem to view the Vaughan article with the lowest regards. Zachary believed that the lack of details on the “decision-making” was a significant flaw, while John, faithful to his BA, believed that case-studies have “some validity (however much or little), but not a great deal of reliability.” In response to the former, I believe that even if that issue was mentioned, I am sure someone else would find something else wrong with the article. Nothing so brief can ever cover everything and I simply dismissed his remark as just his opinion. As for the latter, seeing as how a case-study only focuses on one entity, I can see why he regards it as misleading. Since more than one person demonstrated the most criticism for the same article, this compelled me to believe that the Vaughan article was indeed the weakest after all. If the amount of criticism they shared applied to any of the other two articles, I probably would have considered the OCLC or Lynch as the weakest. Maybe after the flaws are shown they become more noticeable. As I have mentioned before, I try to be as unbiased as possible when I read anything so as to make sure the information I take in does not get distorted. After noticing the Vaughan article was met with the most criticism, I became convinced to hold the same level of regard for it as well.
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Hey att16,
ReplyDeleteMy comments on the Vaughan article were not intended as flaw-finding; I was just noting what I found myself wondering while reading. As I tried to make clear in my post, for what he evidently set out to accomplish, Vaughan did an excellent job describing what had been happening at Lied Library. Since I haven't worked professionally in the information sciences, I was curious about how institutional decisions are made.
It was, indeed, just my opinion.
I can tell you from my experiences and observations that the maintenance institutions often go through is an ongoing process. For the sake of satisfying the needs of the public, a library or archive must continuously update their methods of organizing their materials so as to make sure what is being sought can be located with greater ease. Just like how someone would have found something missing in the article (as I pointed out in my comment to your note), a patron will always feel there is something missing in the institution's system. This is probably due in part to the consumerist behavior people tend to have, always expecting more and more without end. Although the staff should try its best to appease the general public, what needs to be realized is that they simply cannot accommodate for everyone, i.e. to please all is to please none.
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