On 2012-05-15 16:21, Andrea Zanni wrote:
I think that the world of libraries is gonna be next, but I see a lot of issues too: libraries are in the middle of a disruption, the Internet has been really "though" on them.
In the Swedish Wikipedia, the articles on libraries, librarianship, and library science are very short, poorly written and without references. It's obvious that library school students aren't wikipedians, in the way that soccer fans or physics teachers are. The free encyclopedia attracts more textile craft and fashion nerds than librarians.
Sweden is a protestant and largely secular country, but the Swedish Wikipedia has detailed articles about every Catholic pope. Meanwhile, the list of directors of our national library has red links, http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%C3%B6ver_svenska_riksbibliotekarier
I don't think the Swedish Wikipedia is unique in this.
Nemo mentioned that IFLA conferences are expensive to go to. Yes. The problem is that we are considering the registration fee, instead of negotiating the compensation for giving the keynote speeches.
Imagine a librarian in 1985 who receives a phone call from the future: "Hello, this is a call from the future. We have the fully electronic, free-for-all encyclopedia here, larger than anything you've ever seen." Would the librarian yawn and ignore it, or be all excited and jumping?
Where exactly did we go wrong? If the largest encyclopedia ever is not exciting to librarians, what planet is this? Why do we have to push Wikipedia down their throats, one wikipedian-in-residence at a time? Why aren't they tearing it out of our hands? I don't think it's the Internet and all electronic gadgets that need explanation. It's the library world that needs to explain what exactly they are doing.