whitereflection (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whitereflection) wrote2004-07-16 04:47 pm
whitereflection) wrote2004-07-16 04:47 pm
Library humor. No, really.
Anj spotted this on the Autocat mailing list (an international ml for discussion of cataloging and authority control such things...you know, library fun) during a discussion of just how to word a particular note for certain records.
It's starts with:
> "How many catalogers does it take to change a lightbulb?
> Don't know yet, they are still looking through the rule books and discussing it."
Which was then followed by the response:
> Not to mention the catalogers waiting for studies on whether the lightbulb
> really needs replacing and non-offensive ways to describe the replacing
> (surely there's a less offensive term than "screwing in the lightbulb"
> ...), plus the sizeable number of us--me included--who would rather defer
> a decision until LC [Library of Congress] sets a precedent. You just can't be too careful.
And then this followed, from someone at the Harvard Law School Library:
> The question of whether using P. [4] of the cover is or is not
> cataloger-speak and the question of how many catalogers it takes to change
> a light bulb are in many ways inextricably linked. After all, we must
> determine if the bulb is incandescent or fluorescent, what its size is in
> centimeters (especially if it's an oversize bulb), what its wattage is,
> whether it's too U.S.-centric to call it a "light bulb" in the first
> place, whether the reference to "light" bulbs could be construed as an
> obscure chauvinistic reference to the Western Christian ethos, if light
> bulbs might not properly be identified by their scientific genus name, and
> many other factors. Then we must consider if the light bulb will be
> visible from other people through a shared international network (changing
> it by internationally accepted rules) or if it can be seen only by the
> inhabitants of our own library (bending the rules a bit for our local
> viewers). Then we should ascertain whether light bulbs can or should be
> changed by staff with graduate library educations or if well-trained
> paraprofessionals are capable of doing the job. It might behoove us to
> determine just how many light bulbs a staff member should be expected to
> change in a given work day. And finally we should consider if we really
> need paid staff to do this kind of task or whether we should recruit a
> volunteer from the community to do it. (Oh, wait, we really ought to
> explore outsourcing options for light-bulb changing work, while we're at
> it!)
Hahahahaha, people in this line of work are on crack.
(So does this explain why I have to make sure the artist/title/album info on my mp3s are all labelled just so?)
(No? Oh.)
(And this is to keep me from angsting how I ran into Take-sensei when she stopped by to talk to Anj today, and how my brain was screaming at me "You haven't studied a damned bit since early May, and somehow she'll know! You said you'd call her about seeing your final before AX, and you still haven't! Embarassment dooooom!" -_- )
It's starts with:
> "How many catalogers does it take to change a lightbulb?
> Don't know yet, they are still looking through the rule books and discussing it."
Which was then followed by the response:
> Not to mention the catalogers waiting for studies on whether the lightbulb
> really needs replacing and non-offensive ways to describe the replacing
> (surely there's a less offensive term than "screwing in the lightbulb"
> ...), plus the sizeable number of us--me included--who would rather defer
> a decision until LC [Library of Congress] sets a precedent. You just can't be too careful.
And then this followed, from someone at the Harvard Law School Library:
> The question of whether using P. [4] of the cover is or is not
> cataloger-speak and the question of how many catalogers it takes to change
> a light bulb are in many ways inextricably linked. After all, we must
> determine if the bulb is incandescent or fluorescent, what its size is in
> centimeters (especially if it's an oversize bulb), what its wattage is,
> whether it's too U.S.-centric to call it a "light bulb" in the first
> place, whether the reference to "light" bulbs could be construed as an
> obscure chauvinistic reference to the Western Christian ethos, if light
> bulbs might not properly be identified by their scientific genus name, and
> many other factors. Then we must consider if the light bulb will be
> visible from other people through a shared international network (changing
> it by internationally accepted rules) or if it can be seen only by the
> inhabitants of our own library (bending the rules a bit for our local
> viewers). Then we should ascertain whether light bulbs can or should be
> changed by staff with graduate library educations or if well-trained
> paraprofessionals are capable of doing the job. It might behoove us to
> determine just how many light bulbs a staff member should be expected to
> change in a given work day. And finally we should consider if we really
> need paid staff to do this kind of task or whether we should recruit a
> volunteer from the community to do it. (Oh, wait, we really ought to
> explore outsourcing options for light-bulb changing work, while we're at
> it!)
Hahahahaha, people in this line of work are on crack.
(So does this explain why I have to make sure the artist/title/album info on my mp3s are all labelled just so?)
(No? Oh.)
(And this is to keep me from angsting how I ran into Take-sensei when she stopped by to talk to Anj today, and how my brain was screaming at me "You haven't studied a damned bit since early May, and somehow she'll know! You said you'd call her about seeing your final before AX, and you still haven't! Embarassment dooooom!" -_- )