Myths About the information age

I found it in a discussion forum
5 Myths About the 'Information Age'

Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged. Taken together, they constitute a font of proverbial nonwisdom. Five stand out:


1. "The book is dead." Wrong: More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year. One million new titles will appear worldwide in 2011. In one day in Britain—"Super Thursday," last October 1—800 new works were published. The latest figures for the United States cover only 2009, and they do not distinguish between new books and new editions of old books. But the total number, 288,355, suggests a healthy market, and the growth in 2010 and 2011 is likely to be much greater. Moreover, these figures, furnished by Bowker, do not include the explosion in the output of "nontraditional" books—a further 764,448 titles produced by self-publishing authors and "micro-niche" print-on-demand enterprises. And the book business is booming in developing countries like China and Brazil. However it is measured, the population of books is increasing, not decreasing, and certainly not dying.


2. "We have entered the information age." This announcement is usually intoned solemnly, as if information did not exist in other ages. But every age is an age of information, each in its own way and according to the media available at the time. No one would deny that the modes of communication are changing rapidly, perhaps as rapidly as in Gutenberg's day, but it is misleading to construe that change as unprecedented.


3. "All information is now available online." The absurdity of this claim is obvious to anyone who has ever done research in archives. Only a tiny fraction of archival material has ever been read, much less digitized. Most judicial decisions and legislation, both state and federal, have never appeared on the Web. The vast output of regulations and reports by public bodies remains largely inaccessible to the citizens it affects. Google estimates that 129,864,880 different books exist in the world, and it claims to have digitized 15 million of them—or about 12 percent. How will it close the gap while production continues to expand at a rate of a million new works a year? And how will information in nonprint formats make it online en masse? Half of all films made before 1940 have vanished. What percentage of current audiovisual ma­terial will survive, even in just a fleeting appearance on the Web? Despite the efforts to preserve the millions of messages exchanged by means of blogs, e-mail, and handheld devices, most of the daily flow of information disappears. Digital texts degrade far more easily than words printed on paper. Brewster Kahle, creator of the Internet Archive, calculated in 1997 that the average life of a URL was 44 days. Not only does most information not appear online, but most of the information that once did appear has probably been lost.


4. "Libraries are obsolete." Everywhere in the country librarians report that they have never had so many patrons. At Harvard, our reading rooms are full. The 85 branch libraries of the New York Public Library system are crammed with people. The libraries supply books, videos, and other materi­al as always, but they also are fulfilling new functions: access to information for small businesses, help with homework and afterschool activities for children, and employment information for job seekers (the disappearance of want ads in printed newspapers makes the library's online services crucial for the unemployed). Librarians are responding to the needs of their patrons in many new ways, notably by guiding them through the wilderness of cyberspace to relevant and reliable digital material. Libraries never were warehouses of books. While continuing to provide books in the future, they will function as nerve centers for communicating digitized information at the neighborhood level as well as on college campuses.


5. "The future is digital." True enough, but misleading. In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important. Research in the relatively new discipline of book history has demonstrated that new modes of communication do not displace old ones, at least not in the short run. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after Gutenberg and continued to thrive for the next three centuries. Radio did not destroy the newspaper; television did not kill radio; and the Internet did not make TV extinct. In each case, the information environment became richer and more complex. That is what we are experiencing in this crucial phase of transition to a dominantly digital ecology.


I mention these misconceptions because I think they stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment. They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts—before and after, either/or, black and white. A more nuanced view would reject the common notion that old books and e-books occupy opposite and antagonistic extremes on a technological spectrum. Old books and e-books should be thought of as allies, not enemies. To illustrate this argument, I would like to make some brief observations about the book trade, reading, and writing.


Last year the sale of e-books (digitized texts designed for hand-held readers) doubled, accounting for 10 percent of sales in the trade-book market. This year they are expected to reach 15 or even 20 percent. But there are indications that the sale of printed books has increased at the same time. The enthusiasm for e-books may have stimulated reading in general, and the market as a whole seems to be expanding. New book machines, which operate like ATM's, have reinforced this tendency. A customer enters a bookstore and orders a digitized text from a computer. The text is downloaded in the book machine, printed, and delivered as a paper­back within four minutes. This version of print-on-demand shows how the old-fashioned printed codex can gain new life with the adaption of electronic technology.


Many of us worry about a decline in deep, reflective, cover-to-cover reading. We deplore the shift to blogs, snippets, and tweets. In the case of research, we might concede that word searches have advantages, but we refuse to believe that they can lead to the kind of understanding that comes with the continuous study of an entire book. Is it true, however, that deep reading has declined, or even that it always prevailed? Studies by Kevin Sharpe, Lisa Jardine, and Anthony Grafton have proven that humanists in the 16th and 17th centuries often read discontinuously, searching for passages that could be used in the cut and thrust of rhetorical battles at court, or for nuggets of wisdom that could be copied into commonplace books and consulted out of context.


In studies of culture among the common people, Richard Hoggart and Michel de Certeau have emphasized the positive aspect of reading intermittently and in small doses. Ordinary readers, as they understand them, appropriate books (including chapbooks and Harlequin romances) in their own ways, investing them with meaning that makes sense by their own lights. Far from being passive, such readers, according to de Certeau, act as "poachers," snatching significance from whatever comes to hand.


Writing looks as bad as reading to those who see nothing but decline in the advent of the Internet. As one lament puts it: Books used to be written for the general reader; now they are written by the general reader. The Internet certainly has stimulated self-publishing, but why should that be deplored? Many writers with important things to say had not been able to break into print, and anyone who finds little value in their work can ignore it.


The online version of the vanity press may contribute to the information overload, but professional publishers will provide relief from that problem by continuing to do what they always have done—selecting, editing, designing, and marketing the best works. They will have to adapt their skills to the Internet, but they are already doing so, and they can take advantage of the new possibilities offered by the new technology.


To use an an example from my own experience, I recently wrote a printed book with an electronic supplement, Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Harvard University Press). It describes how street songs mobilized public opinion in a largely illiterate society. Every day, Parisians improvised new words to old tunes, and the songs flew through the air with such force that they precipi­tated a political crisis in 1749. But how did their melodies inflect their meaning? After locating the musical annotations of a dozen songs, I asked a cabaret artist, Hélène Delavault, to record them for the electronic supplement. The reader can therefore study the text of the songs in the book while listening to them online. The e-ingredient of an old-fashioned codex makes it possible to explore a new dimension of the past by capturing its sounds.


One could cite other examples of how the new technology is reinforcing old modes of communication rather than undermining them. I don't mean to minimize the difficulties faced by authors, publishers, and readers, but I believe that some historically informed reflection could dispel the misconceptions that prevent us from making the most of "t


Source | http://chronicle.com/

Important Library Science term

Abstract:
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given scientific paper or patent application. Abstraction and indexing services are available for a number of academic disciplines, aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.
BANSDOC:
BANSDOC (Bangladesh National Scientific & Technical Documentation Centre) started functioning in 1962 as a small unit of the Pakistan National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre (PANSDOC) at the premises of the East Regional Laboratories of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) in DHAKA. After liberation it was placed under the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) and was renamed Bangladesh National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre in 1972. The aim of the centre was to put the scientific literature of the world at the disposal of researchers, teachers, industrialists, technicians, and in general, all those who are active in the field of science and technology. In 1987, BANSDOC was placed under the direct administrative control of Science and Technology Division (now an independent ministry) of the government so that it could be made the Central Documentation Centre of the country.
As one of its major functions, BANSDOC provides research and development (R&D) programmes support to the overall economic development of the country. It is entrusted with the responsibility of collection, processing and compilation of information and data on all fields of scientific research and experimental development and dissemination of such information to researchers irrespective of their institutional affiliation. Services provided by the centre include document procurement service, bibliography/literature search service, reprographic service, desktop publishing, printing service, and library service. Under the document procurement service, BANSDOC, if requested, collects copy of any published research paper, report or any other information material from both local and foreign sources for its client. In more than 80% of the cases, such materials are procured from abroad. The literature search service provides bibliographical data from international CD-ROM databases, including biological and physics abstracts, in collaboration with different libraries and information centres. The reprographic service includes providing photo prints, projection slides etc. of scientific and technical papers, information materials and other documents on request. The centredesktop publishing and printing services have considerably increased the speed of publications. Leaflets, brochures, invitation cards, certificates, training manuals, publicity materials etc. are designed by using in-house desktop printing facilities. BANSDOC library now has a rich collection of books on different branches of science. It subscribes to more than 300 national and international scientific journals/periodicals and CD-ROM on Biological Abstracts (1997-2000) and Physics Abstracts (1998-2000). BANSDOC has been running a Cyber Centre since 1999.

The following are the Objective of the BANSDOC
a) collection, processing and storage of information and data on scientific research and experimental development in all branches of science and technology.
b) Dissemination of such information to researchers irrespective of their affiliations whether they are engaged in research and academic institutions, planning organizations, policy making bodies and in the public and private industries sector and
c) Assistance to researchers to make contact with researchers of other countries working in the same field of interest. BANSDOC renders following services
a) Document procurement service
b) Scientific contact service
c) Translation service
d) Bibliography compilation service
e) Document reproduction service
f) Library service
g) Computer service and
h) Inter library lending service

DDC:
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, also called the Dewey Decimal System) is a proprietary system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey in 1876, and has been greatly modified and expanded through 22 major revisions, the most recent in 2004. This system organizes books on library shelves in a specific and repeatable order that makes it easy to find any book and return it to its proper place.
Main Classes of DDC:
• 000 – Computer science, information & general works
• 100 – Philosophy and psychology
• 200 – Religion
• 300 – Social sciences
• 400 – Language
• 500 – Science (including mathematics)
• 600 – Technology
• 700 – Arts and recreation
• 800 – Literature
• 900 – History, geography, and biography
000 – Computer science, information & general works
000 Computer science, knowledge & systems
010 Bibliographies
020 Library & information sciences
030 Encyclopedias & books of facts
040 [Unassigned]
050 Magazines, journals & serials
060 Associations, organizations & museums
070 News media, journalism & publishing
080 General collections
090 Manuscripts & rare books
100 – Philosophy and psychology
100 Philosophy & psychology
110 Metaphysics
120 Epistemology, causation, humankind
130 Paranormal phenomena
140 Specific philosophical schools
150 Psychology
160 Logic
170 Ethics (Moral philosophy)
180 Ancient, medieval, Oriental philosophy
190 Modern Western philosophy (19th-century, 20th-century)
200 – Religion
200 Religion
210 Natural theology
220 Bible
230 Christian theology
240 Christian moral & devotional theology
250 Christian orders & local church
260 Christian social theology
270 Christian church history
280 Christian denominations & sects
290 Other & comparative religions
300 – Social sciences
300 Social sciences
310 General statistics
320 Political science
330 Economics
340 Law
350 Public administrations
360 Social services; association
370 Educations
380 Commerce, communications, transport
390 Customs, etiquette, folklore
400 – Language
400 Languages
410 Linguistics
420 English & Old English
430 Germanic languages; German]
440 Romance languages; French
450 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic
460 Spanish & Portuguese languages
470 Italic; Latin
480 Hellenic languages; Classical Greek
490 Other languages
500 – Science
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
510 Mathematics
520 Astronomy & allied sciences
530 Physics
540 Chemistry & allied sciences
550 Earth sciences
560 Paleontology; Pale zoology
570 Life sciences
580 Plants
590 Zoological sciences
600 – Technology
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
610 Medical sciences; Medicine
620 Engineering & Applied operations
630 Agriculture
640 Home economics & family living
650 Management & auxiliary services
660 Chemical engineering
670 Manufacturing
680 Manufacture for specific uses
690 Buildings
700 – Arts and recreation
700 The arts
710 Civic & landscape art
720 Architecture
730 Plastic arts; Sculpture
740 Drawing & decorative arts
750 Painting & paintings
760 Graphic arts; Printmaking & prints
770 Photography & photographs
780 Music
790 Recreational & performing arts
800 – Literature
800 Literature & rhetoric
810 American literatures in English
820 English & Old English literatures
830 Literatures of Germanic languages
840 Literatures of Romance languages
850 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic
860 Spanish & Portuguese literatures
870 Italic literatures; Latin
880 Hellenic literatures; Classical Greek
890 Literatures of other languages
900 – History, geography, and biography
900 Geography & history
910 Geography & travel
920 Biography, genealogy, insignia
930 History of ancient world
940 General history of Europe
950 General history of Asia; Far East
960 General history of Africa
970 General history of North America
980 General history of South America
990 General history of other areas
IFLA:
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international association of library organisations. It is the global voice of the library and information profession, and its annual conference provides a venue for librarians to learn from one another. The IFLA forum promotes international cooperation, research and development in all fields related to library activities.

History
IFLA was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1927 when library associations from 14 European countries and the United States signed a resolution at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Library Association of the United Kingdom. Isak Collijn, head of the National Library of Sweden, was elected the first president. The first constitution was approved in Rome in 1929 during the World Congress of Librarianship and Bibliography.[1]
During the 1930s the first library associations from outside Europe and the US joined, these being China, India, Japan, Mexico and the Philippines. By 1958 membership had grown to 64 associations from 42 countries. A permanent secretariat was established in 1962. By 1970 there were 250 members from 52 countries. The secretariat was moved to The Hague in 1971. By 1974 IFLA membership had become virtually global with 600 members in 100 countries.[1]
Membership criteria were expanded beyond library associations in 1976 to include institutions, i.e. libraries, library schools and bibliographic institutes. At this time, the word Institutions was added to the organisation's name. Since then further new categories of membership have been created, including personal affiliates.[1]
IFLA has now grown to over 1,700 members in 155 countries. It is headquartered in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, in The Hague.
Mission
IFLA's objectives are:
• To represent librarianship in matters of international interest
• To promote the continuing education of library personnel
• To develop, maintain and promote guidelines for library services
Core values
The objectives are informed by the following core values:
• The endorsement of the principles of freedom of expression embodied in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The belief that people, communities and organizations need universal and equitable access to information, ideas and works of imagination for their social, educational, cultural, democratic and economic well-being
• The conviction that delivery of high quality library and information services helps guarantee that access
• The commitment to enable all Members of the Federation to engage in, and benefit from, its activities without regard to citizenship, disability, ethnic origin, gender, geographical location, language, political philosophy, race or religion.
Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE)
One of the core activities of IFLA is the Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression [1], which monitors the state of intellectual freedom within the library community worldwide, supports IFLA policy development and co-operation with other international human rights organisations, and responds to violations of free access to information and freedom of expression.
IFLA/FAIFE is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organisations that monitors freedom of expression worldwide. It is also a member of the Tunisia Monitoring Group, a coalition of 16 free expression organisations that lobbies the Tunisian government to improve its human rights record.



OCLC:
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a "nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs", according to its website. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. More than 60,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.[1] The organization was founded by Fred Kilgour, and its head office is located in Dublin, Ohio, U.S.
OCLC acquired NetLibrary, the largest electronic content provider, in 2002. OCLC owns 100% of the shares of OCLC PICA, a library automation systems and services company which has its headquarters in Leiden in the Netherlands and which was renamed "OCLC" at the end of 2007.[2] In June 2006, the Research Libraries Group (RLG) merged into OCLC. On January 11, 2008, OCLC announced that it had purchased EZproxy.
LAB:
East Pakistan received no share of books and other library materials from important libraries of Bengal as the division of the provincial assets. However the library movement in Bangladesh was started in 1850 with the establishment of 4 public libraries during the period of British role in India . The year 1850 is known as the milestone in the history of librarianship in Bangladesh . Since then no more significant libraries were established till 1954. As we knew that Pakistan Bibliographical Working Group (PBWG) was formed in the year 1950 under patronization of then Pakistan Government at the suggestions of UNESCO. The Group was reorganized in 1953, in it’s meeting which was held on 6 July 1954 , constituted an ad hoc Committee to form a National Association. Thus Pakistan Library Association (PLA) came into being in July 1956. The representative of erstwhile East Pakistan (now The People’s Republic of Bangladesh ) was in the ad hoc Committee. So that Karachi led in founding the All Pakistan Association. Few meetings were held in Karachi .
Aims and Objectives:
• Promotion of library services to the people of the country.
• Provision and promotion of facilities for training for librarianship and of research in library science.
• Cooperation with libraries, library organizations and with such Associations as may have similar aims and objects in and outside the country, in furtherance of the cause of service to the people in the field of librarianship.
• Improvement of the status and service conditions of library personnel and
• To take over the assets of any association or institutions having objectives similar to be objects of the Association.
Activities of LAB
The LAB is committed to:

o affirms that access to information is a fundamental right of the citizen;
o establish a comprehensive library and information systems and services that advance the social, economic, cultural and education development of the nation;
o provide technical advice and assistance in developing effective services;
o enables its every member to achieve and maintain the highest professional standards;
o bargain with the different agencies of the Government, NGOs, as well as academic institutions in regard to improve the status, salary of the professionals;
o improve the existing library services;
o conduct research and training programs for the professionals;
o implement the Government policy organizing seminars, rally, and workshops;
o take active part in improving literacy program;
o help Government and it’s agencies in developing and implementing plans and policies; and
o create greater awareness about the importance of libraries and needs of information.

UDC:
The Universal Decimal Classification is a system of library classification developed by the Belgian bibliographers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine at the end of the 19th century. It is based on the Dewey Decimal Classification, but uses auxiliary signs to indicate various special aspects of a subject and relationships between subjects. It thus contains a significant faceted or analytico-synthetic element, and is used especially in specialist libraries. UDC has been modified and extended over many years to cope with the increasing output in all disciplines of human knowledge, and is still under continuous review to take account of new developments.
The documents classified by UDC may be in any form. They will often be literature, i.e. written documents, but may also be in other media such as films, video and sound recordings, illustrations, maps, and realia such as museum pieces.
UDC classifications use Arabic numeral system and are based on the decimal system. Every number is thought of as a decimal fraction with the initial decimal point omitted, which determines filing order. For ease of reading, a UDC identifier is usually punctuated after every third digit. Thus, after 61 "Medical sciences" come the subdivisions 611 to 619; under 611 "Anatomy" come its subdivisions 611.1 to 611.9; under 611.1 come all of its subdivisions before 611.2 occurs, and so on; after 619 comes 620. An advantage of this system is that it is infinitely extensible, and when new subdivisions are introduced, they need not disturb the existing allocation of numbers.
Main numbers
0 GENERALITIES
1 PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY
2 RELIGION. THEOLOGY
3 SOCIAL SCIENCES
4 VACANT
5 NATURAL SCIENCES
6 TECHNOLOGY
7 THE ARTS
8 LANGUAGE. LINGUISTICS. LITERATURE
9 GEOGRAPHY. BIOGRAPHY. HISTORY
Common Auxiliaries of Language symbol =...
=...'0 Origins and periods of language. Phases of development
=00/03 General concepts
=1/=2 Indo-European languages
=3 Caucasian & other languages. Basque
=4 Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Congo-Kordofanian, Khoisan
=5 Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Korean, Ainu, Palaeo-Siberian,
Eskimo-Aleut, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan
=6 Austro-Asiatic. Austronesian
=7 Indo-Pacific, Australian
=8 American Indian (Amerindian) languages
=9 Artificial languages
Common Auxiliaries of Form symbol (0...)
(0.0...) Physical features, etc.
(01) Bibliographies
(02) Books in general
(03) Reference works
(04) Non-serial separates. Separata
(05) Serial publications. Periodicals
(06) Publications of societies, organizations
(07) Documents for instructions, teaching, study, training
(08) Collected, polygraphic works. Forms. Lists. Illustrations. Business publications
(09) Historical form. Legal and historical sources
Common Auxiliaries of Place
symbol (1/9)
(1) Place and space in general. Localization. Orientation
(2) Physiographic designation
(3) Places of the ancient world
(4) Europe
(5) Asia
(6) Africa
(7/8) America, North and South. The Americas
(7) North and Central America
(8) South America
(9) States and regions of the South Pacific and Australia. Arctic. Antarctic
Common Auxiliaries of Ethnic Grouping and Nationality symbol (=...)
The numbers are derived mainly from Table Ic - Common auxiliaries of Language e.g.
=111 English language ==> (=111) English speaking peoples
(=01) Physically defined races
(=1:2/9) Peoples of particular areas and countries (parallel with Table Ie)
(=1-5/-86) Various racial affinities
(=11/=8) Various races, peoples, linguistic, cultural groups (parallel with Table Ic)
(=11) Germanic races and peoples
(=13) Romance races and peoples
(=15) Celtic races and peoples
(=16) Slavic (Slavonic) races and peoples
(=41) Hamito-Semitic races and peoples
(=42) Nilo-Saharan races and peoples
(=51) Ural-altaic races and peoples
(=62) Chinese races and peoples
(=8) American Indian races and peoples
Common Auxiliaries of Properties symbol -02
Numbers introduced in 1999 (E&C21)
-021 Properties of existence. Relation. Range. Value, quality. Origin. Order (sequence, priority)
-022 Properties of magnitude. Degree, quantity, number. Temporal values. Dimension. Size
-023 Properties of shape. One-dimensional, line, linear. In the form of symbols. Two-dimensional, Plane, Planar. Three-dimensional. Solid. Edge conditions. Surface conditions. Form
-024 Properties of structure. Position
-025 Properties of arrangement. Layout. Balance. Continuity. Parallelism. Symmetry etc.
-026 Properties of action and movement. Direction. Physical properties. Material state. State of matter. Chemical properties. Properties related to visible light. Hues. Colours
-027 Operational properties. Development. Function. Production. Organizational properties. Membership
-028 Properties of style and presentation. Authorship. Order, arrangement. Content and position
-029 Properties derived from other main classes

Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA):
The Commonwealth Library Association was inaugurated in 1972 in Lagos, Nigeria through the sponsorship of the Commonwealth Foundation for the "nurturing of professional activity throughout the Commonwealth as an important component of the development process." Its secretariat is maintained in Jamaica by the Jamaican government.