Hi Cliff,
This is a subscription request for PRNCYB-L.
First, the requirements:
Bob Watson
Bob Watson, Executive Director
Franklin Park Public Library District
10311 Grand Avenue
Franklin Park, IL 60131
847-455-6016
I originally heard about Principia Cybernetica some months back in a
discussion at the Electric Minds VC. I explored a bit at that time.
I had a specific interest this day due to a web search on "universal
knowledge" that led back to your site.
Now to elaborate.
I am a librarian, which means that I am a member of a somewhat "lost"
profession. Or, better put, I am a member of that fraction of the library
community which has become more and more "lost" in the profession over the
past century or so. I belong to the "reference librarian" subset of
librarianship.
The reason that I regard "reference librarians" as lost is because they
receive little professional training in what they actually do. It is
assumed, and correctly, that they work with library collections and with
databases in order to extract knowledge, but "how" this is done is
completely ignored by the library profession (for reasons I won't bore you
with, but which have to do with economic necessity and academic
specialization at the time that Melvil Dewey founded the first graduate
school in library science).
When one explores for knowledge, especially for another (as we reference
librarians frequently do) one must have some knowledge of what one is
looking for; one must "understand the question." This means, in my view,
an appropriate topic overview needs to be in place prior to the search.
Unfortunately, there is no place where one can learn this "social
epsitemology" (to use the phrase coined by library educator Jesse Shera
some 60 years ago).
What one learns, what one has on hand awaiting the eager questioner, is
almost entirely what one builds on one's own--and it must be admited that
there are a lot of autodidactic librarians doing a better than adequate
job. Yet there should be a better way, a way to identify what one needs to
know in order to help most users (and a way to contact those with more
specific knowledge when such is needed).
It may be that the PCP folks and discussions will be useful in defining how
things should be done.
I've published articles on the subject in _RQ_, _Public Libraries_,
_Illinois Libraries_, and _Wilson Library Bulletin_. To what I must admit
was less than overwhelming response. :-)
Bob