Session 8 - Library Scientists & IT

This week I considered the role and importance of planning in IT operations. I also read a book on the role of library scientists in developing IT systems. I always wondered about the uses of a library science degree, but now it seems pretty straightforward. Librarians aka Library scientists were the original information organizers. They developed card catalogs, microfiche systems, and reference systems that allowed users to locate information without the help of fancy computer programs. Their work was time-consuming, repetitive and maybe even tedious, but they built systems that worked. In a way, the tedious, time-consuming nature of their work forced encouraged them to plan their operations carefully and standardize them for future integration. Today we easily discuss scrubbing the data in a database to main it uniform and integrable with other systems. Can you imagine telling a librarian that his entire card catalog must be rewritten on 5 x 8 index cards so that they can be filed in the same cabinets as the library next door? Can you imagine telling a librarian that she must change the names on every card in her catalog and replace the first initial with a full first name? Librarians were extremely thorough in their thinking and they learned to plan ahead.

I also considered the way that the study of the organization of information has largely fallen by the wayside in today's IT operations. That brings to mind the question -- how can you understand a system without understanding its underpinnings? How can you build on the system when you do not understand the fundamentals that serve as its foundation? The more I ponder these questions, the more it appears to me that information technology focuses so much on technology that it fails to consider the intricacies of information.