As librarians, its ironic that sometimes we don’t have time to read. One of my goals is to continue learning by finding and reading books on librarianship - to keep learning, know new trends, find ideas to apply to my work, and to be informed. Aside from attending seminars and workshops, there is much value still in books, and sometimes they are right in the libraries we work in! I also find that older books, even those from the 60s to the 90s still have valuable insights and often has better writing than modern ones.
The latest book I’ve read is Effective Online Searching: A Basic Text by Christine L. Borgman, Dineh Moghdam, and Patti K. Corbett. Though published in 1984, it gives the basics and history of online information searching and what makes an effective information searcher. If you are studying or teaching Indexing, there is a lot to get from here - especially how information searching was done in the early days of databases and the internet. It gave me a new appreciation on what we can do today, based on what was done in the past.
I also love how the book recognizes that there might be new technologies in the future, where we may simply ask a computer a question in our own language, or for the computer to understand context. Almost three decades after its publication, it has indeed come to pass - search engines, AI, modern databases with more sophisticated searching are now here.
I encourage us all to also read and create our own personal ‘continuing professional development’ beyond school or daily work. I find this kind of learning very fulfilling. I will try to read more and share what I read as I go along.
What was the last book you read? Do you have any recommendations? 📖
By the way, I borrowed and read the book with the Libby app with access provided by eLibraryUSA (digital library of the American Spaces, a service of the US Embassy). There is also an online copy in the Internet Archive.
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