Tuesday, January 14, 2003 :::
Alphabet Soup: or, XML Shmexml
I went to my automation class tonight and we were lectured on MARC, SGML, EAD, HTML, XML, and the scary-sounding thing known as "Dublin Core".
It all made my head hurt, and I still can't explain what "metadata" is. So I came home to do some reading for my preservation class and slammed into this sentence: "Kuhn's analysis of scientific revolutions, Patrick Wilson's theory of research quality as consensus, the historicity of phenomenology and the textuality of post-structuralism, the rejection of positivism even by Western Marxism, the increasing acceptance of the centrality of interpretation in the social sciences...."
Fuck it, I know what the guy was trying to say. He was trying to say it is difficult for people to reach a consensus on a scale of values to use to measure whether or not a particular item belongs in a library's collection. That was not even half his sentence. I like to use big words and have people think I'm smart but that above statement is bullshit, that never should have been published.
I want my mommy.
Quote of the Day: (if the above was not enough)
" I nevor saw as meney ded yanks in my life" -- George W. Pearsall to his wife, May 11, 1864.
::: posted by tom at 11:20 PM
