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One of the problems with much of the modernizing drive of going all-digital is that there is no failsafe. No workable fallback. Usually skipped for "efficiency"

by bregma 3y ago

One of the problems with much of the modernizing drive of going all-digital is that there is no failsafe. No workable fallback. Usually skipped for "efficiency" (meaning some Excel spreadsheet was used to manipulate the numbers and a pivot table added to a slide deck in a presentation to the board resulted in earning that quarterly bonus for someone). We're seeing more and more problems arise because of the lack of a failover plan. All it would take is a small printer to generate a new car from the digital system whenever a new item is added to a library's collection, and for someone to file the card just like they do the book (or do they still have physical books in libraries? ).

prepend 3y ago
The failsafe is backups. This is such a trivial problem to solve. In fact, libraries are really good for distributed storage so have a peer to peer replica all over the world. Libraries are trustworthy and stable so good spots to distribute 100 durable replicas of the catalog data. If you’re worried about surviving Armageddon or something then that’s a different problem. Not that the books will likely be around, but I suppose you could dump the data out to records or something and bury it under the library and that’s more likely to survive whatever takes out the library. But I think a digital copy of the catalog distributed around the world and into space is more likely to survive. That might be a fun project, to broadcast the data out into space at something that will reflect it back in 10-100 years so we’ll have a copy coming back to us in the future. Is that possible, astronomically?
- bregma 3y ago
  > The failsafe is backups. Backups are not a failsafe. Firstly, backups are not an emergency plan. Restoring backups is the emergency plan, and that needs to be tested and verified on a regular basis. Making backups without validated restoration is just theatre, Second, a backup is not a failsafe. A failsafe is something that lets you keep working in the event of a failure. It's not something that lets you keep working after you recover. If a self-driving car had the failsafe of stopping dead in the middle of the railway tracks until you restore it from backup you're going to have a lot of damaged trains. No amount of computer database backup will help you when the power goes out. Fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, they happen and power can go out for weeks (in the first world) or longer (in most of the world). With today's connected world, all it takes is for a network switch to go out and hundreds of thousands of commuters get stuck in the downtown during rush hour because the commuter trains have no failsafe while freight trains keep trundling on the same tracks because they do [0]. Making backups is not a failsafe and it's not good enough. [0] ttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/go-transit-system-problem-1.6985282
gmcharlt 3y ago
Fun fact: the MARC format, used for bibliographic metadata by the majority of libraries that have digital catalogs, included supporting the printing of catalog cards as one of its use cases [1]. To this day a properly maintained library catalog based on MARC could, with some effort, be used to generate an equivalent set of printed catalog cards. However, printed catalog cards as a backup to the digital catalog have practical problems. For one thing, they are heavy. A full card catalog of a large public library could easily weigh tons [2] and take up space that would be better used for other functions. For another thing, the expense would detract from other library services, and many libraries already suffer from budgetary challenges. A proper backup strategy is the way with the risk of losing the digital catalog. Besides, libraries have more fundamental problems to deal with regarding the permanence of electronic resources. For example, the fact that libraries largely do not and cannot _own_ the ebooks they circulate causes numerous problems. [1] https://www.allpurposeguru.com/2021/03/henriette-avram-and-the-modern-library-catalog/ https://www.allpurposeguru.com/2021/03/henriette-avram-and-t... [2] https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2022/10/moving-card-catalogs/ https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2022/10/moving-card-catal...

by bregma 3y ago

prepend 3y ago

The failsafe is backups. This is such a trivial problem to solve. In fact, libraries are really good for distributed storage so have a peer to peer replica all over the world. Libraries are trustworthy and stable so good spots to distribute 100 durable replicas of the catalog data. If you’re worried about surviving Armageddon or something then that’s a different problem. Not that the books will likely be around, but I suppose you could dump the data out to records or something and bury it under the library and that’s more likely to survive whatever takes out the library. But I think a digital copy of the catalog distributed around the world and into space is more likely to survive. That might be a fun project, to broadcast the data out into space at something that will reflect it back in 10-100 years so we’ll have a copy coming back to us in the future. Is that possible, astronomically?

bregma 3y ago
> The failsafe is backups. Backups are not a failsafe. Firstly, backups are not an emergency plan. Restoring backups is the emergency plan, and that needs to be tested and verified on a regular basis. Making backups without validated restoration is just theatre, Second, a backup is not a failsafe. A failsafe is something that lets you keep working in the event of a failure. It's not something that lets you keep working after you recover. If a self-driving car had the failsafe of stopping dead in the middle of the railway tracks until you restore it from backup you're going to have a lot of damaged trains. No amount of computer database backup will help you when the power goes out. Fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, they happen and power can go out for weeks (in the first world) or longer (in most of the world). With today's connected world, all it takes is for a network switch to go out and hundreds of thousands of commuters get stuck in the downtown during rush hour because the commuter trains have no failsafe while freight trains keep trundling on the same tracks because they do [0]. Making backups is not a failsafe and it's not good enough. [0] ttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/go-transit-system-problem-1.6985282

gmcharlt 3y ago

Fun fact: the MARC format, used for bibliographic metadata by the majority of libraries that have digital catalogs, included supporting the printing of catalog cards as one of its use cases [1]. To this day a properly maintained library catalog based on MARC could, with some effort, be used to generate an equivalent set of printed catalog cards. However, printed catalog cards as a backup to the digital catalog have practical problems. For one thing, they are heavy. A full card catalog of a large public library could easily weigh tons [2] and take up space that would be better used for other functions. For another thing, the expense would detract from other library services, and many libraries already suffer from budgetary challenges. A proper backup strategy is the way with the risk of losing the digital catalog. Besides, libraries have more fundamental problems to deal with regarding the permanence of electronic resources. For example, the fact that libraries largely do not and cannot _own_ the ebooks they circulate causes numerous problems. [1] https://www.allpurposeguru.com/2021/03/henriette-avram-and-the-modern-library-catalog/ https://www.allpurposeguru.com/2021/03/henriette-avram-and-t... [2] https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2022/10/moving-card-catalogs/ https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2022/10/moving-card-catal...