June 26, 2004

So that’s it. There’s only so much you can do and observe in 10 days. One thing is certain: cataloging is not a simple business. And it is equally arduous explaining to non-librarians why this is so. So often during this project, I was asked what the hold up was—why I couldn’t use cataloging in publication or just make up numbers. Again and again, I found myself looking to my textbooks trying to find support for what librarians know: that CIP is merely a guideline, that much depends on a specific collection and that what one cataloger may describe as a book on mental illness (150 – Psychology), another may describe as a sociological study (304—Factors affecting social behavior). Cataloging practice may be as different as one person’s taste for meat and another’s for tofu. But of course, as a professional, you know this. Being in school we hear it all the time. But out in the world, even people who you think would understand this (and by this I really mean people who’ve been to college or who read a lot), don’t. Still, as many humanitarian organizations seem to have realized, aid is best when the aider doesn’t just do everything for the aidees; that is, we help create a model then move on to help elsewhere. No more is this more applicable than in setting up the library in San Miguel Duenas. I was not there long enough to thoroughly assess the community’s needs. However, I saw a good deal and it is my hope that by giving them a framework such as Dewey, the children will begin to understand the notion of access control, that they will be able to find the books and resources that will help them learn about the world and that they will, in turn, pass on what they learn to their friends and neighbors.
            Even if this happens, they will still be poor. Jean told me that one child who comes to the library wants to be a doctor but that most have more modest dreams: enough money buy pencils or vitamins or a birthday present, enough resources to have take care of their own families one day. In short, what I see the library doing is what a library should do: give them a future. Surely every human being is entitled to that.