It bears repeating that many library standards, notably MARC, are
essentially non-relational and non-normalized. Fully normalized
relational databases aren't an obvious idea if you're never been
exposed to them—and something like a religious revelation once you
have. Whether or not SQL is a useful skill for librarians and library
staff, the meme is worth spreading. Maybe we could put it in the
water.

T

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Jul 30, 2008, at 1:47 PM, Cloutman, David wrote:
>
>> Perhaps you should put together some MySQL training materials for
>> librarians. A webinar, perhaps. I'd love it if my colleagues had those
>> skills. I don't think there is that much interest, but I could be wrong.
>> There are at least 101 ways enterprise level database skills could be
>> put to work in my library. I'm pretty sick of our core technical
>> solutions being Excel spreadsheets and the occasional Access database.
>> Blech.
>
>
>
> Tell me about it, and besides, basic SQL is not any more difficult than CCL.
> SELECT this FROM that WHERE field LIKE "%foo%"  Moreover, IMHO, relational
> databases are the technological bread & butter of librarianship these days.
> Blissful ignorance does the profession little good.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame
>



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