{"id":1258,"date":"2016-05-09T10:20:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T17:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galencharlton.com\/blog\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2016-05-09T10:20:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T17:20:55","slug":"cataloging-and-coding-as-applied-empathy-a-mashcat-discussion-prompt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galencharlton.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/cataloging-and-coding-as-applied-empathy-a-mashcat-discussion-prompt\/","title":{"rendered":"Cataloging and coding as applied empathy: a Mashcat discussion prompt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Consider the phrase &#8220;Cataloging and coding as applied empathy&#8221;. \u00a0Here are some implications of those six words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Catalogers and coders share something: what we build is mainly for use by other people, not ourselves. (Yes, programmers often try to eat our\u00a0own dogfood, and catalogers\u00a0tend to be library users, but that&#8217;s mostly not what we&#8217;re paid for.)<\/li>\n<li>Consideration of the needs of our users\u00a0is needed to do our jobs well, and to do right by our users.<\/li>\n<li>However: we cannot rely on our users to always tell us what to do:\n<ul>\n<li>sometimes they don&#8217;t know what it is possible to want;<\/li>\n<li>sometimes they can&#8217;t articulate what they want in a way that lends itself to direct translation to code or taxonomy;<\/li>\n<li>it is rarely their paid job to tell us what they want, and how to build it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Waiting for users to tell exactly us what to do can be a decision&#8230; to do nothing. Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do; often it&#8217;s not.<\/li>\n<li>Therefore, catalogers and coders need to develop empathy.<\/li>\n<li>Applied empathy: our catalogs and our software in some sense embody our empathy (or lack thereof).<\/li>\n<li>Applied empathy: empathy can be a learned skill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Is &#8220;applied empathy&#8221; a useful framework for discussing how to serve our users? I don&#8217;t know, so I&#8217;d like to chat about it. \u00a0I will be moderating a Mashcat <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mashcat.info\/twitter-chat\/\">Twitter chat<\/a> on Thursday, 12 May 2016, at 20:30 UTC (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeanddate.com\/worldclock\/converted.html?iso=20160512T1630&amp;p1=25&amp;p2=0&amp;p3=136&amp;p4=137\">time converter<\/a>).\u00a0Do you have questions to suggest? 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