[3863] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: Libraries
rdshydur@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (rdshydur@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Jun 6 14:22:51 1993
answering questions posed by strangers is one of the tasks of
your friendly librarian; electronic networking provides everyone
the opportunity, maybe option, of being a librarian, which
traditionally includes being a pointer to resources and sources.
some of us are probably reincarnated librarians with unfinished
business left over from various times and circumstances :-) and
we imagine electronic librarianship to be a possibly efficient
means of ... catching up.
at the other end of the spectrum of possible answers, some of us
are obsessed with meeting new people ... networking ... for
purposes ranging all over the place, virtual and physical, for
profit or not-for-profit.
and some of us have so many ireons-in-the-fire that answering
questions of strangers may lead to burn-out or amazing serendipitously
and immediately relevant positive feedback that provides connections
to people smarter or more able ... at the moment ... to in turn
be able to help us or our "regular" clients (even children,
and often our own, in my case) get to some solution that much
more quickly and painlessly. {ireons = irons}
of course blind queries and blind answers (no id's on either party)
can help prevent lots of not-so-useful consequences in this business.
