[910] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Librarians
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Thu Jul 4 12:40:08 1991
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 91 12:38:35 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: sac@apple.com, com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Steve Cisler's message of Thu, 4 Jul 91 05:20:51 -0700 <9107041220.AA02466@apple.com>
[Steve asked me privately if he could use my note elsewhere, as I
wrote my response I thought some of the other comments I made might
clear up some reactions to my note in general so I'll just post my
reply.]
I don't mind you circulating my comments at all (gee, if I wanted
privacy I wouldn't post to widely read lists!)
I do think you took the wrong spin on my comments, a little, tho
you're probably correct in your conclusions anyhow.
I found it all wonderfully naive and, as I said, quixotic. Confronted
with this huge, amorphous mass they were going to charge in and
catalog the beast for god and country!
And ya know what? I believed them.
Although putting their findings on-line rather than on paper would be
useful to more people, instant publishing and all that, I could see
the practical attractiveness of keeping a sort of orderly lab notebook
on their discoveries. I suspect even a few hundred pages of such notes
could be entered on-line in a couple of weeks if they became ultimately
useful.
It was the spirit of the thing that amused me, self-reliance and all
that.
Even the password thing was in the same spirit, it was naive not
mischievous, they were professionals who needed to "get into the
stacks" as it were, even if the rules said they couldn't get a stack
pass(word.) The intent was to know what was in there so they could
inform others, as far as I could tell, who could then themselves get
appropriate (paid) access. As librarians they generally had little
personal use for the material.
I think something that perhaps comes through is that reference and
research librarians need free, casual access to these resources to be
able to better advise others on what's useful. Perhaps just rely on
some professional ethics that such gratis accounts wouldn't be used in
any way soas to usurp the normal charging scheme.
P.S. I found the whole experience of speaking and interacting with a
group of librarians (and some information brokers) both refreshing and
invigorating. These folks have serious views on information and its
organization which the rest of us could learn a lot from. I just wish
they wouldn't sit in the audience going SHHHH...SHHHH the whole time I
spoke :-)
-Barry Shein
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