[1155] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Chronicle Article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Graham, Rutgers U., (908) 93)
Tue Sep 8 09:31:56 1992
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 08:27:42 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: "Peter Graham, Rutgers U., (908) 932-2741" <GRAHAM%ZODIAC.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Bernie Sloan comments on the Chronicle article featuring Bill Arms at
Carnegie Mellon, who is paraphrased:
>"Most important,
he (Arms) says, distributed computing eliminates the need for a
central library administration and makes management more flexible".
(This is a Chronicle paraphrase of what he said, not a direct quote
of something Arms said).
Heaven protect us from our friends, of course. Arms has the weakness common
to those who haven't worked with the history of information provision (that
is, libraries) who don't realize all the back-room effort that goes into making
the information available. I envision a "central administration" of some
kind continuing to see that what we now call the work of catalogers, reference
people, document delivery and the like is done in a way cost-effective and
efficient and useful to the University.
He has the strength of recognizing that the technology will allow much of
this to be distributed technically and perhaps even geographically. As
Bernie Sloan suggests, the Jennings article is relevant here -- new ways of
approaching these issues will require change on our part as we convince both
the critics and our technological friends that there is more to technology
than meets the eye.
(Parenthetically: Lelde Gilman's uncomfortableness with the generality of
the Jennings article is not wholly misplaced; it is indeed time to move on to
concretes. But are Jennings' abstractions in the right direction, Ms
Gilman, or not? I think so; so now let's get practical.)
--pg
