[1244] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Chronicle Article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (KAREN S. SUMMERHILL)
Thu Sep 17 17:36:51 1992
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 16:28:41 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: "KAREN S. SUMMERHILL" <ksumme01@gumedlib.dml.georgetown.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <01GOW72TKQNK91YXTZ@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>; from
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ken Laws says, referring to Gregory Finnegan's statement about librarians'
being best equipped to manage resources for general use:
"the others may have very little interest in 'general use'; they are
interested in maximizing their own use."
Yes, well isn't that the American way these days, everyone look out for
themselves...instititutions like, say, public schools, public libraries, etc.
they aren't there for the good of society, they ought to be making a profit!
And goodness, what a socialistic idea for an entire university to SHARE all
their information resources using a central organization called a library!!
Although according to Ken, a library doesn't contain information resources,
it only has "dead knowledge" comparable to a "Smithsonian insect collection".
My question for Ken and others who see the decentralization of information
resources as 'a good thing', is: when all the departments have their own
"libraries", that is, collections of resources, in addition to every
professor and researcher's own private collection of materials, what will the
students be using to do THEIR work?
Is each department going to invite each student taking a class in to use
the departmental microcomputer lab, the departmental photocopiers,
the departmental collection of books and journals and indexes, the
departmental database subscriptions, the departmental reference librarians?
(oh, but we won't NEED reference librarians, will we? or catalogers, or
bibliographers...no, no the departments will take care of all of that, too.)
If a student needs political science materials and history materials, and
sociology materials for a paper, are we going to send the student hopping from
department to department, or will the university pay to duplicate those
interdisciplinary materials in each separate department? (I don't for a
minute believe that 'it'll all be online and searchable in one fell swoop via
natural language queries any day now'.) I know, let's have the students buy
their own materials, pay for their own online access! Gee, then everyone will
get to "pay the piper" but good, won't they? But, hey, we can all be sure
we're getting our money's worth...oops, the students' (and alumni's and
taxpayers') money's worth.
Karen S. Summerhill
Education Services Coordinator
Georgetown Law Library
ksumme01@gumedlib.dml.georgetown.edu
