[338] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Questions from Patrons
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael S. Hart)
Wed May 27 17:22:49 1992
Date: Wed, 27 May 1992 16:19:26 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This message is directed at the half-dozen listservers which are discussing
patron access to electronic information via electronic mail; the purpose of
this note is to identify these concurrent events and to bring them to those
who may not be aware this subject has been bubbling up now and then for the
preceding year on these varied listserver forums.
The lists:
PACS. . . . .Public Access Computer Systems
BI. . . . . .Bibliographic Instruction
LIBREF. . . .Library Reference (Reference Librarianship)
GOVDOC. . . .Government Documents
GUTNBERG. . .Electronic Text
STUMPERS. . .Difficult Queries Answered Right Away, Impossible In A Day
(Stumpers doesn't really say this. . .I made it up.)
The discussion invariably involves control. . .but a very powerful part
of the discussion, which usually appears between the lines, is the part
of librarianship that is motivated by the positive feedback generated a
piece at a time by the direct and positive interaction between a person
in the profession and the patrons. People seem to be willing to talk a
lot more about this in person than on the network. . .but I feel this a
very important "missing link" in the discussion.
Of course, it is obvious that some people want the discussion lists for
a specific purpose, or purposes related to a specific kind professional
issue, and that anything related to that professional issue is accepted
whether it be "NEED A ROOMMATE FOR ALA" to anything more related to the
actual professional profession being professed.
Thus the roommate note is valid, while a request for information is not
(unless it comes from the proper source and goes to the proper list).
I realize this is a simplistic definition of the situations at hand for
the members of these six lists, but I have chosen the simplistic for an
assortment of reasons.
1. Not to get bogged down in specifics, except as examples.
2. To give others more encouragement to post their own views.
3. To volunteer the resources of Project Gutenberg and a few of
the other lists whose operators I have contacted about this.
4. To take the issues away from the area of flames, and to very
different areas of "Let's Do Something About It."
There are obviously members of each list who feel either way, or
even a combination of both ways; some feel the privacy of LOUNGE
is what should determine the goings on for a listserver; this is
contradicted by those who use the analogy of professionals in an
environment such as a library, having a professional discussion,
and choosing to ignore a patron obviously in need of assistance.
These two examples are merely examples: let's not forget that.
However, they do point out a VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC: that we have
not yet defined what most of these listservers are going to be--
or that IT WILL PROBABLY BE DEFINED VERY SHORTLY WITH OR WITHOUT
OUR CONSENT OR WITH US PARTICIPATING ON PURPOSE.
****
What we are doing here will quite possibly be cast in stone some
few years from now. . .even though we may not intend it that way
at all. There is no doubt in my mind that GOVDOC will be a huge
forum of huge power in a very short time, and that those who run
GOVDOC are not terribly aware of the power their current choices
are likely to have tomorrow. My own personal GOVDOC experiences
lead me to believe GOVDOC is the most likely listserver to be an
example of what we are in danger of, if we limit the questions a
person may ask.
Since ALL of these are MODERATED LISTSERVERS. . .the question of
really inane queries being forwarded to these lists is moot; the
moderators see their roles as fit to return terrible bad queries
to their senders for clarification. Again, this is quite easy--
a touch of the "REPLY TEXT" option with the addition of some few
boilerplate phrases asking if the question has been phrased in a
proper manner will do the job a great majority of the time.
Of course for those who reject the possibility of the DELETE KEY
the previous option may appear too strenuous, even for those who
are interested in being list moderators. However, the truth is,
and I just tested it myself, that using the delete key is a most
easy and delightful function. . .most of the time one is capable
of pressing the DELETE KEY simply from the subject line of those
offending messagea, and only rarely do the messages require your
internal perusal for such a decision.
In fact, many listowners have taken it upon themselves to label,
in various manners, the notes they forward to their lists, quite
a few now place Q: and A: or the like before questions, answers,
and other common types of notes, so the readers who want answers
are not tricked into reading additional questions others have to
add to their questions. This was particularly evident when an *
was used to indicate a reply to a note, but most of the replies,
sad to say, were really additional queries on the subject.
If I don't open a message, it takes me only a second to DELETE a
note with a subject I know I don't want to see. If the note has
a subject header I can't decide about, then it may take all of a
few seconds to read enough to decide to DELETE it. On a bad bad
day, this entire process of DELETING notes might take one entire
minute, but usually much less. That is not too high a price for
us to pay to have those notes available to those who like them.
I, personally, don't expect to be interested in most of the note
topics on the servers I subscribe to. I feel it is well worthy,
more than well worthy, of my time to sort through hundreds of an
ever enlarging stack of email messages to find those I am really
interested in. It doesn't take very long, and it is very highly
rewarding. We cannot demand a service that gives us exactly the
notes we want,(though sorters are available in many mailers) the
reason being that anything that would sort so strenuously, would
also remove some of the notes we actually wanted to see. . .most
of us are aware even with our own sorting that we sometimes miss
messages of great importance to us, and we only notice it when a
friend, or two, or three ask us what we thought about it, as was
the case just this morning when my sorter tossed all the LIBREFs
down at the bottom of my stack because they were all dated three
days ago. . .however, I would never have seen them because I was
already down to the point where I stopped reading before. . .and
I was not going to read any further, having forgotton today that
this has happened before.
More messages to sort through, one of which is really great, are
better than fewer messages, with a great one that got away. MAN
THE DELETE KEYS AND FULL SPEED AHEAD! (Sorry about that, geez.)
This was all written live, no more time to proofread. . . as the
time to strike is while the iron is hot, and I would like to get
responses from all those concerned while interest is high.
More later,
=====================================================
Thank you for your interest,
Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
