[667] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Librarians and the Internet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Mon Jul 6 09:46:25 1992
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1992 08:40:57 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
5 Messages, 199 Lines
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From: KENDLER@DSB835.EDVZ.SBG.AC.AT
Subject: Re: Librarians and the INTERNET
Time to tune in. I've been reading Pacs-L for a few months now and decided
that it might be interesting for some of you to hear a complete outsider's
view on this topic (allthough it may sound quite unimportant) So this is a
European view of the current discussion. I'm a student assistant at the
University of Salzburg, Austria, Europe. I learnt how to cruise the Internet
in exactly the small steps Lee Jaffe previously described.
When I read the last few messages on this I was really relieved to hear that
also librarians in the US (THE country of networking compared to Austria)
have problems in accepting the new technologies. I tried to introduce the
Head of the American Studies Department and some other staff members to the
benefits of the INTERNET this morning and although they were interested and
fascinated they were also bewildered about the "predominance of the screen"
and the impersonal being which the computer is for them.
We have about 10-15000 students here in this relatively small university and
a computing centre where the staff has enough problems with installing enough
computers in the different departments. We at the English/American Studies
Dpmt. have about 20 terminals (without net-link) for about 40 staff members and
700 students. Imagine that. Persons who know about computers and the Internet
here face a large crowd of people who treat the computer like a type-writer
and would happily use their word.5 program for the next twenty years. Last week
I found that the only computing-specialist of our Department still works with
MS-DOS 3.0.
The problem here really is that there is absolutely no sense of awareness.
People want to go on doing the things they've done for twenty years now in
exactly the way they did it back then concerning research and bibliographic
problems. The idea that you could completely change your perspective, set
new priorities etc. never ever occurs. You can teach them how to use the
Internet effectively as a tool to shorten long bibliographic searches, but
instead of being happy that they need three days for a job that once took
three weeks they start worrying about the predominance of the screen (whatever
that might be) and feel like slaves of technology.
Computers are a wonderful tool in many ways and for sure we have to be careful
in how we use them but I think that we live in 1992 now and there's no way in
which we could turn back time so we better try to make the best of what we got.
Susanne Kendler
Department of English and American Studies
University of Salzburg, Austria
e-mail: INTERNET: kendler@dsb835.edvz.sbg.ac.at
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From: case@NEUROMANCER.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject: Drinking from a firehose
Lee Jaffe wants to withdraw the expression, "drinking from a firehose."
He writes:
> I'd prefer to think of the
> Internet as some strange terrain, possibly like a cave in an adventure
game.
> The Internet is a landscape not a process ...
Thinking of the Internet simply as a landscape makes it into a static
thing. It is not. It is more like the red spot of Jupiter, to which we
can point, but which we know (or do we?) is not really the same from
year to year, because it is in fact a violent storm, something dynamic.
He continues:
> * I want to take back ownership of the phrase "drinking from a
firehose."
> [...] I don't think that it is a particularly apt analogy for the
Internet
> experience. (see above) There have been quite a number of instances
where
> it is being used in this way and I take exception to the tone of
anxiety
> and lack of control that this fosters. Though the listserv traffic
may
> sometimes seem like an unmanageable stream of information, email
services
> in general and resources available through telnet and ftp are rather
> benign and passive.
This is not true at all. My Internet experience goes back to 1985 (at
least). The experience is not overwhelming if one confines one's domain
to a few areas, which I did a few years ago. But to _manage_ not only
the amount of information, but also the number of places in which it
might be found, something I need to do now -- this is not trivial.
> I certainly don't think that it helps to bring an
> image of being overwhelmed by a volume of information to any
discussion
> with novice or non-users. I would much prefer an image of the
Internet
> as a terrain we can explore (e.g. Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Internet,
> Thar's Gold in Them Thar Networks). Those that have played computer
> adventure games or read CyberPunk literature will more readily under-
> stand.
I agree, and if Lee's second thoughts were meant for novice users, then
my comments aren't apropos. (However, it's not clear that they were
meant for novices.) Something as wonderful as Zen and the Art of the
Internet is really only a primer for getting started; it's a user's
manual, or owner's manual, as if I were just handed the keys to an
18-wheeler with split-shifting, and had to figure out how to drive it.
But it's not the same as taking that or any vehicle to every city with a
four-star French restaurant and bringing back their menus. That involves
managing a _changing_ landscape, not to mention the vehicle itself (some
bridges are too low, some roads too narrow, etc. etc.).
In short, the world of information is not static. It is ballooning.
Librarians of the future cannot manage it alone. More and more, I think,
they'll need good automated tools to help them. Those of us in library
automation need to think about, design, and build those tools. This is
the challenge.
--
Charles Blair chas@uchicago.edu
Systems Librarian for Microcomputing Applications Phone: 312 702-8459
The University of Chicago Library
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From: LAMBDEAN@ITHACA.BITNET
Subject: forest/trees
Okay, I'm hooked on this discussion. I think the internet is an amazing
source and I wish I did have more opportunity to play with it. Our campus
connection was temporary and is now gone away (hopefully it will return
soon) But let me put in a good word for those who seem to fight it.
They are not Luddities in my opinion, they are overworked and underpaid
academic/public librarians. Many of them deal with more than one system
now (OCLC, opacs, CD-ROM's, online searching) and the thought of adding
another to the pile is somewhat discouraging! Add this feeling to a
general lack of support to take the time to learn a new resource and
the lack of training, and I can see why people fight the addition of
yet another task to their job jars.
I think the analogies to ed tech, bib instruction and online searching
are apt. And I strongly believe in a hook. I ran media centers for
several years and remeber dealing with a faculty member who refused to
use media in his classroom because a bulb blew in an overhead projector
10 years before. By the time I was finished, he was doing his own
off the air recording on his home VCR. So, bit by bit we cal all
work together and eventually the internet will become a standard in our
bag of tricks.
But lets have some small amount of sympathy for those who seem reluctant
to embrace this.
For what its worth...
Deb Lamb-Deans
Ithaca College
lambdean@ithaca
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From: mulliner@ouvaxa.ucls.ohiou.edu
Subject: RE: Librarians and the Internet
Bob Strauss (STRAUSS@UNCA.BITNET) wrote:
>All this talk about 'what value the internet.' I forsee an electronic
>Library wherein EVERYONE will have access to a Library of Congress size
>collection. In 50 years, people will wonder "how did they ever do meaningful
>research in the 1980s and 1990s in those tiny libraries?" Researchers
>will download pieces of information (quanta?) and ignore the bulk, which
>wont interest them--rather than go through tons of items, looking for
>a few gems of wisdom.
This reminds me of my favorite citation from one of my
favorite books:
"'Think about it, man' said a young enthusiast at the San
Francisco home computer fair last year, 'you could have the
entire library of Congress at your fingertips.'
'What would you do if you had the entire Library of Congress
at your fingertips?' I asked him.
I am still waiting for an answer."
Jacques Vallee, THE NETWORK REVOLUTION: CONFESSIONS OF A
COMPUTER SCIENTIST (Berkeley: And/Or Press, Inc., 1982), p. 172.
*-----
From: jahb@Lehigh.EDU (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Subject: Re: Librarians and the Internet
>From: STRAUSS@UNCA.BITNET
>All this talk about 'what value the internet.' I forsee an electronic
>library wherein EVERYONE will have access to a Library of Congress size
>collection. In 50 years, people will wonder "how did they ever do meaningful
>research in the 1980s and 1990s in those tiny libraries?" Researchers
>will download pieces of information (quanta?) and ignore the bulk, which
>wont interest them--rather than go through tons of items, looking for
>a few gems of wisdom.
Ok. I'll bite. Who's going to pay for this? And who is going to be willing to
distribute their information this way? Obviously not government, which is
going out of the information and education businesses altogether, preferring
to provide subsidies for megabusinesses and "senior citizen" terrorists.
(bitterness mine, all mine... after all, a conservative, uneducated populace
is the incumbent's best friend...)
Jennifer Heise
Reference Dept., Bitnet: jahb@lehigh
Fairchild-Martindale Libraries #8A Internet: jahb@ns.cc.lehigh.edu
Lehigh University Phone: (215)758-3072
Bethlehem, PA 18015
My opinions are my own. No one else would HAVE them anyway.
