Do librarians need basic HTML capabilities?

[Margaret F. Riley]

At 03:58 PM 6/18/96 -0700, Vivienne Cuff wrote:
>
>> I don't really beelive that HTML mark-up is the skill that librarians need
>> to be conentrating on, especially for the creation of content resource pages
>> for their libraries.  The skill that they should bring to their corner of
>> the web is what they have been doing for their libraries all along -
>> evaluating the resources and determining what resources belong in 'their'
>> collection of links. 
>> 
>Bill - you've hit the nail on the head. I entirely agree with you. 
>Librarians should stick to their knitting and do what they do best.
[...]
>On the other hand,  how to do you get people to understand the 
>concept of hypertext without actually writing HTML per se? 
>Maybe we should use something like Storyspace and get them to write 
>hyperfiction or get people to participate in something like Waxweb?

I agree with this idea also.  Let the librarians create the ideas and 
resources and then hand these over to others to put into HTML.  
However, it does serve a purpose to have a basic understanding
of HTML so when the HTML writer comes back with questions
or a counter-proposal for layout that a conversation based on
mutual understanding and knowledge can take place.

I tried to encourage the librarians and staff at my former library
to create personal pages and to begin mark-up on standard handouts,
etc.  These could then be taken over by others, namely students,
who would maintain the pages and add new information as the
librarians created it.  

One more point I'd like to make is it very easy to use many of the
new HTML editing packages out there without ever learning HTML,
but I really encourage all who want to write pages to do some 
by hand and *learn basic HTML*.  When the editor does something
odd or you place the pages somewhere the editor cannot reach (like
on your Unix system), you will appreciate a basic ability to correct
the code yourself.

Margaret

Margaret F. Riley
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