Only a few minutes ..

[Heinrich C. Kuhn]

Jie Tian wrote:
(...)

> I did a similar presentation not too long ago and used about 10 minutes 
> to cover what the WWW computer networks offer to libraries.  I know it can
> be so challenging and how it would leave us of feeling of inadequacy talking
> about the web in just 5-10 minutes!

I hope, I will never have to do such a thing myself,
but the answers already sent give me the impression
that this thing, which I believed to be impossible
is possible nevertheless.

>
(... Report about how Jie Tian did what I thought
to be impossible ...)
>
>          
> I'd love to hear what others have done in 10 minutes or so.

I've - thank God! - not yet had to do it,
but yesterday I suggested to Jaap Verbaas
an approach, that was founded on the idea,
that 5 to 10 minutes might be so little time,
that nothing of it might go to demonstrations.
As most suggestions up to now have been of
oriented primarily on praxis I'm sending this
here to the List as a sort of footnote saying
"a more theorectical - though perhaps far less
efficient - way of doing this might be the
following:"

---- start suggestions-------------------------
Dear Jaap Verbaas

I hope, that what happened to you here will
never happen to me:

> Unexpectedly I have to give a presentation of WWW 
> (and the importance of it 
> for the library) for some really high bigshots 
> (incl. university curators).
> My time span will be 5-10 minutes!! 
(...)
> Do you have suggestions?

Some *very* tentative ones:
5+ minutes time is ca. 2 pages of text
summing up to ca. 60 to 70 lines (at a yet
convenient speed of reading). So let's assume
you have 65 lines. I'd probably try to divide
them as follows

1-10:  The Internet connects persons and 
       institutions around the globe. Fast
       communication of research ...
11-30: Research and researchers gather in
       the net: e.g. listserv-lists,
       preprint archives, eJournals
       with appropriate examples that might
       interest your audience ... .
31-40: Not just research, but fast access
       to relevant administrative information
       (legal texts, http://www.echo.lu/ etc.)
       and competence in practical matters
       (e.g. Web4Lib - though I'm not convinced
        whether my here answer is a very competent
        one ...)
41-50: Access to current scholarly communi-
       cations and processes is impossible
       without the web. Giving such access
       is the task of the library. Scholarly
       communication is already transformed
       by the web. The library will have to
       transform itself to be able to cope.
51-65: Printed paper is not gone. Manuscripts
       lost their importance in some fields
       only some 250 years after the invention
       of print (in some cases even later).
       But printing changed research in a 
       few decades. And libraries did comply.
       The Net changed research in a few years.
       The library must, again, comply.

5-10 minutes probably is not enough to show 
any "life" examples (even if you have very 
fast connections), so I'd just talk, and hope
for a discussion. 

  When you've finished your talk on "the Net
in a libraries' nutshell": Could you provide
me (or even better: Web4Lib) with the text?
Thanks a lot in advance!

   Best wishes for your effort to do the
impossible!

Regards

Heinrich C. Kuhn
----- end suggestions ---------------------

Heinrich C. Kuhn

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*  Dr. Heinrich C. Kuhn   (coordinator libraries)
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