Role of librarians

[Lesli LaRocco]

> He said that all the information of our civilized Western world was in the
> libraries, and in 4 years all the information would still be in the
> libraries. He said it would not be on the Internet. 

That may be mostly true,  but it is not true that all the infomation I need
is in my local public library. And when I need a cgi script to 
process forms, I'm not going to the library. If I want the text 
of the latest Supreme Court decision the day after it comes down, 
I'll find it on the Internet, but not in the library. 

The problem with his thinking is that he sees this as an "either/or" 
choice. Why can't the Internet be seen not as a replacement for the 
library, but one of its tools? The Internet does, after all, contain 
unique information, and some information that especially smaller 
public libraries do not have.

> He made the point that it would make little difference if the information
> was on the Internet and our country spent dollars to allow access to the
> Internet to our children in schools or homes.  He said that the information
> is already in libraries, and our school system teaches the students how to
> use libraries, and they still aren't used by students.

That's a different problem. A resource doesn't lose its value just 
because the majority doesn't use it. 
 
> He contended that the same would be true for the Internet, just because we
> set up a new system with new
> access routes to information, the result would be the same, only a small
> minority of the population would bother
> using it for information. The libraries, which have all the information in
> them already, are more than underused.

So the problem is getting people to use the resources, not with the 
resources themselves. 

Lesli
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Lesli LaRocco (LLAROCCO at LAKENET.ORG)
Regional Networking Manager
South Central Research Library Council