Role of librarians

[Paul Neff, Internet Librarian]

>                                ...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.
 
If libraries catalog Internet resources, chances are that you _will_
find it in the library, or perhaps "ON" the library.  Libraries can 
and should see the Internet as a publication medium, similar to 
print or CD-ROM, requiring cataloging, classification, indexing, and 
public access.  While I agree that there are some interesting problems 
with Internet-accessible information as a format, I have yet to be 
convinced that the Internet is sufficiently specialized in terms of 
content or materials-specific considerations that it can't be treated 
as such. 
                                   
>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.

The latter statement undoes the former: If the Internet is a "tool", 
then so is your library's entire print collection a "tool".  What smaller 
public libraries don't have is Internet _access_; there is nothing 
particularly unique about the information available on the Internet.
However, the gist of these two sentences is basically true:
The Internet can't replace libraries because the Internet is a medium, 
whereas libraries are one of many types of institutions that act on media.
Libraries and other types of institutions (publishers, schools, vendors,
archives, government services, you name it) will simply move to adopt the 
Internet as one of many media to utilize.

Paul Neff
Internet Librarian, Kansas City Public Library
paul at kcpl.lib.mo.us