Role of librarians

[Bob Pedersen]

On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, The Big Glee Bopper wrote:

> reference interview: What would you like? What are you trying to do?  When 
> do you need it by? How are you going to use it?  You'd find that what 
> your friend and most people want is a dialog with the author as to what 
> they meant. With books this is impossible. With the net it is very
> possible. 
> 
> --Thom 
> 

Neither of these last two statements is quite true.  The first of the true
is patently false: thousands, maybe millions, of people write to the
authors of books.  The second is largely true, but in a limited way: the
possiblity of any kind of author/reader dialog, whether it be by snail
mail or by email, is limited by the author's willingness to engage in it. 
If we are to talk of a person as being a 'resource' to millions of people,
this is not a limitation we can just wish away.  Despite Thom's attempt to
draw a sharp distinction, there really isn't one to be drawn, at least
where he drew it: the only real difference here is the ease with which
such dialog can occur.