Do librarians need basic HTML capabilities?

[Marcia Tucker]

As a Reference Librarian who also does original cataloging (and now
is also the web page developer for a small library - one does what one has
to - to get the job done...) I think that a basic understanding of
html does help librarians with their reference work.  One example is I
was helping someone locate legal information on the web and when we 
got to the web page which had information we needed it was an empty page -
visually.  I clicked on view document source and all of
the needed information was there in full, just a few major mistakes
in the mark-up.

I think that librarians should understand the nuts and bolts of our
information structures as well as the tools which allow us to do our
jobs well. A basic understand of how things work is essential for proper 
utilization. One needs to know the weaknesses as well as the
strengths of each information source. HTML and the search engines which allow 
access are no different from understanding
cataloging and the PAC engines.  (at least in my slanted view!)

I suppose that I am very fortunate to be working in a small library 
environment and have the ability to do a lot of everything. One could
make priorities in html markup for teaching to staff members, perhaps make it
the basic html understood by most browsers and blow off the cute -
"neat-o" aspects which people incorporate for Netscape users!  HTML is not
difficult and it would help people with their understanding of how the
World Wide Web works in general!

Vivienne Cuff wrote in response to previous message regarding html and
librarians:
> ... new technologies come along and a lot of
>energy goes into trying to understand them at the expense of
>understanding what the business/client needs are.

Marcia Tucker tucker at math.ias.edu
Historical Studies - Social Science Library
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, NJ USA