Packard Bell commercial -Reply

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

Second to Peter Bromberg and Charles Bearden.  What is really
needed is a good marketing campaign for libraries on the same
level as marketing campaigns for computers.  Maybe we could
get ALA to ditch its dreary  "Read" campaign and spend money
on, say, a  commercial showing someone rapidly losing hair while
trying to search the Internet, followed by a visit to the Good
Angel Librarian who, hoisted on rather obvious machinery, totes
the person around the library and shows him the many different
tools and  how to search them.   Dish it out as people see
it--sensible shoes, a tidy coif, overbearingly wholesome
demeanour, etc.--but lay it on so thick folks see that we are
making fun of ourselves.  "Lighten up at the library."  Hey, that
has a ring to it... 

I was going to add that libraries then have to BE that good, but
computers aren't as wonderful as ads make them out to be, either,
so fair's fair.   

(p.s. Thomas Dowling---when someone drops a really hot email
on a list, don't be surprised when folks want to talk about it ! )

K. Schneider
opinions mine, not of employers, or employees, or even the
Yankees