Packard Bell commercial -Reply

[Julie Sih]

Richard J. Violette wrote:
 >My fave: DESK SET, in which the reference librarians (including
 >Katharine Hepburn and Joan Blondell) buy their gowns at Bonwit's, while
 >the automation expert is depicted with the bun and horn-rimmed glasses.

Rich's mention of DESK SET is particularly apropos, since it's about
librarians' overblown response to poor corporate communication about
the applications of new information technology.  

In this movie, a group of corporate librarians *assume* that the
unannounced installation of a fancy new computer in their library must
be an attempt to replace their print collection and their own jobs. 
They immediately take arms, and devise clever ways to compete with
the machine, seizing every opportunity to prove that a good,
old-fashioned librarian can beat a computer any day.  

At the end of the movie <spoiler, don't read this if you intend to see
the movie), the librarians are assured that their paranoia was
completely unwarranted.  The company had ordered the new technology as
a supplemental tool to assist them, not replace them; said enlightened
company knew the importance of their information services, and wanted
to alleviate some of their workload so they could maintain the
excellence of those services.  Once the threat to their livelihoods 
is shown to be nonexistant, the librarians begrudgingly admit that
the new technology does have its strong points, and they set about
finding ways for the computer to help them do their jobs better.

Fortunately, today's corporate world is much better at communicating
with librarians--right, Packard-Bell?  And today's librarians are much
better at responding in an appropriate and effective manner--right,
Web4Lib?

Julie

Julie Sih, Corp. Programs Librarian  |  jsih at ucsd.edu  
University of California, San Diego  |  http://gort.ucsd.edu/js/
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept 0175V        |  Ph. (619) 534-8622
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