Bottom Line on Electronic Libraries

[Pat Anderson]

Diane Nahl said:
>Has there been any research on how many librarians or search assistants
>are needed at the terminals?  I'd like to know about it.

Ditto! In our new 50-station computer lab we provide a high level of
hand holding. The Web users seem to need our help the least, and it is
more often e-mail, basic applications, and computer-aided instruction
users which need the most intense assistance. What the Web users
seem to need is reference type of instruction -- not how to surf, but
how to search effectively, the comparative benefits of the various
search engines, how to evaluate the quality of the information
found, etc. They haven't figured out yet that they need this or that
they can ask us for this type of assistance. A good thing, too, because
we are swamped with how-to-do questions for e-mail and word
processing!

We also find that the peak times for needed assistance tend to
be exactly the times when we have lower staffing levels.
It would be marvelous to have something which gave guidelines
for recommended staffing levels for number of simultaneous
users.

Pat Anderson

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P. F. (Pat) Anderson        "A man is a small thing,
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