Bottom Line on Electronic Libraries

[Boyd R. Collins]

This is strange reasoning at best.  Why do you need 1 staff person for
every 20 Web surfers?  On what possible study was this based?  At my
university, we have hundreds of Web surfers happily clicking away in labs
with barely one or two helpers available and they don't seem to get too
upset about it.  One of the main reasons for the Web's popularity is that
even mere novices seem to get the hang of it quickly.

At 07:02 PM 09/18/96 -0700, you wrote:
>Just got this from the Sept. 17, Edupage:
>
>THE BOTTOM LINE ON ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES
>
>A former Public Library Association official estimates the cost of wiring
>the nation's libraries at somewhere between $2- and $3-billion -- "a sum
>nearly equivalent to that spent by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie during
>the great spurt of library building," notes journalist Nicholas von Hoffman.
>But, "being able to afford the hardware is one thing," says a senior VP of
>New York Public Library's Research Libraries.  "Being able to replace it
>year after year and being able to afford the staff to help people use it is
>another.  We could put workstations everywhere, but we don't have enough
>staff.  The equipment is on a three-year, six-thousand-dollar replacement
>cycle.  If people are using things like the World Wide Web, we need one
>staff member out on the floor for every 20 workstations in use...  Right now
>we have 250 workstations for the public, so one staff member for every 20
>workstations becomes a major investment."
>
>- Cliff Urr
>-----------------------
>E-mail: curr at mnsinc.com
>
>My Home Page URL:
>http://www.mnsinc.com/curr 
>
>


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Boyd R. Collins
Information Technology Librarian, Alexander Library
Rutgers University  
New Brunswick, NJ 08903     
(908) 656-1493 (home)
(908) 932-8573 (office)
Infofilter page: http://www.usc.edu/users/help/flick/Infofilter/