The Web and Research Papers

[Sheryl Dwinell]

I wish all professors were as enthusiastic about books in libraries as
Professor Rothenberg.  There are plenty of them out there who seldom come
into libraries and don't make an effort to encourage their students to come
to non-mandatory BI sessions.

It's part of the teaching mission to encourage students to perform research
in appropriate ways.  Librarians teach lots of classes and tell students ad
naseum that they won't find everything in the universe on the Web. I can't
imagine there are librarians out there telling students that the Web is the
best way to do research. How can it be our fault if they don't take our
advice?  We have lots of classes that have minimal attendance. We make the
effort.  These students are adults.  If they choose not to attend, what are
librarians supposed to do.

And what role does our society play in all this. We have a generation (I'll
include myself in there) raised on instant gratification and doing the
least effort to achieve a desired result.  Doesn't it seem natural that a
kid waiting till the last minute to do a paper would log onto a full-text
database on the library's web site instead of hiking it to the library?
So, how do you change these attitudes?  I wonder how much time the
professor in question spends talking about research techniques and setting
up class sessions with a librarian to discuss research methods.   

In terms of spending money on technology vs. books, it's a great challenge.
I don't know of many academic libraries with a bounty of money to spend on
both. Journals, particularly in the sciences inflate by astounding sums
every year. We have to make very difficult decisions about what to buy, the
rest we rely on ILL and document delivery.  Even before we had PCs in the
library we had to endure complaints about which journals we carried.  It's
an economic reality, whether we spend lots of computers or not.

Libraries are damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we don't get the
technology, we're accused of being behind the times and failing to serve
the information needs of students. We're told by the digerati that we'll
soon be extinct. If we use some portion of our limited funds to get this
technology, then we're accused of ignoring books.  What can ya do. :)

Sheryl Dwinell * Cataloger/DBM Librarian/Webmaster
Memorial Library * Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141 * Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
414-288-3406 * dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu