Why we won't be here in 20 years

[Jon Knight]

On Tue, 18 Feb 1997, Genie Tyburski wrote:
> I've heard and read that people will get tired and frustrated trying to
> find information on Internet on their own.

Well much as I hate to say it, people also get tired and frustrated trying
to find information in a physical library on their own.  I know from
experience with friends and collegues that many find libraries confusing
and perceive librarians as "busy with more important things".  For them
the Internet is a much easier experience; bang a few keywords into Alta
Vista (which is their homepage) and gets oodles of hits.  These are the
same people that use ATM machines now in preference to a human bank
cashier; in both situations they find the machines faster and friendlier.

And despite working in a library, I must admit that my first reaction is
also to search the Net, as its a damn sight quicker to get an overview of
whats out there than wandering down to the library.  When you're actively
working in a field you can (should be able to?) distinguish guff from
quality.  For things outside my field, a trawl through the Net usually
bags a few useful items and if nothing else gives me an idea of what sort
of keywords I should bang into the OPAC to find out what the library
holds.

Now if only someone would wave a magic wand and get all the books in the
library digitised, I'd only need to nip down there to actually do my
day/week fixing the systems... :-)

Tatty bye,

Jim'll

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jon "Jim'll" Knight, Researcher, Sysop and General Dogsbody, Dept. Computer
Studies, Loughborough University of Technology, Leics., ENGLAND.  LE11 3TU.
* I've found I now dream in Perl.  More worryingly, I enjoy those dreams. *