E-mail in libraries

Jim Hurd jhurd at indiana.edu
Wed May 28 14:25:38 EDT 1997


	Communications and information are becoming increasingly
inseparable. This is not "mission creep" but the way information exchange
and dissemination has developed.  

On Wed, 28 May 1997, Burt, David wrote:

:This is a very interesting topic, and I think it asks an important
:question for public libraries:
:
:	Is providing communications a vital part of our mission?
:
:I won't rule this out all together, but I think it does need to be said
:that this has not been a central part of our mission to date.  The only
:real analog is providing meeting rooms, and I don't think you can argue
:that this has been a vital part of our mission.
:
:We are in the business of providing information, not communication.  If
:we decide we want to *add communications* to our mission, fine.  But
:please, let's not make this another case of "mission creep", as they say
:in the military.  Let's not now assume that since we started providing
:telnet access to MOOs and E-mail accounts that communications have now
:become a vital part of our mission by default, without ever consciously
:deciding this.
:
:
:  ***********************************************************
:          David Burt, Information Technology Librarian 
:          The Lake Oswego Public Library 
:          706 Fourth Street, Lake Oswego, OR 97034
:          URL:          http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/library/library.htm
:          Phone:     (503) 675-2537 
:          Fax:           (503) 635-4171 
:          E-mail:      dburt at ci.oswego.or.us
:                 
:



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