E-mail in libraries

[Burt, David]

Paul Neff wrote,

>Information is worthless without the means to communicate it, and to a
>great extent this principle endures both formally and informally within
public
>libraries to this day: we provide and promote relatively formal avenues for
>public communication (meeting rooms, bulletin boards, reference interviews)
>as well as less formal channels (the ability to talk quietly at a table
>without being shushed).  The idea that libraries don't provide communication
>is both incorrect and untenable.

>Public library patrons communicate with themselves, Library staff and the
>community because information doesn't become knowledge without
>communication.

As usual Paul, your post is thoughtful and thought provoking.

Your tone suggest you feel I'm somehow "against communication"  (shhhhh!
; ]).  I'm not, I just don't think that it's high on our priorities.  As
I said in my post, facilitating communications, such as meeting rooms
(which I mentioned), and bulletin boards (which you mentioned) are long
standing activities in the public library.  I'm not trying to trash
these things, but my point really was that they have never been a vital,
central, or necessary part of our mission.  You cite some good examples
of how these things are useful and important in libraries, but you
really don't make a convincing case that all those examples add up to
facilitating patron communications as vital to the public library's
function and mission.

Information is "worthless without the ability to communicate it", but it
really is not the library's responsibility to further it's communication
beyond the library: that's the patron's.

As I've said repeatedly before, we have limited budgets, limited space,
limited hours of the day we're open.  What we do in practices is to
triage these resources based on what we think is important, which is
exactly what this is all about.  That's not being a thought policeman,
as I've been called before, (what a swell bloody shirt that guy gave me
to wave ; ]) that's being a responsible public servant.

My biggest problem is snot-filled people in ivory towers(and I'm not
accusing you of this) who come off like the "paradigm shift" has already
occurred to public libraries being "communication providers", and that
mossbacks like me need to  "get with it".


  ***********************************************************
          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