e-mail in libraries

[Ronnie Morgan]

At 05:08 PM 5/28/97 -0700, Joe Schallan wrote:
>Finding recipes or any other piece of information on the Web is a
>valid use.
>
>But to me the question remains as to how providing access to
>free e-mail fits into our mission.  In our attempt to be all things
>to all people, we could presumably provide all manner of
>communication channels to enable patrons to contact an
>"expert."  As I mentioned, we could provide a bank of no-pay,
>public access telephones.  We could provide free teleconferencing.
>We could underwrite free Federal Express letter-package service
>and free faxing.

I agree with Joe about this.  The issue is not whether or not email is a
good research tool, it's whether or not you have the resources to provide
something like that.  As I said about my situation, we only have 4 machines
that have internet access, whereas the university has about 90 available
for student use.  And considering that email use takes up more time than
doing a search on the web, it just makes sense to rule out email use all
together.

The same can be said for chat rooms, news groups, etc...  There are A LOT
of good services available on the internet, but unless you have an
unlimited supply of PC's available, you are going to have to limit what can
be done and what can not be done on those few PC's that you may have.  And
I would hope that you would make available what is more usefull than
something that may or may not be as usefull.

Ronnie