e-mail in libraries

[Dianne L Parham]

I hate to be redundant, but I will repeat what I said before.  Who is 
judging what is research and what is not.  When I was in college (when 
dinosaurs roamed the earth) it turned out that I had to do a research 
project on organic gardening, and my mother is an expert on organic 
gardening and she shipped me information I could not otherwise get.  Who 
gets to be the judge of the quality of my internet correspondence?  
Unique to the internet is the opportunity to cross boundaries of space 
quickly.  I would have taken advantage of that technology had it been 
available to me as a student.  And I can guarantee you as a student from 
a limited income blue collar family that I could not have afforded a 
computer.  Exactly what is the point of a college library?  To be a 
research tomb for aging print materials, or a doorway to a wider world.  
Instead of fighting the technology and finding excuses against, maybe 
again we need to reevaluate what we are attempting to accomplish.  To me, 
a student learning about a person in a place far away may have value 
beyond what that student could have learned in a research book.  Is there 
no value to being able to write directly to an author instead of 
researching a biography on that author?  If you want to know what is 
happening in Africa, who can best tell you...a ten year old text or a 
person reporting from the field?  What is research?  And why are we 
setting limits to it?  Agreed, we may not all be able to afford all 
technolgoy and all access...but let's get beyond the current limits and 
plan for the inevitable evolution.  We can fight and struggle against the 
concept, but it is a losing game.  The future is a linked and networked 
world of open communications.  There seems to be such a fear of this, and 
yet it could be an opening to better understanding, more 
interesting scholarship, increased information, deeper insights.  And our 
students, our public, our communities are going to demand more from us 
and not less no matter how we try to hold firm to our barriers.  
Dianne Parham
San Diego Public Library
Views expressed are mine and mine alone and do not represent my institution.

On Thu, 29 May 1997, Ronnie Morgan wrote:

> At 06:29 AM 5/29/97 -0700, Jim Hurd wrote:
> >to face.  What I find untenable is the position that neither has a place
> >in an adequately funded library.
> 
> Maybe in a public library setting, but probably not in a University
> setting.  There are to many other places for email access to justify having
> to worry about it in the library.  The same could be said for any
> University.  Personal opinion aside, a University will most likely have
> more PC's available on campus outside the library than the number that is
> available inside the library.  Unless you really need the numbers, email is
> most likey best supported outside the library because of that larger number
> of available PC's.  John Doe would have more time to write that email to
> Mom outside the library, which would give Jane Doe more time in the library
> to do research.
> 
> I'd much rather have someone in the library doing resaerch, where they can
> get help, if they need it.  If they are forced to go outside the library
> because John Doe has to write his mom, how is that helping Jane?  If an
> email user needs help, they can easily ask the lab operator...
> 
> Ronnie
> 
>