e-mail in libraries

[jim hewitt]

Jim Hurd wrote:

>  If a library bureaucracy thinks that "research" is something
> that is done with printed material that should be hoarded and
> distributed
> grudgingly and sparingly-- I would hope that a College/University
> Administration would remove decision making responsibilities from them
>
> forthwith.  If they are tenured and unremovable, at least render them
> harmless. Let them wander the stacks, telling people to be quiet.

hear, hear!  except for the fact that the library bureaucracy also has
the hold on those unfortunate librarians who are trying to make a
difference, and are trying to truly serve their clientele with an
appropriate mix of all technologies (remember, books are also a
technology), with teaching skills that will afford good selection of
appropriate technologies and tools, and with the knowledge of
organization of information that is not bound up in proscriptive rules
but rather is matched to the technology and the researcher...

and if anyone thinks that most librarians (tenured or not) have the
freedom to go and do their own thing in this, i ask one simple
question...
    if we are truly academic departments, where academic freedom and
flat organizational structures are not only prized but fought hardly
for, why do we have directors and sub-directors, and a structure that is
reminiscent of the army, not a bunch of academics?
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