Electronic libraries

[MRSCLIST]

> OK, all you experts...
> 
> I hope this isn't off topic for this list, but as the "computer"
> professionals in our libraries we're sometimes asked to give input on
> anything related to computers. Has anyone faced a board or 
administrator
> who insists that the library can be ALL electronic?  "They" have heard
> of paperless libraries and how EVERYTHING is available online or on a 
CD
> and they either want you to research this or insist you implement it.
> 

I guess what rankles me about the above scenario is that some part time 
policy maker reads an article in a haphazard fashion, creates a couple 
weak theories on the future of electronic libraries and how they can save 
their taxpayers a couple bucks, then dumps the whole load onto their 
library administration to prove or disprove their half-assed conclusions. 
It's like a legal system that makes the defendant prove their innocence. 
The library administration has to knock themselves out trying to research 
a premise that the board member should have done his homework on, giving 
his facts, figures, conclusions in a cohesive and organized manner, not 
just tossing off some "fact" he read in a magazine that he read somewhere 
(but can't remember what it was). 

More power to you, Jill, for taking up the challange. I would of been 
tempted to tell the administrator to do his own damn homework!

Andrew Derby
Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington Library