Electronic libraries. and paperless office -Reply

[Wayne Daniels]

Sheryl Dwinell wrote: 

"Even if they made the best, non-eye straining portable device for
reading electronic text, I'd really miss books."

Me too. But not to worry. I suspect that books are like bicycles --
the basic idea is just too good for it to go away entirely. At any
rate, I expect there'll be more than enough of them to see us out. 

I know of no other profession that takes such evident pleasure in
envisioning its own demise. You just don't get lawyers doing it.
("Yep, I expect legal AIs to put me out of work any day now. Better
pack up.") Whether we have a lot of paper to deal with or a little,
the skills involved in making information accessible (to compress a
great deal into a phrase), ought not to lose their pertinence,
whatever the medium. Many people (often quite intelligent ones)
simply do not want to learn about how information is ordered or
retrieved. They want what their looking for. It's up to us to make
our case, as intermediaries, for the continuing value of what we do.
Self-abnegation, a curiously strong temptation for librarians, should
be resisted.  

Cheers,

Wayne Daniels     

Metro Toronto Reference Library    
wdaniels at gwmail.mtrl.toronto.on.ca