Thanks and a follow-up on Building Earth's Largest Library

[Stephen Coffman]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who emailed,
faxed, phoned, wrote, and button-holed me in the hall in response to the
Building Earth's Largest Library article (full text on the web at
www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar/searcher.htm).  Whenever possible, I have
tried to respond personally to all of you who took the trouble to write me
directly, but at times the response was so overwhelming that I could have
missed a few in the flood.  If so, please accept my apologies.

The interest in the original piece so great that Barbara Quint, the editor
of Searcher Magazine, twisted my arm behind my back (just kidding) until I
agreed to do a follow-up article to address the many questions and issues
that you raised.  That is now finished, and also available full-text on the
Web at www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul/searcher.htm.

What interests me the most about this thing is that even though it most
assuredly is a "GREAT BIG HAIRY WILD-EYED IDEA!" as one of you put it
(attribution upon request)...we are very fortunate to live in a time when
GREAT BIG HAIRY WILD-EYED IDEAS can actually become great big hairy
wild-eyed  THINGS ...and if you need any proof of this, all you have to do
is look at Amazon.  Should our dreams be any smaller?

If you are interested in learning more about Earth's Largest Library and how
it could benefit your patrons, and what it might take to pull it off, there
are a couple of great programs going on this Fall.

First, INCOLSA and the OCLC Regional Networks are sponsoring a nationwide
satellite teleconference on Earth's Largest Library this October 28th.
This will be a general presentation of the concept followed by a discussion
of the issues with an in-studio reactor panel of librarians representing a
variety of institutions, followed by live chat and email discussion with the
audience at remote sites.   For further details on this please see the
INCOLSA Web site at ....http://www.incolsa.net/HTML/teleconf/coff.htm

Then on November 8-11, the Internet Librarian Conference in San Diego is
sponsoring a full 1 1/2 day Track on Building a Business Plan for Earth's
Largest Library.   Featured speakers include:

Georgia Brown, VP OCLC
Roy Tenant UC Berkeley
Bob Doran, Senior VP Baker & Taylor
Mary Jackson, "Queen" of ILL, ARL
IXL Internet (the team that developed the BookSense program --- the ABA's
answer to Amazon.com)
George Relles, business development and pricing consultant for the online
industry
Mary-Ellen Mort, developer of the highly-acclaimed JobStar web site brought
to you by California public libraries
Ronald Wohl and Mark Haas, consultants on logistics to the USPS
Ralph LeVan, Office of Research, OCLC
Barbara Quint, Editor, Searcher Magazine

..and others yet to be named.   For further information on the Internet
Librarian Conference, please see ...http://www.infotoday.com/il99/monday.htm


I look forward to meeting many of you at both of these programs.  And maybe
with a little luck, some hard work, and a lot of enthusiasm, we just might
be able to pull something off.  I have my fingers crossed.


Thanks again,

SC


Steve Coffman
Director, FYI
County of Los Angeles Public Library
1-800-582-1093
562-868-4065 fax
coffman at cerf.net
http://colapublib.org/fyi/city