[WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore

[David Merchant]

At 10:05 AM 12/10/99 -0800, you wrote:
>I'm surprised that no one has yet taken this metaphor to task. The
>Internet is nothing like a library -- not even one with all the books on
>the floor or one that has been vandalized. I think I hardly need to
>explain what I mean to this crowd. So I'm surprised that some of us feel
>like using this metaphor when it is insulting to all that libraries are.
>How about "Doing research on the Web is like asking people randomly on the
>street." Now *that's* more like it.

Except those random people are putting up books, whether printed by big 
concerns or self published, on the web, or putting up other information 
which can indeed be found in print in a magazine, book, etc in a 
library.  So in that manner it is like one put together by packrats and 
vandalized nightly.  As with all metaphors and analogies, you can't carry 
it too far, of course.

TTFN,
David
Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University
Javascript list administrator <www.mountaindragon.com/javascript/>
Merchant's Encyclopedia of HTML <www.mountaindragon.com/html/>
Personal Page <www.mountaindragon.com/merchant/>