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

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

Perhaps someone will be able to put together stats on a correlation between
Internet users who have junk drawers and their likelihood to use the Web to
find information.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jane Neale <nealej at nylink.suny.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 1999 3:21 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore


> Hi,
>
> For years I have used the "kitchen junk drawer" as the metaphor I use to
> describe the Internet and now web, how it is organized, and how useful the
> stuff is that one can find there. My kitchen junk drawer has lots of good
> useful stuff, mixed in with lots of useless stuff that I have no need for
> but I have kept anyway, just in case! It is not well organized. Things in
> that drawer get out of date, redundant and obsolete... When I rummage
around
> in there to look for something, I often find something entirely different
> that is of interest..... When I pull out one item, it sometimes drags
other
> items with it, because they are intertwined..... and so on. I think it is
a
> great metaphor.
>
> Jane
>
> ___________________________________________________________
>
> Jane C. Neale
> Information Technology Coordinator
> Nylink
> State University Plaza
> Albany, NY 12246
> e-mail: nealej at nylink.suny.edu <mailto:nealej at libmail.sysadm.suny.edu>
> T (800) 342-3353
> F (518) 432-4346
>
> Nylink was founded in 1973 as the SUNY/OCLC Network
> _____________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roy Tennant [SMTP:rtennant at library.berkeley.edu]
> Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 1:07 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: "books on the floor" metaphore
>
> 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.
> Roy
>
> On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Brian Smith wrote:
>
> > >Here's one that appeared in someone's signature:
> > >
> > >
> > >Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled
> > >piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."  -- Roger Ebert
> >
> > I used that in my sig for a while.  It's from Ebert's "Critical Eye"
> column
> > in the Sept. 1998 issue of _Yahoo! Internet Life_, p. 66.
> >
> > Brian Smith
> > Assistant Head of Adult Services
> > Villa Park (IL) Public Library
> > http://www.villapark.lib.il.us/
> > bsmith at linc.lib.il.us
> > .. But writing only on my own behalf
> > ===========
> > "If you didn't want them to think, you shouldn't have
> > given them library cards." -- _Getting Straight_ (1970)
> >
> >