[WEB4LIB] Re: 3D (VRML) Interface to IRCAM's Multimedia Library Catalog

[Patrick Durusau]

Roy,


> I appreciate the need to lighten up and play now and then. But when there
> simply are not enough hours in the day to get the books back on the shelf
> here in boring reality, it doesn't always seem like a good use of time.
>

Any community learning to use a new technology like VRML faces a drain from
current resources. The question is whether it will develop into something that
will be useful to the community. I am sure the early attempts to develop one of
the distance collaboration white-boards with Mathematica (a sophisticated
mathematics software package) among physicists probably took more resources than
would be required to fly them all to a central location to collaborate in person.
But once that technology is in place and easier to use, the benefit for distant
collaborators is quite large.

One good way to develop a base of people, in this case librarians, who have the
technical skills to use the latest technology is to allow them to experiment or
"play" with it. It is difficult to judge which technologies will emerge as
standards but funding issues will only become more difficult if libraries are
defended on the basis of traditional tasks. (On a personal note I do not see
technology as a threat to librarians or libraries. The more complex our
information systems become the greater the need for librarians and libraries to
extract useful information from them. Legislators who see the Internet or
technology as reducing the need for either are probably unable to fully utilize
the index to a book much less a library.)


>
> I can remember when a colleague at CNIDR was really into MOOs and MUDs for
> interacting with users. "Patrons" could wander in, take on an avatar
> existence of one thing or another, and ply the virtual librarian with
> whatever questions or comments or lewd suggestions happened to pop into
> their brain. I thought it was idiotic and a waste of time. That was back
> in the early 90s. It's *still* idiotic and a waste of time.
>

I disagree that MOOs and MUDs are or were "idiotic and a waste of time." It is
from the experience with such technologies that many of the collaboration tools
that are just now coming online were developed. Not as direct descendants but in
terms of what will or won't work in such an environment. I am not sure I would
recommend such an interface for a public library but I could see the successor to
such systems working for a research library quite well.

I always vote for taxes for libraries and write angry missives to the newspaper
when people try to censor the local library. I see support for technology, since
it is well on the way to becoming ubiquitous in society, as a visible sign that
libraries are relevant and useful to the community. Yes, I already know that to
be a fact but it is a fact that must be "sold" to the public if one hopes to get
larger budgets.

Patrick

--
Patrick Durusau
Information Technology Services
Scholars Press
pdurusau at emory.edu
Interim Manager, ITS