[WEB4LIB] Crawford's comments on Earth's Largest Library

[Minkel, Walter (Cahners -NYC)]

Folks-- I, too, want to endorse reading Walt Crawford's commentary. As a
youth services person, I was disturbed by the way Steve Coffman gave
services to kids & YAs short shrift in his "Earth's Largest Library"
writings, and now I realize why. Youth services is labor-intensive and
requires lots of (difficult-to-itemize-and-charge-for) attention and caring
from people who know young people and their families and concerns. It
doesn't fit into Coffman's capitalist model. You can't ILL a preschool
storytime, or customized homework assistance when a student doesn't
understand an assignment well enough to reduce it to keywords without human
help. Some bright kids (the kinds who can survive in a "bookstore"
environment) can do research successfully online without human intervention,
but plenty of others can't. I hope the profession will continue to fight for
the value of trained people who provide services that just can't be
automated. Thanks, W

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Walter Minkel * Technology Editor, School Library Journal * www.slj.com
wminkel at cahners.com * (212) 463-6721 * fax (212) 463-6689