Questia: who is behind it?

[Drew, Bill]

If Questia succeeds in taking students away from the library it will be our
own fault.  One of our librarians here was telling me that her daughter has
yet to see or hear from a librarian either via e-mail or in any of her
classes.  She is now in her second year. I will not mention what school.  It
is a well known private university.    

The real solution to such efforts as Questia is outreach and marketing to
our students.  We must go outside of the physical structure of our libraries
to where the students and faculty are located in the real world and in the
virtual world.  How many of you out there send out e-mail to students?  How
many of you go to class rooms outside of the library?
How many of you market your libraries to students?  I am asking these as
rhetorical questions as things to think about.  Question what you are doing.
Can you do it better?  Create a topic based e-mail newsletter that answers
real needs not one telling how many books are in the library and telling
everyone how good a job you are doing.


The founder of Questia began his company because of problems he had as an
undergraduate in trying to do research in his library. I hope we all can do
better in the future.

___________________ 
Bill Drew ; Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference 
SUNY Morrisville College Library 
drewwe at morrisville.edu <mailto:drewwe at morrisville.edu>  
"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!" --
Author Unknown