[WEB4LIB] Re: FW: OCLC white paper. My thoughts

[Chris Gray]

I think the problem that the white paper addresses contains the seeds to
its solution.

The problem is that we are losing touch with the preferences and needs of
students because they are comming to us through the Web rather than
through the front door.  We have less opportunity to interact with them
face-to-face.

The solution would seem to be to interact with them on the Web rather than
on campus.  The library is an important part of the on-campus community;
it needs to become an important part of the Web community.

Don't build a Web site; build an online community.  In other words, put
the tools for fruitfull collaboration in the hands of everyone concerned,
professors, teaching assistants, students as well as librarians.  Let all
these people help you build it, then you'll automatically know a lot more
about what they want and what they need.

We distance ourselves every time we think in "I publish/you surf" terms.  
We have the tools to let people build Web sites without knowing HTML or
having FTP accounts.  That's what a discussion board is, that's what a
portal is, that's what a Web archived mailing-list is.  Put tools like
that on your Web server and watch carefully how that grows.  Then you'll
know what the students need and want.

Chuckling over the white paper "fact-to-face interaction" typo,

Chris Gray
Systems Analyst
University of Waterloo

"general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be
liberal in what you accept from others."  --Jon Postel, 1980, RFC 761, TCP