[WEB4LIB] RE: Cease Fire in the OS Wars

[John Creech]

> As to the comment in your other note (i.e. why people come down mostly
> black-and-white on the subject of Flash) I can only answer for me: I've
> never seen a web page where Flash was actually used for anything worthwhile.

I'm not a Flash fan but we're in the middle of configuring TILT, the Texas
Information Literacy Tutorial--

http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu/

on our primary web server for use by our students and faculty beginning
this fall.  Yes, TILT uses Flash and it is bells and whistles and
screeching car tire sounds etc...but to MTV generation students I have a
hunch it will be a more effective, MUCH more effective teaching tool than
me standing in front of the class with my hair up in typical bun, pencil
thru said bun, and a big button on my shirt that says "ssssshhhhh."

TILT is a teaching tool and will likely engage our students much better
than me holding up books and clicking on links to static or dynamically
generated pages. Truth said, such presentations bore the @^$% out of them.

To write off the technology completely is short sighted--in this case it's
an interactive TEACHING TOOL--and my users (and most of yours out there in
web4lib land)  do not care about standards and all of the angst we've been
thrashing with in this discussion.  They just want 3 articles, 1 book, and
1 gov. doc. web site before The Osbournes come on MTV at 10.

John Creech
Electronic Resources & Systems Librarian
Central Washington University Library
400 E. 8th Ave. | Ellensburg, WA 98926 |
office - 509-963-1081 || fax - 509-963-3684
creechj at www.lib.cwu.edu