[WEB4LIB] RE: What's wrong with virtual reference?

[Dan Lester]

Friday, December 6, 2002, 10:53:37 PM, you wrote:

:OS>> I still believe, though, that there is truth in the article
:OS>> regarding our sometime slavish, jump-on-the-bandwagon approach
:OS>> to new stuff, and about the high value of in-person reference.

KGS> Oh yeah, that would REALLY describe librarianship as a whole--real
KGS> change freaks, just hankering after change for change's sake.  Like the
KGS> way we leapt on the Internet bandwagon...I remember the librarian who
KGS> told me he was holding out until "that whole Internet thing blows over."

Amen, sister, amen.  We run TDNet to provide total information on our
serials, print and electronic, and provide direct links to the catalog
for print materials and direct links to content for ejournals.  Yet
half of our staff still insists on looking journal information up in
some old printed journals lists that are three years old, will never
be updated, and don't include any of the over 5000 ejournals.

Fortunately, there have been some staff who have accidentally dropped
some of these printed lists in the wastebasket or the recycle bin.  It
may not be too long before they're all gone, despite the longings of
some reference folks.  These, of course, are the same people who
insist that they have to use the telnet based catalog instead of the
web based one that 98 percent of the patrons use.  Some of them
actually think there is information via telnet that isn't available in
a web interface.  Showing doesn't matter....they still hang on to the
old way and ignore the truth.  Such is life.

dan

-- 
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.gailndan.com  Stop Global Whining!