[Web4lib] Cognitive dissonance regarding recent Pew report

[Dan Lester]

Tuesday, January 8, 2008, 3:00:26 PM, you wrote:

> The staff at Santa Monica however wasn't
> happy when they looked over what the public had found as they felt that in many cases they could
> have helped the public find better items than what they did find at the time.

This reminds me of the old questions about whether we should build
the collection around "what people want" and "what they should really
be reading".  If they want nothing but Cartlands and romances and People
Magazine, why should we buy Shakespeare and Milton and scholarly
journals?

It seems to me that if the public was satisfied with the answers they
got, then that's the end of the story.  They were HAPPY.  Force them
to have to deal with some "grouchy old maid librarian" at the desk and
they'll be unhappy, even if they get "better" information.

I've seen way too many cases over the last forty years where people
are overloaded with information they don't need or want.  If they only
want to know what year Lincoln was assassinated, don't tell them the
date, time, and place.  Ask them if they need more, but don't ever
dump it on them.

Clear back 44 years ago when I took reference (yeah, spring of 64) we
had a little pamphlet (which a few libraries still have in their
collections) called "Patrons are People" and the relevant cartoon (it
was filled with stupid little line drawings/cartoons) was of patron
asking something like "What is the capital of Albania" and librarian
coming up with an armload of books, "history of albania", "geography
of albania", "atlas of albania", "albania on two dollars a day", etc.

If we want happy people who will vote to keep the library funded, why
do we want to make them unhappy?

dan

-- 
The road goes on forever and the party never ends. REK, Jr. 
Dan Lester, Boise, ID