[Web4lib] Facebook (& Second Life)

[Chris Strauber]

People and what they do are a statement of priorities for libraries.
At my last library, thirteen staff, the web was part-time work for two
employees. At my current one, with sixty, it's full-time work for one
person and part-time work for a couple more. Given that none of our
collections are accessible and/or findable except via our website,
that seems like an odd arrangement.

It's not the money, it's the priorities. By headcount, microfilm is
vastly more important to most libraries than the web. Which is not to
say that microfilm and books and the rest of our non-digital services
aren't important, only that there will come a point at which "we're
busy with other things" will stop working as a response to the way
information seeking and use is changing.

Chris Strauber
Humanities Reference Librarian
Tisch Library
Tufts University


On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Brian Gray <mindspiral at gmail.com> wrote:
> I do not know of too many libraries sitting around with excess employees
> available, do you?