From: Margaret Mohundro <margaret_at_incolsa.net>
What if you ran your library like Amazon.com?
Steve Coffman, the author of the controversial article "Building Earth's
Largest Library" will discuss his library philosophy during a national
satellite teleconference Thursday, October 28, 1999 at 2:00 Central
Daylight Time at INCOLSA, Indianapolis, Indiana. The one-hour
teleconference will air live across the United States at 3:00 p.m.
Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Mountain, and Noon Pacific time.
Coffman's article has generated controversy and heated discussions among
librarians, library staffs, library vendors, and even some patrons since
it appeared in the March, 1999 issue of Searcher. Coffman asks:
--What if we dropped our local catalogs and allowed our patrons to
select anything from the 40 million items in OCLC's WorldCat?
--Suppose we stock only the most commonly requested titles and rely on
other libraries, wholesalers, and publishers to supply the rest?
--What if we use the Internet, electronic delivery, and low-cost
shipping to bring the library to our patrons rather than requiring our
patrons come to us?
Coffman, who is director of FYI, a fee-based business information
service at the County of Los Angeles Public Library, admits this
approach raises fundamental issues about the purpose of libraries and
how they should be funded and operated.
During the one-hour teleconference Coffman and a reactor panel of
librarians will discuss and debate these issues. Audience members will
be able to participate directly in the program through email during
question and answer sessions and in a chat session following the
broadcast.
The live satellite teleconference is available on C-band and KU-band
satellites at $100 per site. Satellite downlink site coordinators will
receive packets with satellite information and handouts for the
attendees. Participating sites may make one videotape copy of the
program for use in their own building for the life of the tape.
Additional tapes may be purchased from INCOLSA for $30. There are no
limits on number of attendees at a participating site.
Downlink sites may register at local library networks or INCOLSA by
October 15, 1999. Additional information is available at the INCOLSA
Web site at http://www.incolsa.net/HTML/teleconf/coff.htm or by
contacting INCOLSA at (317) 298-6570.
The teleconference is produced by INCOLSA in and sponsored by INCOLSA,
AMIGOS, FEDLINK, ILLINET, MINITEX, MLC, MLNC, NEBASE, NELINET, NYLINK,
OHIONET, SOLINET, and WILS.
Lynn Sipe lsipe_at_usc.edu
Director, Collection Resources & 213/740-2929
Director, Information Delivery Organization & Retrieval 213/749-1221 (fax)
University Libraries
Information Services Division
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0182
Received on Thu Aug 12 1999 - 17:55:02 EDT