On 5/7/07, K.G. Schneider <kgs_at_bluehighways.com> wrote:
> Another fallacy seems to be that the role of the librarian is
> to explain the functions of complex software. I hope we have a more stable
> role in the pedagogical firmament than that.
>
This cuts to the root of the problem. I had tried to dissect this
discussion between:
- Humility (we need to improve access and simplify our tools because
there's nothing really stopping it but ourselves)
- Self-importance (a computer couldn't provide the value we as trained
professionals offer and any attempt to do so would be detrimental to
real research)
But Karen's point shows a somewhat different angle of this. Are we
glorified software trainers? There seems to be a huge disconnect here
between the argument of "we need to teach information literacy" and
"before you can address whether or not the citation you are looking
for addresses your needs as a researcher, we need to teach you how to
use 17 different arcane interfaces to find it -- we might not even get
to the information literacy part...".
-Ross.
Received on Mon May 07 2007 - 08:14:13 EDT