On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 14:49, Kevin M Kidd <kiddk_at_bc.edu> wrote:
> academic libraries spend an enormous amount of energy and money
> attempting to understand and accommodate, as much as is possible,
> the needs of their users.
Ah, that's better; now you're using words such as "attempting" and
phrases like "as much as possible." Much better!
> This is their job. This is their profession. This is their ethic. They take
> it very seriously. I don't know a librarian who claims to know *all* of
> the users' needs. Do you?
Eh, yeah; you, in your last two posts or so.
> I mean, this: What is this (?!?):
>>"...no matter how much you try to understand your users, you will never get >it right.
>
> What are you going on about? We'll *never* get it right? Get what right? What are you talking about?
Don't understand why this is so hard to understand, but ... about
understanding your users needs ... you will never (as in, your
lifetime)... get it right. Sure, we need to talk about what "it" and
"right" is, but I assumed all along that it was users needs we were
talking about. Feel free to clarify.
> OK, yes - you know what, you're right, I admit it - libraries will
> NEVER - a priori - understand every single thing that a user
> might need and pre-acquire and index it and make it immediately
> available. True.
Ok, cool, although I understand the sarcasm of "a priori" and "every
single thing" very well. However, my point from here was simply to
underline that you cannot possibly do the thing you set out to do, so
that very thing, the very ideal libraries (and in our special case,
the academic libraries) strive for are becoming less and less
achievable. All of these ideals were probably possible in a time when
books, information and knowledge in general were much, much scarcer,
but these days it's an impossibility and in the future an oxymoron.
This is the time to embrace new thinking in the way libraries are
supposed to meet users needs.
That's all.
Regards,
Alex
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Received on Mon Mar 02 2009 - 23:01:57 EST