The main reason to have library staff available
to answer questions has nothing to do with such
high-falutin' stuff. The users need to know local
policies and procedures, status of aquisitions budgets,
sort out administrative errors, find out the local geography -
meeting rooms, toilets, etc.
regards
Mark
========================================
Mark Huppert
Library Systems and Web Coordinator
Division of Information
R.G. Menzies Building (#2)
The Australian National University
ACTON ACT 0200
T: +61 02 6125 2752
F: +61 02 6125 4063
W: http://anulib.anu.edu.au/about/
CRICOS Provider #00120C
========================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Joseph P. Montibello
> Sent: Friday, 11 February 2011 1:43 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Watson - IBM's "question-answering"
> machine (potential implications for libraries?)
>
> Laval wrote "...What we in the future shall have librarians for ( if
> anything ) is another question... "
>
> Tough question. Why do we need librarians?
>
> Do people come to libraries to get a question answered?
> Sometimes, although
> I'd guess less frequently than they used to.
>
> How about to ask an expert? Unless they're asking a
> library-science related
> question, the experts probably don't work at the library.
> People can ask an
> expert directly by trying to find them on the internet, i.e. doctors
> participating in online interactions with people who aren't
> their patients
> in the traditional sense.
>
> People doing research want answers for their questions,
> certainly, but part
> of what they want is to engage. They don't just want to be
> told an answer by
> an expert, they want to formulate their own opinion based on
> input from lots
> of experts. I think this type of person is the one mostly
> likely to be still
> using libraries - if all they wanted was a fact-check or a
> doctor's email
> address, they could have stopped coming to the library long
> ago. Probably
> should have stopped coming, if they had decent internet
> access and really
> only wanted these limited things.
>
> If I have a question about the Salem witch trials, I can ask
> a bunch of
> historians and wait for an answer. There's probably also a
> decent bit of
> information about the topic on Wikipedia. But if I'm interested in the
> trials, and what it was like, that doesn't boil down to a
> question that
> someone can answer. I want to read The Crucible. I want to
> read histories
> about the trials. I want to read original documents that
> come from the time
> period, with some helpful annotations to explain the bits
> that don't make
> sense to me. I want to get into the information about this
> topic and swim
> around. A librarian can help me do that.
>
> I don't know if this is useful at all, but the other reason to ask a
> librarian is that they're cheap, easy to find (how far from
> that desk are
> they really likely to stray?), and they have to be polite to
> you. It would
> suck if you're into the witch trials and you send emails to a bunch of
> experts, and they all ignore you or brush you off. They
> can't put as much
> time and effort into answering every hobbyist's questions as
> they will into
> publishing (however, wherever they do it), and it wouldn't
> make sense if
> they did. But when I used to do a lot of reference and instruction, I
> always tried to get across to the users (students, in my
> case) that we're
> there to help them. Save the time of the reader, and all that.
>
> This is just my two cents.
>
> Joe Montibello, MLIS
> Library Systems Manager
> Dartmouth College
> 603.646.9394
> joseph.montibello_at_dartmouth.edu
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Laval Hunsucker [mailto:amoinsde_at_YAHOO.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 4:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Watson - IBM's "question-answering" machine (potential
> implications for libraries?)
>
> I don't exactly follow you, Jim. You wrote :
>
> > But questions that demand more thought and require a deeper
> > understanding will (I hope!) always be asked and I don't see how a
> > computer can answer those.
>
> But wait, Thomas did write ( and you even quoted him ) "To
> get a question
> answered you look it up on the web or you ask an expert." And
> that latter
> resource is where one would ( and surely should ) go
> precisely in cases of,
> as you put it, "questions that demand more thought and
> require a deeper
> understanding". The hope you here express ( that such questions will
> continue to be put ) will certainly not prove futile, but I
> can't in my
> wildest fantasies imagine why anyone would choose to put such
> questions to a
> librarian rather than to an expert.
>
> Isn't that what Thomas was more or less already -- and quite
> rightly --
> saying ? He wasn't positing that computers will be answering
> *that* kind of
> questions ; that's, among other things, what we've got ( and
> have always
> had ) experts for.
>
> What we used to have *librarians* for is likewise fairly well
> known. What we
> in the future shall have librarians for ( if anything ) is another
> question. I've in the past offered my own thoughts on that,
> for whatever
> they may be worth, also on this list. So have others. They
> can be found in
> the archives.
>
>
>
> - Laval Hunsucker
> Breukelen, Nederland
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU>
> To:
> Sent: Tue, February 8, 2011 9:35:39 AM
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Watson - IBM's "question-answering" machine
> (potential implications for libraries?)
>
> Thomas Krichel wrote (concerning http://nyti.ms/g6J9Xe):
> <snip>
> B.G. Sloan writes
>
> > What if we had sophisticated affordable "question-answering"
> > machines in ten years? What would that mean for libraries?"
>
> Why would that make any change? The idea that people go to
> see librarians to
> get questions answered is already many years out of date,
> isn't it? To get a
> question answered you look it up on the web or you ask an expert.
> </snip>
>
> This is absolutely correct: the future is with us now! The number of
> reference questions asked has tumbled and there is no reason
> to think that
> this will change anytime soon.
>
> Of course, almost no question has a single "correct" answer,
> except for
> questions such as, how tall is Mt. Everest, or, Lincoln
> belonged to the
> Democratic Party--true or false? Almost every substantive
> question has
> several possible answers. For example, a question I was
> asked once pops
> into my mind:
> Does communism lead inevitably to Stalinism? Hard to answer
> with a yes or
> no!
> There is no single "correct" answer.
>
> So, the traditional reference questions termed "ready-reference" are
> probably already gone from the reference desk. But questions
> that demand
> more thought and require a deeper understanding will (I
> hope!) always be
> asked and I don't see how a computer can answer those. The
> traditional
> library ideal that the librarian furnishes the searcher with
> information--in an unbiased manner--(or at least so far as is humanly
> possible) will still be needed, so that people can examine
> various ways of
> looking at an area of concern to them, and each can finally
> arrive at his
> or her own, personal version of "the truth".
>
> How librarians can help people achieve this sort of ideal in
> a networked,
> virtual environment remains to be seen however, but this
> would seem to me
> to be some of the more interesting of the various challenges we face.
>
> James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services The American
> University of Rome
> via Pietro Roselli, 4
> 00153 Rome, Italy
> voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
> fax-011 39 06 58330992
> First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
> Cooperative Cataloging Rules:
> http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Thu Feb 10 2011 - 20:28:16 EST