On 15/08/2011 22:26, McDonald, Stephen wrote:
<snip>
James, you have completely misconstrued Todd's statement. What he is
talking about is not like someone asking a grocery clerk where the
canned peanuts are. Todd is saying that if someone asks a grocery clerk
"Where are the nails", he will say, "I'm sorry, we don't sell that here.
Ask down the street at the hardware store." Or if person asks a clerk in
a private warehouse "Where are the canned peanuts", he will say, "I'm
sorry, if you don't work for this company you are not authorized to get
canned peanuts from us." Not every library is in the business of giving
out any and all information to anyone and everyone. Yes, if it is
appropriate for a particular library to be supporting access to free
information of a particular type for its particular patrons, then they
should do so. But it would be ridiculous to say that, for instance, a
corporate law librarian is ignoring his patron's needs if he does not
provide access to online Dilbert comics.
</snip>
This is *exactly* what I meant. We are entering a new world, as shown in
the Corning ad. What are patrons supposed to do if they want the Dilbert
comics and cannot find them? Should librarians be able to pick and
choose their questions based on how important *the librarian* thinks
they are? If they hear the librarian say, "I cannot/will not/not
authorized to help you" many people will just continue on their own and
conclude that librarians are useless for their needs.
Instead of ignoring the patron's requests and doing nothing, the
reference librarian is expected to help the patron, even if this goes
outside their own areas of expertise, and if nothing else, they try to
point to someone or something that may help, e.g. with a Dilbert
question, to an "expert" in comics. This would probably be a librarian
in charge of a special collection in comics. Therefore, in a traditional
print environment, you would send your patron to a special collection of
comics, using the catalogs of these other collections (if they existed
and you had them), or if nothing else, a directory of special
collections, where you could find a name or phone number or address or
something to help the patron. Today, this is easier than ever and you
can use the web to find, e.g.
http://www.library.yale.edu/humanities/media/comics.html or
http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/coll/049.html or work a little harder. Users
cannot be expected to do these things on their own. But the reference
librarian should not just say that I cannot help you--you go far beyond
the local catalog or the local collection to help the patron to go to
someone else/somewhere else, where they can find the information they
need, or additional help. What I am pointing out is that, while this is
much improved from 25 years ago, it can be improved still more by about
1,000 times from what we have today and while a solution would entail a
lot of work and "new thinking", it would help everyone involved.
Would reference librarians want and use a tool like this? Of course they
would.
As I wrote in the open letter, there is now an "internet collection" but
it is the Google search box that fills the role of the "internet
librarian". Are we supposed to just point our patrons to the main Google
page and wish them good luck? That will be the road to oblivion, I
think. Also, although I realize it has been happening for budgetary
reasons, if we say that we should not help anyone outside of our local
collections, is that a sustainable solution for the future (because
continuing with this idea, nobody will help anyone outside of their own
localities)? It seems that the only way out of the abyss is to genuinely
cooperate, so while I understand the pressures to focus on our own
patrons, it is probably not a wise path to choose. The only solution
that I see is genuine and true collaboration.
Yes, sometimes reference librarians have no choice but to admit that
they cannot help but this is only after they have exhausted their very
best efforts, even if it goes outside the areas of their traditional
responsibilities--and indeed reference librarians do this all the time,
every day.
As I have pointed out many times, it is the patrons who pay our wages,
and if we ignore their needs, they may wind up ignoring us, especially
when they see more and more highly attractive options before them! Many
of them for free.
--
James Weinheimerweinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus:http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules:http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Tue Aug 16 2011 - 04:38:40 EDT