On Tue, 16 Aug 2011, McDonald, Stephen wrote:
> So you believe that a corporate law librarian should try to fill
> whatever requests he gets, regardless of the stated purpose of the
> library and company policies regarding misuse of company services? ...
> Not all libraries are the same.
How corporate libraries operate is entirely moot in this discussion,
since none of the issues being discussed relate to them. James was talking
about public institutions serving the public, not branches of businesses.
We all understand the difference between corporations and the public.
> If you limit it to public and academic libraries, I will agree.
I think it detracts from the discussion to become sidelined on the issue
of whether one is sufficiently specific about the type of library one is
talking about. How might corporate librarians be threatened by the
following remarks excerpted from James' post to the extent that they need
to holler?
>> -----Original Message----- From: James Weinheimer Sent: Tuesday, August
>> 16, 2011 4:37 AM To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] A
>> Day Made of Glass
>> Should librarians be able to pick and choose their questions based on
>> how important *the librarian* thinks they are?
Of course corporate librarians have to pick and choose because their
patrons pay them to do so.
>> 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.
If a person should, by mistake one would assume, try to obtain
information from a corporate librarian and be so rebuffed, one would hope
that their frustration would be directed toward the corporation and not
laid on the librarian who is "just following orders" or librarians in
general. It would, however, be convenient if the challenged corporate
librarian could communicate in a manner that avoids any
misunderstandings.
>> Instead of ignoring the patron's requests and doing nothing, the
>> reference librarian is expected to help the patron
This applies equally to both types of libraries, in that the sole patron
(in several senses) of a corporate librarian is the corporation.
>> ... 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.
The corporate librarian is of course expected to take all the
responsibility for doing these things. The question is whether the public
librarian should do more (to the extent of spoon-feeding?) or simply
educate their patrons to find unbiased information on their own.
>> It seems that the only way out of the abyss is to genuinely cooperate
It stands to reason that librarians working for different corporations
cannot cooperate to any greater extent than do the corporations themselves,
but if they expect cooperation from public libraries, they must certainly
be willing to reciprocate to the same extent that corporation are
expected to respond to public concerns.
>> it is the patrons who pay our wages
Thus, any question of how librarians operate in the first place depends
upon who pays for the libraries.
Cheers!
jgm
John G. Marr
Cataloger
CDS, UL
Univ. of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
jmarr_at_unm.edu
jmarr_at_flash.net
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Received on Tue Aug 16 2011 - 12:59:42 EDT