Many thanks to Patricia Palmer for leading our discussion on the ALCTS Educational Policy Statement. We hope she has garnered interesting comments and reactions to discuss with her ALCTS committee at upcoming meetings of the American Library Association and our LISTSERV membership has learned something in the process. Thanks again to all who participated.
We now turn to a discussion of "Retrievers to Rhetoricians: Librarians and Online Libraries." Paul Doty will be leading our discussion. He is the information literacy librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Over the last couple of years, his thinking on librarianship and technology has been molded by Sven Birkerts, Brenda Laurel, Neil Postman, and frequent walks along the shore of Lake Superior. Please join us in a discussion of "Retrievers to Rhetoricians."
Another possible take on librarians and electronic rhetoric is tied to the present. In writing on the effect of electronic mediums in 1962, Daniel Boorstin argued that the "new" technologies had given "the image more dignity than its original" and had left people in a state of mind where "ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real." Not a bad definition of the World Wide Web, and has one examines the wrapper background and eye-catching graphics of Home Pages one has to wonder whether the media literacy one needs for advertising is also a prerequisite for Web browsing. The ongoing issue may be equipping people with the media literacy that will help them recognize the rhetoric of commerce in its march across online mediums.
I bring this topic up because I happen to think that librarians are moving to an interpretive role, and a role that will involve assisting readers in understanding the impact that interactive or hypertext mediums have on writing. Beyond my own "Burma-Shave" conclusions I think a number of questions arise:
We work at the place of juncture for all disciplines. And, in that all disciplines marginalize other disciplines in order to cohere and form an identity, what happens to the discipline that is marginal to ALL others?
Sony has already constructed an almost 100 percent automated university AV library run by robots here in Japan and it's my guess that it's probably run better than it had been by humans. Of course, with the increased mechanized automation, a few mechanics, trouble-shooters, and computer nerds will be needed when the hard/software breaks down, and I'd hope there will always be at least a minimal need for human librarians to help, interpret, suggest, etc., but I'm afraid that Rifkin's comments are at least partly correct. Librarians do seem to be on a slippery slope toward redundancy. The number of library schools is decreasing. When I graduated from Northern Illinois U's library school in 1972, the U of Chicago was allegedly THE Cadillac of the library school world. As far as I know, it's no longer in existence and I liked Northwestern's Music School more than I probably would have liked UC's Library School. NIU's library department is also defunct. I just downloaded U.S. News & World Report's list of the Top Ten U.S. Library Schools from Internet and was pleased that three of them are in the Midwest. What does it all mean? Hard to tell really, but I'm glad I'm close to retirement.
Such networking implies communication between groups of people and organizations with different philosophies, corporate structures, and technical infrastructures. To reach synergy, collaborative arrangements between the involved partners are inevitable.
The information professional is often the first instance to which a member of a research and development department will instinctively turn to for advice, training and expertise on information matters. With all this information available for decision making, information evaluation is the final and probably the most important implication of information management.
To be able to meet client needs, information professionals should assist in (or even guide) the planning, design and use of the next generation of information services. Information professionals could bring the new possibilities to the attention of the actual and potential peers outside the information department of their organizations, forging new partnerships.
It seems that Alan R. Blick is right in envisaging library and information science "largely moving away from the 'doing' roles of literature searching, document supply, current awareness provision, etc. to a 'guidance' role in which advice, support and training are given on information access, management, sources and procedures."
Librarians/information specialists should seize the opportunity to become a sort of "media oriented communicators" on the level of concepts and procedures. This task comprises interpretive as well as teaching roles and may include also criticism of the context in which the information professionals work.
I suspect that in the future there will indeed be fewer "professional" librarians with advanced degrees in the information discipline, but they will enjoy higher pay, prestige, and influence than most in our field do today. They will have more powerful tools for retrieval and interpretation at their disposal. And their services will be in demand, because the information environment we all live and work in will continue to become more complex and richly featured.
Yes, the "curatorial" role will probably be taken over by automata. I, for one, will not mourn the passing of that aspect of librarianship. I see automata as freeing us to do far more interesting things. We might start by looking at our communities in the broadest possible context. Forming a mental vision of the flow of information across these communities, we should be constantly asking ourselves: why are there breakdowns, what are the needs, where are there opportunities, who will be coming to us for answers, and how can we help them?
To turn these comments toward the initial questions posed by Paul Doty, technology is pushing us toward the rhetoric of hypertext and multimedia, which will include but not be limited to the rhetoric of advertising. As people find themselves immersed in that rhetoric, they will approach us for help. (They are already doing so). We need to recognize the complexity and potential of that rhetoric, and it follows that the subject should definitely be in the curriculum. One good starting point, for anyone interested, is the book Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, by Jay David Bolter. It was published a few years back, but remains an excellent appraisal of the subject. Jay's more recent ruminations can be found in his online essay, "Degrees of Freedom."
Personally, I am trying to change the role of my library in its community by using a Web multimedia project as a proactive information tool, as well as venue for collaborative content development. Anyone interested in this approach might be interested in my paper: "The Virtual City: Putting Charleston on the World Wide Web." Apple has posted it on their Advanced Technology Group server. On the ATG page, click "Current Research." Then scroll to Apple Library of Tomorrow and click. The ALOT page includes a pointer to the Charleston project article. The response to this project in the Charleston community suggests that it has the potential to place the library at the center of the local information environment, rather than on its periphery.
If we really look at the history of technology we will find many more instances where technological advances have not replaced former low-tech alternatives. In reality, new developments are added to existing technologies and we must support all of them for quite a long time, certainly much longer than two decades.
Shera and Macleish and many others have reminded us that there is no substitute for developing an internal relationship to the content of our collections, whether physical or virtual, and they warned us about becoming more external in our efforts to harness the information and make it available while becoming less involved in the content. John Budd's recent article in RQ on "Reader-Centered Theory" is pertinent here.
Our strength lies not only in harnessing information and building and interpreting systems to end users, but in our ability to understand the relationships within their content and to interpret this to readers, seekers, synthesizers, etc. The need for filtering and services that facilitate interpreting is rising. This is a human ability that is not yet automated (filtering software is quite rudimentary) and will not be in the near future, despite the predictions of enthusiastic futurists.
Recently an NPR story told of someone searching for hours on the internet for the source of the quote "teach a man to fish...." asking a reference librarian yielded the answer in minutes because she knew exactly where to look. ("All Things Considered," (NPR) March 27, 1996 Transcript #2165.)
People who do not use the Internet think it will give all the answers. Those who seek real solutions know it is one of many resources which increases the need for an expert. The internet is also full of unauthorized experts. It is not easy to find the truth -- even if it is out there -- and it may not be online -- accessible via computer!
Automated retrievals get comical in their hits -- then a human has to select what is appropriate. That is the biggest complaint I hear from new users, and most learn to get on a list serve and share successes and add a bookmark. The end user can take this time, or give the search to a librarian with online and hard copy resources and save a lot of time.
Sony and (I've heard) the Library of Congress may have robots to pull a selected item from the shelf and bring it to patrons, but getting access to a book is just the "opening of the book" -- there is so much more to do.
Just as one doesn't see the teller behind the ATM filling, counting, and balancing the money, the librarians may do more work behind the scenes. But I've done both jobs. Making deposits or giving cash from account balances is simple accounting. I know there is much more undefinable, unmeasurable, "unprocessable" work involved in making available resources which may help find solutions -- keys to answers -- as research librarians strive to do or satisfy a yearning for adventure or leisure satisfaction as a good book does.
Working with computer experts has also shown how many options there are. Without the understanding of underlying information organization requirements and systems to repackage information, computer experts grope with mislaid plans. They pursue one option and must restart when they realize things are not working but often they are unaware of what is amiss and how to fix the problem.
I do agree more computer information is needed by librarians. I agree those who don't wish to sit in front of a terminal may find termination, but for librarians which try there are many ways to find the expertise needed. It is not as easy for a computer expert to become a librarian.
I also agree that what is taught in library schools determines their fates. I graduated last summer from the program at Emporia State University which was excellent. They tried to be as innovative as possible and allow the students to share and discuss topics like this and find possible solutions. What we did in school matches what I'm doing on the job and ALL fields have to re-invent their procedures to keep up with the new demands. We see a need and take the steps required to get up to speed.
IT's TOO EXCITING TO RETIRE!
Actually it leads me to another story: Rumor has it the previous research librarian at LANL resisted computers until he retired. I met him many times after his replacement made it very technologically advanced. He now loves the changes! I think it made him a believer! Computers are getting more user-friendly. Computer experts will always be needed, but in my library the goal is to get the staff (me a round-robin student) capable of the daily routines and the use of computer experts on an infrequent consultant basis. This may mean we change software or procedures less frequently (or it may not -- the programs are being written to automatically "transcribe" old data to match the new requirements).
Like all times, it has many opportunities and librarians and library schools are meeting the challenge!
On Thursday, 2 May 1996, William Liebi wrote:
>It seems that Alan R. Blick is right in envisaging library and information science "largely moving away from the 'doing' roles of literature searching, document supply, current awareness provision, etc. to a 'guidance' role in which advice, support and training are given on information access, management, sources and procedures."
Personally, I think this is a fairly accurate description of what is currently happening in the Internet and the World Wide Web. This happens because the medium offers a very easily mastered interface for self-publication. It really just isn't very hard to publish something in HTML, so there is a lot of material made available. However, the depth, quality, and organization of most of this data is poor, at best, and trying to manage it is a major headache (as we all know). Therefore, I think librarians are being increasingly consulted about this material because most marginally intelligent people recognize they lack the contextualization that allows one to track, search, retrieve, and more importantly interpret the information they are getting back from this medium.
On the other hand, it is not clear to me that this phenomenon (librarians moving from active role to consulting role) remains valid for commercially published electronic information. This information is "formally" compiled, organized, and then licensed for electronic use/distribution. A fairly detailed level of "domain-specific" knowledge is often required in order to gain the full benefit of some of these types of resources. If the end-user does not understand how the data is structured, and the particulars of how the interface provides access to parts of the database, then the end-user will not be able to fully exploit these types of resources in order to meet his/her needs. In such situations, where relatively complex data is involved, I believe librarians will continue to play a role in actually "doing" the retrieval process for the vast majority of users. Consider such application areas where this is already happening in large research libraries: social science data sets (such as those licensed by ICPSR), geographic information systems (such as TIGER data), a lot of government statistical data (such as the U.S. Census), and very large scientific data sets (such as NASA satellite telemetry).
William Liebi also remarked:
>The information professional is often the first instance to which a member of a research and development department will instinctively turn to for advice, training and expertise on information matters.
Actually, I'm going to challenge you on this point, William.
Ten years ago, when I was in Aberystwyth, Wales, I was exposed to some research which had been done on the role of the librarian in the academic research community (I'm sorry, I can't provide a citation, but I found there were several studies which were done -- replication of research). Such studies have shown fairly clearly that librarians are usually not one of the top two or three places a researcher in the academic community goes when s/he needs information. (I am willing to concede that the emergence of the Internet as a popular medium in the past year or two has begun to alter the public's perception of libraries and librarians, but we've still got a long way to go.)
Anyway, I recall the primary sources of information for the researchers polled in one such study were (in order of importance):
As you can see, we're getting back to the points I was making above -- general vs. domain specific resources.
With regards to library service, one of the chief problems libraries and librarians are going to be facing in the next ten to twenty years, in my opinion, is the "socialization" of information age skills. Most people are not born with a knowledge of the architecture of information systems (automated, or otherwise).
It is increasingly obvious to me (and, I think, to many of us working with networking technology) that the vast majority of the public really lacks the skills that are required to be a self-sufficient learners in Cyberspace -- or any other comparably large information space. I also think the Internet has been (and will continue to be) a wonderful social laboratory facilitating the transferral of these skills. But again, I say, we're a long way from achieving that goal.
To me, the bottom line is this: Many members of the general public are simply not prepared to know when they need the assistance of a professional librarian, and most aren't well appraised of that fact. (Nobody likes to be told when there is something they don't know.) Addressing this problem of "information age literacy" is going to be a major issue for libraries in the next ten to twenty years, as a result. I also think it is important that we keep our eyes on the fact that the vast majority of libraries receive a substantial portion of their funding from taxpayer dollars while we go about bringing information technology skills to the members of our communities. I suspect the libraries which do the best job of educating the members of their communities will also be the ones which retain the most support for public funding. But that's just an educated guess...
The statement below seems so outrageous that one can only believe that Larry either has his tongue in his cheek or has not worked in the latter part of the 20th century at a university filled with naive kids lacking cultural literacy (i.e., knowledge of history). My pet peeve is students lack of "literacy in academic cultures." Without acquiring some background knowledge of a field, especially its scholarship and scholarly apparatus, students remain awash in a confusing mass of publications.
Rather than "going the way of the dinosaur," experts at retrieving and evaluating information -- whether or not they are indeed librarians -- are going to have been around for "hand-holding" students until they learn how to swim by themselves.
Incoming freshmen of yore who thought they knew how to use a card catalog record were amazed at the "trick" of using the other subject headings on the catalog record for a found "gem" to narrow their search, and students looking for charts and maps in the earthquake books were similarly delighted by descriptive info in the appropriate field of the record -- once it was explained to them.
I recall, too painfully, the time required to individually instruct a student in the structure and benefits of the hardcopy ISI citation indexes. And that an ACRL-BIS program in Dallas (early? 1980s) included a speaker who adequately described what such explanations were doing to Reference Desk workloads. That pain is now shifted and amplified at the 80 or so Reference Room computer search stations, as students with assignments but no skills begin their tasks without prior instruction or practice.
To instruct, now, in varieties of Booleans offered by Web search engines, seems no different in kind -- only in format.
As always, some of our students will have had experience and successes in identifying information resources before they come to us. A significant number of them will not remember what they learned in a "past life" or will not see the applicability of what they once knew. And many more will be clue-free. Ten years from now there will be "returning students" paralyzed like deer in the headlights of technologies we have just finished apprenticeships in.
While researchers in many disciplines are questioning our future information resources, almost all seem to rely on the existence of libraries in the future. For some examples of this, I direct your attention to the hearings that were taking place in Washington in late April. The Hearing on the Role of Technology in Distance Learning before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space was describing the future role of distance education at all levels. While stressing the need for more federal government funding to support the information infrastructure and thus also distance education, the ability to deliver this education in LIBRARIES was always assumed. Most of the experts and students who testified treated their libraries as a given resource that would not go away. If the libraries aren't going away, neither are the librarians.
As several others have commented, people are already becoming dissatisfied with the resources of the Internet/Web. As they begin to realize the gaps, they turn back to the traditional source of all knowledge and things that are good, the library. I personally believe that as more people become familiar with the web, they will gain a better awareness of the vast amount of information that is available in the world (a fact that librarians have known all along), but they will also learn that the information is difficult to plow through and organize. It make take some time, but this could lead to more support for libraries and librarians as people come to realize the value that librarians have been adding for so many years.
This is particularly true as the media available in libraries continues to change and increase. Librarians must stay on top of the changes in technology and media and be prepared to act as interpreters of the information that they provide to their users. This will mean knowing the difference between a sharp home page and accurate information. Most of this knowledge is taken from an awareness of the sources of information, which has always been an important skill learned through library education.
Librarians have always been society's information organizers. It has been difficult for anyone else to take over this task. See the interesting article in the May 1996 issue of Wired (v. 4, no. 5, p. 108-) which discusses this week's popular web browsers. The article seems to question the ability of librarians to keep of with the current changes in our world of knowledge. As I noted in a letter to the editor of Wired, librarians have done a pretty good job of organizing the world of print media. They have just not yet redirected their full attentions to all of the other forms of information that are becoming available. Once librarians take to this task, better organization will be seen. From the organization will follow the new ways to lead the users and provide the interpretation of information.
Finally, librarians have always been comfortable with change. I think this comes from the nature of the discipline. Most librarians work in changing environments, perform many different tasks at the same time, and must apply many different talents in their work. Change is natural for librarians, much more so than in other fields. As we move toward new media and discover new roles in delivering and interpreting the new media for our users, librarians will change to match these needs. The way that future librarians are instructed must follow this tradition of change.
>o their own monograph and journal collection
>o a colleague or fellow researcher (at their own institution)
>o a colleague or fellow researcher (at another institution)
>o a professional membership association
>o a book store
>o the library.."
The computer, e.g., the Internet, is being viewed in many people's minds as THE source of information. What it is actually becoming is a new form of communication supplementing older forms. People decried the invention of the typewriter because it supplemented writing. The newest trend in computers is software which will enable a user to write text on a pad which is then translated into electronic text.
The heaviest use of electronic communication is at the academic level where the "invisible colleges" are busy leaving electronic trails. Librarians have always had problems tracing information until it arrives in some hard source, the Internet is the newest wrinkle to the problem. If the Internet continues to dominate, will librarians find their paper journals disappearing to be replaced by CD-ROMs and tapes? Its already happening with many publications.
The library has never been the inquiring user's first stop, its usually a friend or the telephone directory. As a profession we are at our best when we are able to locate a needed piece of information because we know exactly what the user means and where his question can be answered.It is really irrelevant whether it is a trusted reference book or an up-to-the-minute URL site.
I think Margaret Slusser made some very interesting observations which closely reflect my thinking.
On Sat, 4 May 1996, Margaret Slusser <slusserm@milwaukee.tec.wi.us> wrote:
>The computer, e.g., the Internet, is being viewed in many people's minds as THE source of information. What it is actually becoming is a new form of communication supplementing older forms. People decried the invention of the typewriter because it supplemented writing. The newest trend in computers is software which will enable a user to write text on a pad which is then translated into electronic text.
Actually, having some personal level of hindsight on the Internet, I would argue that the Internet has -- to some degree -- always been at its heart a form of communication, supplementing older forms. The network is all about the people you can contact. This idea of the Internet or the World Wide Web serving as "THE source of information" is in fact a secondary consideration -- largely orchestrated by a growing telecommunications industry full of people looking for ways to sell their wares -- which happened to come to the forefront of our collective consciousness about the same time the Internet hit the popular media.
Electronic mail is obviously at the heart of this communication function.
I find it very telling to note that electronic mail was (as many things in this environment seem to be) a completely unplanned for application. In the early ARPA work, nobody really foresaw electronic mail as one of the "killer applications" that would change the direction of the technology, and in fact a large impetus behind the creation of the acceptable use policies (AUPs) which were so common during the late-ARPA and NSFNet eras of network evolution were driven by the very real management concerns over providing this capability [e-mail] to people within the organizations involved. (Why should my secretary or administrative assistant be sending electronic mail to her cousin in California? etc.)
Margaret Slusser
>The heaviest use of electronic communication is at the academic level where the "invisible colleges" are busy leaving electronic trails. Librarians have always had problems tracing information until it arrives in some hard source, the Internet is the newest wrinkle to the problem. If the Internet continues to dominate, will librarians find their paper journals disappearing to be replaced by CD-Rom's and tapes? Its already happening with many publications.
The potential we have for tracking and examining the invisible college is the truly intriguing aspect of this technology, to me.
In my mind, it is a foregone conclusion that some stuff will cease being issued in print and we'll be faced with increasing volumes of electronic (or non-traditional) literature. As continuing generations come forward with the skills to access and employ electronic technologies in their lives, we're simply going to be faced with the reality that a lot of "stuff" is never published in print form. (And I'm not sure it is safe to assume the most important, most relevant, or most insightful material is what will make it to print.)
The library's role within society has always been a schizophrenic one. We exist at the crossroads of two very real societal problems:
If we, as librarians, want to continue trying to accomplish these socially worthy goals, we have to face the reality that this material exists (as marginalia now, but increasingly as an influence working upon mainstream literature if not as mainstream literature itself). We have got to figure out how to deal with it.
At a recent conference, I was talking about this problem with an archivist. I explained my point of view to him this way...
If (granted, a big if) a library or museum someday thought that my personal effects were worthy of archival consideration, I can tell you now -- don't even bother sending a van over with a bunch of boxes to collect the things. Everything that is of importance in my life is on magnetic disk (true currently, but that might be subject to change as technology advances). As a musician, most of my compositional material is stored as MIDI patches and analog waveforms dumped to disk. My financial records are managed with computer spreadsheets and databases. Most of the personal correspondence which defines the "invisible college(s)" I occupy is stored electronically, punctuated by the occasional printout, published article in serial literature, and monograph.
The point is, even if you all don't want to archive my material, there are thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of other people out there that you are going to want to archive. You need to be able to deal with this stuff. It is simply no longer a safe assumption to make (if it ever was) that the most important stuff will make it to the print marketplace. And even if it does, we all recognize the value the non-published material has to historians trying to examine published works within the context of their creation.
My greatest fear with this technology is that we are all ushering in a second dark ages. The only difference between libraries in the middle ages and libraries today is that we (librarians) are in a position to control our own destiny. In past generations, the library was physically sacked and burned to the ground by others. In the current generation, the library will retain a meaningful role within society only to the extent that we continue to meet the challenge of archiving and making access available to humankind's knowledge. I question how effectively we are meeting the archival role, and feel fairly strongly that if we ignore the electronic material (which admittedly, is not perfect) we are opening the door to another period of dark ages.
Let me draw my actual vision of information handling in libraries:
Every library has to be aware of its own specific acquisition and user profile. There are public, school and general scientific libraries. The latter assure access to basic scientific literature and other general sources, whereas special libraries focus on specific resources.
Because a single library cannot meet all needs of different user categories, libraries have to coordinate and cooperate within networks.
A library network has to be constructed bottom-up, with which I mean that the public library is the place, where young people first get into contact with the library world and get used to it. Coming generations know a lot about computers. Therefore, it will be easier to explain them the functions of library user interfaces. The next step for young people is the frequentation of general scientific libraries.
I fully agree with the statement that libraries in general can contribute essentially to socialize people to the information age. One of the main tasks of librarians will be to help the user to help himself, or, as Ray McInnis said, to help students "until they learn how to swim by themselves". When the number of well informed users is growing, we will have the "end-user revolution"; this means that from then on, we will have a remarkable number of users which, at least to some extend, can do literature searching, organize document supply and current awareness provision.
The necessity to evaluate information according to the purposes of users is accentuated in special scientific libraries. There, the librarian serves as intermediary: Within the world of research, he is the library expert; within the library, he represents the scientific domain. First of all the head librarian has to be informed about new developments in LIS and be familiar with the methods of research in the field which the special library covers.
Finally, I would like to add to "primary sources of information for the researchers":
Maybe the own monograph and journal collection will not suffice; due to increasing prices of books and journals, you probably cannot buy all the necessary sources. You must turn to a larger collection, e.g. in a special library. Normally, even this collection cannot deliver the information needed; the library has to recur to other institutions and sites. In the near future, besides other digitalized sources, electronic journals will become more important, especially if they introduce quality control through peer review.
Colleagues or fellow researchers (at the own or at another institution) are excellent sources; personally, I would go so far to put them at the first place.
Craig, I appreciated your challenge.
I am sure that the author used the word "schizophrenic" just as a metaphor. The metaphor is applied in daily life with a certain frequency. Nevertheless I feel obliged to add a few remarks.
The metaphor does not illustrate the situation in an adequate manner. The metaphor evokes negative associations which lead into a wrong direction. Whereas schizophrenia is a serious psychopathologic state, the two complementary roles librarians accomplish are, in the author's own words, socially worthy goals.
Seen under these aspects, I think that it would be appropriate not to use this misleading metaphor at all.
Whoever said "comparisons are odious" knew what shim was talking about. Use of disease words to describe a problem of some complexity has drawn fire from usually peaceful Berne. Words and meaning are not neutral after all, Switzerland notwithstanding.
The facts are, however, that libraries aim at acquiring and disseminating. Some say these are complementary functions; others claim that these two functions are dichotomous and lead librarians to suffer considerable inner conflict.
The fallout from these unresolved conflicts and challenged metaphors is making me paranoid.
Oops. Sorry, Berne.
I may also be drawing a far too emotional line between interacting and contemplating...
Home Discussion
(NOTE: I do not believe the organization of this material is, in and of itself, one of these schizophrenic faces of librarianship. The organization of knowledge is simply a tool we employ to address these other two problems -- something a fair number of librarians tend to lose sight of, in my opinion. But that is a tangent best not explored at this time.)William Arthur Liebi
Craig A. Summerhill wants me to reply to his view of library functions, based on studies made ten years ago. I think, some of these statements are, at least partially, still valid today. Some aspects have changed, some others are under way to change.
Academic librarian
Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bern
CH-3000 Bern 7 Switzerland
Voice: +41 +31 320 32 259
Fax: +41 +31 320 32 99
liebi@stub.unibe.chWilliam Arthur Liebi
Craig A. Summerhill mentioned two "socially worthy goals" librarians accomplish: The "archival role" on one hand, and the "public service role" on the other. At the same time he described these two functions as "schizophrenic faces of librarianship."
Academic librarian
Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bern
CH-3000 Bern 7 Switzerland
Voice: +41 +31 320 32 259
Fax: +41 +31 320 32 99
liebi@stub.unibe.chChuck Curran
It is interesting to note that a discussion partially entitled "Rhetoricians" now runs into trouble over the words a contributor used to try to influence us -- which is what rhetoric is partially "about."
N400019@UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDUPaul Doty
Not only are "words and meanings not neutral" but their connotative impact is directly related to the precision of their meaning. Graphics aren't neutral either, but visuals evoke impressions rather than rebuttals. The thousand words in a picture are elusive, and it is this appeal to emotions rather than meaning in pictures that explains the incredible comparisons that are often made in advertising. If multi media formats continue to assert themselves as a publication medium for research, than I believe it is going to be up to librarians to help students articulate their written response to research transfigured in several mediums. I suppose I'm concerned that convergent technologies level the distinctions between forms of communication to such an extent that interaction replaces contemplation. My thinking is that we need to train self-sufficient users to be rhetoricians of online resources and ask what does the picture have to do with the video in relation to the hyperlinked text.
Information Literacy Librarian
Jim Dan Hill Library
University of Wisconsin Superior
pdoty@staff.uwsuper.edu
