- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Several Wired editors have quit, others are being laid off. Is the would-be multimedia empire unraveling? Discuss it in Table Talk. - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Pornutopia lost
Apache's free-software warriors A giant sucking sound Riven rapt
Reality Check
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ARE WE READY FOR THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE? | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Even for people who know how to use a computer, the technology causes problems. In the past, when people needed to find something other than a book, they tended to ask a reference librarian first. Now that all the indexes -- and many of the articles as well -- are on the computer, more patrons are simply doing searches themselves, with no idea that they might be missing information that's there because they're in the wrong index or using the wrong search word. The indexes have cryptic names like ERIC and EBSCO that give no clue as to what subject they cover. Print indexes, on the other hand, are of course located in the subject area they index, which makes them easy to find, and they also contain voluminous introductory pages listing every periodical they index, with explanations of how they are organized and instructions on their use. The electronic indexes either don't offer this at all or make the information nearly impossible to find. (In San Francisco, the staff is aware of this problem and hopes to correct it soon with a paper guide, electronic documentation or a new graphic interface for the whole system.) Libraries also seem content to buy indexes based on broad subject category without paying any attention to whether they actually list a specific source their patrons might want to use. An article in the December 1994 issue of the Library Journal complained that the electronic science index in use at one university library referenced only three basic undergraduate-level indexes, which ironically also were the easiest ones to use in print, rather than more complex indexes such as Chemical Abstracts. "Surely no librarian would hand a patron a volume of the Reader's Guide when a science index was needed, yet we are doing the same thing passively -- and with the same outcome," wrote Kevin Cook, a former reference librarian. "Through a program of technological advancement as carefully reasoned as a seaside lemming vacation, many patrons who can't tell a Boolean operator from apple butter are now free to spool off hundreds of citations without librarian assistance -- until the printer runs out of paper." The same thing seems to be happening in public libraries, even ones that don't have any interest in Chemical Abstracts. Florida's Imhoff tells me that the archiving policies at her library have changed dramatically since they put in full-text periodical indexes. Now they save paper copies in the main libraries for three to five years instead of five to 10. For archiving, they rely on EBSCO, which offers full text for some of the 3,000 periodicals it indexes. What it doesn't include is either too obscure or scholarly for her library to need, she says. What's more, none of these electronic databases preserves the entire source, in its original format and in the context of other articles and advertisements, as microfiche does. Each article exists as a single record in plain text with loads of typos and no accompanying graphics. Those patrons who do ask for librarian assistance, at least at the San Francisco library, either get a librarian who hasn't been trained on the system ("I've never used the ERIC database before," one told me) or a librarian who stands behind the reference desk and gives you a quick description of what database to look under and what string to try. If you can't find the right screen or the string doesn't seem to be working, you have to go back and wait in line again. At the old library, the librarian would walk you over to the print index or one of the few computer databases and start finding the information for you. Only after it became apparent that you were on the right track would the librarian leave you to it. But the librarians simply don't have time anymore. I don't mean to pick on the San Francisco library staff, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances. It's just that they don't yet have enough reference librarians to cope with the deluge of new patrons and questions that new libraries create. Critics of the "blended library" and of libraries' shift from books to computers are often writers who lament that public libraries are less and less useful for serious research. Many librarians respond that the public library is not and cannot be a research institution -- it's paid for out of tax money and it must be responsive to the community it is in and serve its needs. Today's public, it seems, wants computers more than it wants books. I suspect that's because we are living in an era when the potential of technology is almost always exaggerated and its practical limitations ignored. In the library, computers make finding things more difficult -- unless we are prepared to dramatically increase funding for training, system maintenance and more reference librarians. As it stands, librarians are now the slaves of an unfunded mandate. The hysterical urgency of the pressure libraries feel to computerize is based on a big lie: the widespread notion that the computer itself is some kind of important information source analogous to the book, but somehow more useful and wonderful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Computers are not simply books in electronic clothes. Multimedia and games are fun, but do not offer the same kind of information as books and magazines. The same can be said of databases, which are even further removed from narrative form. And the Internet, although extremely useful in many ways, is currently no replacement for a print library. The Internet has 30 million to 40 million Web pages; the library contains 25 million books with many pages each, says Karen Coyne, a specialist in library automation at U.C.-Berkeley and Western regional director for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. The Web also has no standard information retrieval tools and is completely disorganized, she continues. The library, on the other hand, has an extremely complex indexing system using controlled vocabulary and comprehensive cross-referencing. "Unfortunately, documents do not define themselves," she says. Doing a keyword search in an Internet search engine throws up too many false hits to be useful, leaves out stuff you're really looking for, and cannot yet select material for different user levels, such as children. "It's cruel to make people have to weed through every bit of info in the world to find what they need," she says. She also notes that many information sources on the Internet are administered by part-time volunteers. Sites come and go without notice and quickly go out of date. So far, there is no guarantee that sites will be archived and available to future generations. ("I know in a couple of years some graduate student is going to come in here asking for Salon," Kenney tells me.) Coyne writes on her Web site: "As a telecommunications system, the Internet is both modern and mature; as an information system the Internet is an amateur operation." One day, the information on the Net could rival the richness of
print. One day, when screen resolution improves, we will even be able to read it without squinting. But until then, what will matter in a library, what has always mattered in a library, is the quality of the collection and, of course, the public's ability to access it and use it. Too bad that, today, such ideals don't brand a library as "visionary." Cate T. Corcoran is a freelance writer in San Francisco covering culture, technology, business and media. |
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