Re: GEN: Book idolatry

["Karen G. Schneider" <kschneid@UMICH.EDU>]

>> The director of the Denver Public Library (who put this book in the hands
>> of the editorial writer) is quoted as saying, "the path from information
>> to wisdom leads firmly through books.  The thoughtful work of reading is
>> still our most vital intellectual act, demanding the engagement of our
>> minds and hearts, as well as our eyes and hands."

What have I been doing for the past hour on the Internet?  Or is it only
reading if it's printed on a dead tree?

Crawford and Gorman may be big names in library science, and I respect
them, but there is no reason to be biased against e-text.  Let's not become
book-idolators.  That is the path to our ruin and our disappearance.  We
are INFORMATION specialists first and foremost, and our goal is service to
our users, not to the artifacts we use for our service.  I think of this as
the difference between book-librarians and people-librarians.

The world is changing, whether we want it to or not.  Quite frankly I find
most of my articles online these days--either the bound journal is missing
or it hasn't been published yet or the library is miles away or WHATever,
while electronic articles, free or fee, are sitting there waiting for me to
discover them.  And that's a little slice of the info pie.  As for
technical obstacles to reading electronic text, I frankly think these are
trivial.  Just look and listen, and think about the last decade of change.
As Bob Dylan sang, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind
blows."

Karen kschneid@umich.edu
p.s. here's a chance for me to repostthe url for the site with the search
tools:
http://www.flint.lib.mi.us/mmlc/