TARGET->Mission issue: How do YOU see it?

[Jeffrey Hastings <jhasting@EDCEN.EHHS.CMICH.EDU>]

I want your opinion on this situation.  I am very distressed because I
have spent four years developing a Middle School Library which I now feel
on the brink of perfecting, BUT, as I see it, I am suddenly being asked
to add non-library services to my facility from administration and
mucking up what was to have been a great program.
 Here's the scene:
I was vocal as an advocate for automation.  Following a hard drive
failure on an old apple II circ system I appealed that the time was right
for automation and administration listened and, about nine months later,
I have a fully automated circ/cat program(winnebago) running on a Novell
network with six workstations (I would like to call them
"searchstations") on the floor for students.*
As soon as the hardware was in and I had things up and running to a
satisfactory degree, the technology coordinator walks in and tells me
that she is going to have other software programs installed for teachers
to use on these stations-- programs for drill and instruction, record
keeping, etc.
Now-- we have a computer lab. It's a Mac Lab with about 15 macs and 15
apple IIs.
Yet I was being asked to put this stuff on the library catalog platform
which was now home to the catalog, a periodical index/database, and a
database of career information, all of which are read only resources
consistent with the library mileau. I was steamed.
The arguments I heard were predicatable:
"but don't you WANT to attract teachers into the library?"
"Perhaps my idea of what a library is is BROADER than yours..)"
Boy, those arguments insult me. BROADER to me means BLURRIER in this case
and the former argument is just rhetoric: I could give away money to
attract teachers too.
Here's the case: I had a great little LAN going (for about a week) with
just the right amount of solid library resources on it.  Some students
were confused as to the nature of the resources, but they were quickly
catching on. Now I feel its about to be wrecked.

*Am I overreacting?
*Am I being used as a surrogate "computer lab supervisor" rather than a
librarian.
*Are such non-library services and ADDITION TO or a DILUTION FROM my mission?

Do YOU have similar stories about librarians whose catalogs, once
automated, became computer "labs" with all sorts of stuff put on to
them?  Is this O.K. in your opinion?  Let me know what YOU think.

*by the way, never did I explicitly or tacitly agree to administer a
computer lab.
--

----JEFFREY G. HASTINGS -- E-MAIL: JHASTING@edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu --------
or 73164.423@compuserve.com  -Hell is other people.- FAX: (517) 545-1407