Re: Target: Print or Electronic Reference

[Joni J Rathbun <jrathbun@orednet.org>]

>An elementary/middle school librarian want information to support
>keeping the reference collections updated, even though the district is
>currently connecting to the interent. She wants to convince her
>administration not to give up print. Any advice/direction from the
>collective wisdom?

I've been working on the net for several years now. I can
think of several reasons to maintain print collections.
Indeed, I'm spending a good deal (of what I have) on
updating our print-based reference materials for next
year as the internet simply is not a replacement for
libraries yet.

For example...

The internet is largely unorganized. Search engines
return overwhelming numbers of hits. Subject guides
(Yahoo is a subject guide) are on the right track
but the amount of information uncovered can be
staggering still... It's time consuming (sometimes
greatly so) and can be very frustrating. And there's
no way to tell at a glance if your search
is going to pay off. My print collection is
easy to navigate, quickly assessed, and
developed with my patrons most common needs
in mind.

There are also no minimum criteria/criterion for
publishing on the web. Anything goes. While
I like that for the most part, it presents
certain challenges. Of the 320 million web
pages available, how many really contain
solid, reliable, resources that meet the
kind of criteria we normally require from
print-based resources? Those who sing
the praises of the net at the expense of all
else must be finding resources I'm not finding.
There are some good ones out there, even some
gold mines,  but for every good
one I find, I have probably rejected
another dozen.

Some of the best resources I find on the
"internet" are not free and they're
not likely to become free any time soon.
Just because there is an internet
doesn't mean that publishers and researchers
will start giving everything away. Information
costs money to produce. One way or
another we will pay. UMI, Electronic Library,
EB Online... the list goes on... all provide
access to valuable resources that we can
now access from anywhere anytime...but
they come at a cost above and beyond our
new networks.

Only a fraction of what I find in my
most used reference and research titles
can be found in digital format at
this time ... especially on the
internet.

The internet is changing forever the
way we express and exchange knowledge
and information but does not yet
replace libraries or solid print collections.



--
 --              Joni Rathbun | jrathbun@orednet.org              --
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