This is either about 2.0 stuff, or it's a pointless rant. You tell me.
Library 2.0 is a pain in the ass because the Internet/wireless/cellphone is a pain in the ass.
Here is a traditional library/customer transaction: The customer arrives at the library and requests some information. The library person searches the library or her brain and presents that information to the customer. The customer leaves and the library person goes back to eating popcorn or playing solitaire or tattooing Keith Haring babies on a coworker.
This continued for millions of years. With the minor variation that some libraries would package information and pay some postage to have it sent to the customer through the mail.
Later the transaction included using telephone lines, so people would call the library for information. This new technology expanded the possible customer request to include demands for rush service, since the customer was too busy or important to visit the library in person. The library could decide to fax or not to fax.
With the arrival of the Internet, libraries now had to decide how much or how little service to offer to their customers. Email, chat, Web searching, online databases, gopher servers, usenet, freaking everything was now available, if it was online. I remember back in 1995, downloading a Mac archived (zipped) file from a Unix server through a telnet connection (or that's what I remember doing -- who the hell knows; you just kept typing until you got the file).
But now the resources and formats and transfers are virtually unlimited. If your library's mission is to utilize the latest technology to satisfy customer requests, then how do you decide which techologies to use?
Can you go to whangdoodle.gov and print out what's there and fax it to me?
Can you scan that and email it to me?
Can you give me a list of all the dvds in your library?
Can you convert that to a pdf and email it to me?
Can you download that file to my flash drive?
Can you upload my resume?
Can you burn that to a cd/dvd for me?
Can you find me everything you can about Whangdoodle and print it and mail it to me?
If you never faxed, will you scan and then email? Do you decide what you will do based on time, or on money?
In some ways I want to see the privatization of public libraries. Because I want to know what the real dollar value of my knowledge is. (But on the other hand, how can I trust the private sector to pay me what I'm worth. And I'm not a good salary negotiator.)
I don't think librarians refuse service based on anything but fairness. If you arrive at my library, I will help you until I feel that you're being abusive. As a free public servant, I put limits on how much you can get from me. Some people think this is a characteristic of a bad attitude. But how can it be? If the customer asks a question and I give an answer, I should expect that the customer will act on this new information. If the customer continues to ask questions, regardless of how few customers are in the library, am I wrong to cut him off even though I'm still here and available and being paid the same salary? Obviously, the customer wants to kill two birds with one stone, but what about the customer who wants eight or fifteen birds? Do you identify this behavior as abusive? And if so, do you do anything about it?
Do you provide any and all services available to your customers regardless of how much time the service requires or how much cost in supplies (paper, long distance calls, postage)?
So 2.0 opens the door to so many opportunities, and by opportunities I mean problems. Libraries hate to say "No." But in the past, saying no was easy because it came out as, "we don't have that" or "that's not available." I'm a huge proponent of librarians continuing to learn, but I also believe that we (the library) should be compensated for our work. If the private sector charges $80 an hour (last newspaper I checked charges $40 per half-hour) for research, is there a point when the library should charge for research?
I know I'm paid to be at my job. Regardless of my workload, I get paid the same. Whether I'm eating a box of Entenmann's chocolate doughnuts, or photocopying all the pharmacies in Atlanta from the yellow pages, I still make my ten bucks (or whatever; I said I'm a bad salary negotiator) an hour.
So if I have a reason for this it might be because the Internet has changed what libraries can do to serve their customers. In the past, there was a definite point when the research ended and the customer was satisfied that all available resources had been tried. But today, where is that point? And even, should there be a point?
