... that began in 1980 is ending: I am retiring November 1. I have enjoyed the collegiality and camaraderie of this list and I thank you all. My plans include seeing if I can write anything worthwhile, studying to become a private investigator, volunteering at the local public radio station, and perhaps at the diocesan library. I hope to travel some, too.
One of my writing experiments follows-reflections on the changes I have seen in libraries over the last 24 years and my concerns for the future. I'll understand if you don't want to read my anecdotage and last rant. Just hit the delete key now.
I am fortunate to have been part of the first generation to explore the potential of electronic research as it moved from dedicated access to the universal desktop. I am also fortunate to have been a librarian during the time the Internet became readily available to most.
In 1980, OCLC and LEXIS each had dedicated terminals that put their services well beyond the RRB library's budget. The Library of Congress' Cataloging Distribution Center was still printing cards, but we had to type the added entries ourselves. During my first month on the job, I used a MANUAL typewriter to process accessions that included 484 F. Supp. and 615 F2d. (How far we have come! Last summer, our 19-year old aide used a typewriter for the first time when he prepared book cards on our programmable. We showed him how to line up cards against the paper guide to get them straight, and how to operate the paper release. He told us that it was "fun.")
Our main reference tools were digests (Decennials and Federal Practice Digest 3d) and print Shepard's Citators. I spent at least an hour a day opening and physically sorting legislation looking for bills that I needed to save for legislative histories. The rest went into the trash. Recycling wasn't a priority, so a lot of trees died for naught.
Our serials records were housed in a bizarre electric drum called a "Cardineer." Manufactured by Diebold, Cardineers are now listed in some versions of the Dead Media Project (along with smoke signals and pneumatic tubes). We haven't made a lot of progress in this area (our records are still manual) but at least they are now housed in a visible card file. (TANGENT: I see no reason to automate a system simply for the sake of automation. It takes us less time to manually check in and route out our ever-diminishing number of titles than it would to deal with an automated system.)
In 1985, OCLC introduced the M-300 WorkStation just as I became aware of a new on-line legislative tracking system called Legi-Slate. I could not have justified either service alone, but the two combined enabled our library to acquire the third personal computer in the agency. The M-300 was basically an IBM PC with a funky keyboard, a fact I spent the next few years trying to hide; I feared someone farther up the food chain would take it away from us. (Never mind that this $5000+ machine had NO hard drive and a whopping 64 kb RAM. We attached it to a blazing fast 2400-baud modem for state of the art access to remote information. No acoustic couplers for the RRB library!)
In those days of yore, the Truly Enlightened had dedicated word processors (Wang, Lexitron, or the occasional Burroughs), while we Lesser Beings learned OCLC Write, MultiMate, and WordStar before finally reaching that Nirvana of word processing: Word Perfect 5.1. By that time, it was apparent that PCs were more than a passing fad, and everyone wanted one.
This competition for resources was the reason we kept our M-300 until it conked out in 1993. We replaced it with a 486 that ran Win 3.1. In the summer of 1995, 32-bit operability became available via Windows 95. The Powers That Be told me that I couldn't have such innovative technology, even after I SWORE that I would never ask them for support. Our purchasing division ordered a W95 machine for us by mistake (DON'T ask how I managed that one!) and T.P.T.B. didn't make me send it back.
In 1993, the library obtained the RRB's first Internet account, and I signed on to law-lib soon after. This was the heyday of Gopher and Archie, and there were spirited debates as to the superiority of Elm or Pine for e-mail. I first saw the World Wide Web at a Win95 rollout extravaganza, and the pictures I saw on a florist's homepage astounded me. In 1995, I put on a web demo for interested agency personnel and I got to work on the RRB's first website. By 2001, almost everyone here had desktop access and our I/T staff had both network and Web responsibility. I became merely a "user" albeit (I like to think) a creative one. Listservs were, by then, a vital reference resource. Just knowing that one of you could locate what I could not has saved me from more than one panic attack. Together we have, to use a football metaphor, amazing depth.
Ironically, after spending so much time emphasizing electronic resources, I have spent the last few years fighting to keep print resources in our collection. In light of escalating prices, we have had to rethink every title we order. I was pleased when Ken Svengalis suggested updating some titles less often because he validated my belief that we were buying some unnecessary supplementation. I used his book to justify changes in collection development. This brings me to my first concern for the future: print resources.
As I leave full time librarianship, I am troubled by the seeming lack of emphasis on them. Are we relying too heavily on the electronic? Recently, I needed to locate another agency's budget hearings. I had the print volumes in front of me but couldn't find the testimony I wanted so I called their librarian. She told me that she didn't know where the printed material was located; she always went straight to LEXIS or Westlaw when she got such questions. I felt as though I were in a parallel universe as I asked if she had the "beige [House] hearings books." I'm not sure she knew if they were in her collection. Is this an isolated incident? Are library schools no longer emphasizing print, or do students simply regard reference books as useless and arcane exercises in futility?
I'm guilty of overlooking print, too. Full disclosure: the last time I used the CIS volumes in compiling a legislative history I forgot to check the Public Law Index - the most relevant one for my purpose. And we won't even discuss what happened the last time I used federal statutory tables.
At the risk of sounding Orwellian, I fear for the future if print becomes the Dodo Bird of the 21st Century.
My second concern is the issue of privacy in our digitized world. Fortunately, people have become savvy about the information they put on the web. In 1996, I noted in a law-lib post that I'd run across a professional (an MD, as I recall) who had actually included his Social Security number in an online resume. He omitted relevant information, but also included both his address and child's name.
In the '70s, one had to physically go to the courthouse to locate public records. Today that information (and more) is available with a couple of clicks from almost anywhere in the world. There is a line between need to know and invasion of privacy. Examining these limits is one of the reasons I want to become a licensed investigator.
My last concern-no, this one is a pet peeve-is the "dumbing down" of electronic resources. In an attempt to make everything web-centric, we seem to be sacrificing speed and, in some cases, the pinpoint-first-try accuracy of text-based searching. There are advantages to web portals, but many seem cobbled together solely to have a browser-compatible product. At the risk of sounding like a female curmudgeon or a Luddite, I sometimes feel that publishers are aiming at their lowest common denominator subscriber. If I'm having a particularly bad day, I wonder if that denominator can even read.
I recently attended a product demonstration where a presenter actually touted his product by saying that a user didn't need to understand Boolean searching to use it. Need I mention that this service's fee structure was transactionally based? I believe that a basic understanding of Boolean logic is crucial to successful online searching, at least until artificial intelligence is ready for prime time.
A corollary: why is web-ware often so much slower than its text-based predecessor? Is it the result of an overlay of a new search engine over old datasets, rather than a complete system rebuild? Time is money, folks, and in the end, it's faster to learn seemingly illogical key sequences than it is to click and wait ... and wait ... and wait ... for the next screen. I can see the advantages of uniformity-indeed, that's why we're all hostage to Microsoft-but much like replacing a law volume before it has had a free standing supplement for several years, it is a tremendous waste. [Now stepping off soap box.]
When I was in library school, Dr. Jane Robbins told her students that we must stay aware of professional issues, and that meant continuing to read the journals. She said that if she could identify the future non-readers among us, she would flunk us on the spot. Even though I haven't consistently read the materials she had in mind back in 1977 (and once participated in a focus group of my peers where I actually admitted it),* I have kept abreast of current developments by participating in listservs and I have tried to share the things I've learned.
I plan to lurk on law-lib from time to time because you are some of the brightest and wittiest people I have ever known.
Again, thank you all.
-Kay Collins, Head Librarian, US Railroad Retirement Board, Chicago
(Standard disclaimer here)
*Soon afterward, I felt so guilty about not reading LLJ that I grabbed a back issue to read while waiting to see a doctor. Imagine my surprise when I found myself quoted in an article! (Houdek, Frank. "What Law Librarians Collect." 91 Law Library Journal 577 Summer 1999)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:45:41 PST