At 12:25 PM 12/17/97 -0600, Jack, Bill wrote:
>"Search Pros May Need to Search For a New Line of Work" says the
>headline of Troy Corley's article in the Monday, December 15th, 1997
>"Los Angeles Times." The article states that the Internet is turning
>the "venerable profession [librarians] upside down."
>
>I am curious to find out how Law-Lib list members respond to this
>article. It's online at:
>
>
Being located in L.A., I have the privilege of perusing the L.A.
Times each day. They have an excellent comics section, their entertainment
coverage is extensive (although most of their reviewers wouldn't know good
theater if it bit them) and their obits are not nearly as good as the NY
Times. As to their opinion pieces, if the L.A. Times told us that, in the
next millennium, there was absolutely no chance of the horse making a
comeback as a major form of transportation, I would immediately invest my
life savings in a buggy whip factory.
Seriously, the article seems to be a typical, facile, let's call
three phone calls in-depth research, we're not the Six O'Clock News but we'd
like to be pseudo-news article. It manages to place itself firmly on the
fence with a thumbnail of facts on either side of the issue.
Yes, the internet puts a huge amount of info at everyone's
fingertips. But as we all know, with any kind of research media, if you
don't do it every day, you don't really know how to do it. Like the old days
of Lexis v. Westlaw, when you'd sign on and then spend 10 minutes trying to
remember, is this the one where I have to type out "and" or the one where I
just use "&". If anything, the incredible amount of information and sources
out there is going to create more demand for information specialists, not
less. So I don't think any of us have to run out immediately and sign up for
a mail order course in How to Raise Chinchillas for Fun and Profit.
As with Mr. Twain, the reports of the death of the librarian are
greatly exagerrated.
Bob Ryan
Frandzel Share Robins Kaplan & Bloom
Los Angeles
213-852-1000, x344
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