Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
I reads this item as I was comtemplating a response to the next, and something about it bothered me. And it's this. The author tells us that librarians are misleading us when they say libraries can be like Google. "We will tell people it may take them longer than 60 seconds to find valuable information. We will tell them our library databases are not the same as Google..." And I want to know, why not? Why does it take so long to find stuff? Why isn't the stuff accessible through this collection? Why is it that what the library offers me is mostly a set of excuses and limitations, instead of what I really want, fast and easy and relevant access? This is a key question for librarians: what is the value-add that is being brought to the table? (And don't say 'metadata' - it's just not on the table).

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 8:54 p.m.

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