Librarians on the Internet

Here is one of the first books to focus on the Internet's impact on library services. Libraries have evolved over many years and contain traditions of organization. The Internet—-disorganized, fluid, mutative—challenges the logic of the librarian. How responsive are librarians to the Internet? How do they use it? What are their interests? What does the Internet mean to their world? Librarians on the Internet addresses many questions such as these and provides a snapshot of librarians’work with the Internet.

Authors from around the United States and Canada discuss many aspects of Internet use, including gophers, VERONICA, science sources, electronic text, bibliographic instruction, training, and implementation of information services. Chapters focus not so much on the Internet in general as on librarians’use of the Internet as they take on a new task—essentially using a virtual library.

Readers will discover how their colleagues are using this new technology to their advantage. Librarians on the Internet makes it clear that librarians who utilize the Internet have an edge in the world of information. The questions this book answers—and those it raises—inform and challenge librarians as they forge ahead into the future on the Internet.

Here is one of the first books to focus on the Internet's impact on library services. Libraries have evolved over many years and contain traditions of organization. The Internet—-disorganized, fluid, mutative—challenges the logic of the librarian. How responsive are librarians to the Internet? How do they use it? What are their interests? What does the Internet mean to their world? Librarians on the Internet addresses many questions such as these and provides a snapshot of librarians’work with the Internet.

Authors from around the United States and Canada discuss many aspects of Internet use, including gophers, VERONICA, science sources, electronic text, bibliographic instruction, training, and implementation of information services. Chapters focus not so much on the Internet in general as on librarians’use of the Internet as they take on a new task—essentially using a virtual library.

Readers will discover how their colleagues are using this new technology to their advantage. Librarians on the Internet makes it clear that librarians who utilize the Internet have an edge in the world of information. The questions this book answers—and those it raises—inform and challenge librarians as they forge ahead into the future on the Internet.

Library Journal

The scope of this book (also published as The Reference Librarian, Nos. 41/42) is more comprehensive than the subtitle suggests. In addition to the section entitled "Internet's Impact on Reference," there are sections on "Introducing Internet Services," "Selected Sources on the Internet," "Evaluating Internet Sources," and "Progress with the Internet." The 25 papers collected here are detailed and erudite accounts of librarians taking an active leadership role in providing Internet access and services. The authors of these papers were recruited through a "Call for Papers" posted on several library-related discussion groups that reside on the Internet. The only proviso was that the papers outline how librarians are meeting the challenge to provide Internet service, despite the inherent disorganization and fluidity of the network. Judging from the results, this book provides evidence that librarians are indeed facing that challenge. Using traditional skills, such as acquiring, evaluating, and organizing information; bibliographic instruction; and interdisciplinary communication, the librarians represented here have approached the Internet as an information source to be used and not as a "technomonster" to be feared. This is a book about librarians being librarians. The Internet is merely the latest medium for our skills. As the editor admits, this book only represents a "point in time." Any title on the Internet, published in the conventional manner, will quickly go out-of-date. Still, the book provides an interesting portrait of academic librarians attempting to integrate the Internet into library services. Highly recommended for all academic reference librarians, especially those still apprehensive about the Internet. [See also The Internet Library: Case Studies of Library Internet Management and Use, Professional Reading, LJ 11/1/94.-Ed.]-Robert Battenfeld, Long Island Univ.-Southampton Lib., N.Y.