Negotiating the Passage from User Demands to Needs

Аннотация

Wisner laments a divergence between the contemporary model of reference librarian-ship and his own. The role of librarians in society, he thinks, has shifted from the noble encounter with ideas to interpreting technology. In his view passive and unobtrusive librarians are content to pro-vide technical support for young mariners embarking without compass on a bound-less sea of information, whereas they ought to be uniting patrons with authorita-tive texts that will inspire solutions for their deeper questions. If not given ade-quate guidance, students demand citations or full-text files that will enable them to satisfy course requirements quickly, pain-lessly, and with little spiritual benefit. The information professionals who serve them, proud of their own philosophical modesty, become accomplices in a gross oversimplification of the educational process.