I realized recently that I am preoccupied with information in its digital form: spending increasing portions of my time working on Internet instruction, creating links to useful websites, developing electronic reserves, and adding gadgets to the library's home page. However, the questions asked at my reference desk are the same today as they were decades ago in the pre-digital age: how do I find books and periodical articles on X topic? Where is Y? And, what's the best way of finding out about Z?

Of course, it's not the information needs that have changed--it's my way of trying to meet those needs. Oh, once in a while, I apologetically recommend a user try a printed index to locate an article. And I have vainly tried to persuade students that it can be quicker to walk to our carefully selected reference collection to answer a question than it is to locate an answer on the web. But most of the time, I resort to digital resources for my answers.

So, are library users really better off now than they were a couple of decades ago? I answer that question with a hesitant yes, but I wish it could be a more ringing affirmative. I fear that new digital tools are not so easy to use as the vendors promised. And we who are charged with teaching others are really only a step ahead of those we are supposed to be guiding. And then, there are the distractions of clearing paper jams, trouble-shooting network problems, and coping with users' computer phobias. Of course, there is no turning back now: our card catalog went to be recycled years ago, and the Head of Periodicals is eyeing the space occupied by bound journals that have recently become available in electronic form.

Apparently, our fate is to be digital librarians, so we had better get on with the task of teaching users to be independent information consumers in a digital world. Participating in an organization like LIRT can help us remake ourselves. But I can't help being reminded of the crafty magician walking the streets of a middle-eastern city, calling out, "New lamps for old! New lamps for old!"--until Aladdin's Princess brought out the dusty old magical lamp and exchanged it for a shiny new one.
 

David G. Sherwood Reinert/Alumni Library Creighton University 2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68111

Email: davids@creighton.edu Phone: 402-280-2927 FAX: 402-280-2435

WELCOME BACK ISSUES Last revised January 5, 2000.