Thing 34 Online Answer Sites

It's another case of information that's fast enough and good enough. I see some of the answers to those things and of course you get the usual collection, anything from right on to waaay off. I noticed that when I was searching for the load capacity of my factory car-top rack, I couldn't actually search Yahoo Answers' zillion pages of discussion on RAV4s, although Google did bring up a couple things. (Yes, it was in my owner's manual, just v. well hidden.)

I do get the impression that people throw questions out there just hoping that somebody will pay attention, rather than that they're desperate for an answer to that question. How like libraries that is!

Of course they're our competition. Many people who come into the library are short enough on time and/or patience -- if we don't have an answer in a couple of minutes, they can't wait any longer.

I read some of the interviews about the future of librarians a while back, and unfortunately nothing stuck with me except a woman -- who of course is an academic librarian -- talking about how libraries are still back in the dark ages, teaching people how to get email accounts, when we should quit that crap because everybody already knows that. Talk about your ivory tower.

I was not impressed with Mr. King. He seriously expects us to take a phone call as a patron is walking up to the desk, or work on an email question when there is a patron standing in front of us? That's about the worst customer service imaginable. Alison Hunt's response about paying in travel time makes a lot more sense. Mr. King apparently does not work at a busy public reference desk for the majority of his librarian hours. His very job title tells all -- Digital Branch & Services Manager.