Off the Shelf

Prescript. I worked at this funky place in Newton, MA where they do academic research. It’s not a university, but it’s not your garden variety non-profit either. A lot of what they do is make connections –ones that other scholars haven’t previously. Some of them are off the wall. Some are actually pretty prescient. In any case, there’s a whole lot of research’n going on. Nine times out of ten, people who should know better are just trawling when it comes to information access. So I wrote the following post to address what I saw as a basic problem in approach. It’s largely fallen on deaf ears–what is it about academic types? Why do so many of them think they know how to use all these tools? Am I just too honest in admitting there are so many strategies they can make your head spin like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist? Anyway, this has become one of my cause célèbre and I’ve reproduced here for my pleasure and perhaps the poor soul who stumbles in here.

The other day, someone mentioned the movie Desk Set to me. I hadn’t seen it but the plot intrigued me: a showdown between corporate librarians at a large TV network (could it be modeled after NBC?) and the new computer planned by an MIT whiz kid (played by Spencer Tracy) to replace them. The head librarian, played by Katharine Hepburn of anorexic slimness, is a one-woman dynamo, instantly able to recall a plethora of facts and figures, belt down her champagne with the best of them, and solve any brain teaser thrown her way. In a word, she’s a wonder.