Tuesday, February 25, 2003

journalists and librarians and information disintermediation Scott Rosenberg's piece about the Davos reporter who got caught saying what she really thinks. [Scripting News] I hadn't heard about this particular row (American readers might want to substitute flap or controversy for "row"). I found Scott's post more interesting for its discussion on the role of journalists in this world of blogs and information disintermediation. If journalists have a role in "digging out" what certain public figures "really think" about particular issues, I wonder if there's a parallel with librarians... Something special about the good old-fashioned face to face interaction between a librarian and the library user is that it often helps the library user clarify what she or he was really looking for in the first place. Of course, this can also happen over the phone - although it seems more difficult. I can't even imagine Virtual Reference software could put the spontaneity and free-flow of real conversation into toneless text messages. Maybe I'm wrong here. 10:24:35 PM

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