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What I dislike here is your assumption that you know better than your users what's "good" for them/what they want/what they OUGHT to want/what they need/etc. Providing them with available information in a reasonably accessible way, and then trusting them -- whether they're undergrads, grad students, lecturers, profs, researchers, community users, etc -- to make their own decisions about what to do with that based upon their particular, individual, and personal circumstances, locations, contexts, etc., isn't "abnegating" your responsibility -- it IS your responsibility. Larry Campbell UBC Library Tim Spalding wrote: >>Most of our users will start out in an electronic environment whether we like it or not >>(most of us on THIS list like it)---and will decide, based on what they >>find there, on their own, without us making the decision for >>them---whether to obtain (or attempt to obtain) a copy of the physical >>book or not. Whether we like it or not. >> >> > > > >>But if you think the options are between US deciding whether the user should consult a physical book or not---then we're not even playing the same game. >> >> > >What I dislike here is your abnegation of the responsibility to care >about the choices students make. If you're not considering the value >of all resources—including the book—you're not playing the library >game, the educator game or the Google game. You're just throwing stuff >on screens because you can. > >"Whether you like it or not" you're pointing students in some >directions and not others. You're giving these resources different >amounts of emphasis in your UI. You're including some and not >others—the others includes all other web pages and all other offline >resources. You aren't making choices for the user, but you're not >stepping back and washing your hands of the responsibility to help the >student. > >In a physical-book context, the book is one of the resources. It >deserves to weighted and evaluated within this larger set of choices. >It's your responsibility to consider it within the mix of options. If >the book is excellent and the online resources poor, helping the user >means communicating this. So, sometimes the OPAC should basically say >"there's nothing good online about this book; but it's on the shelf >right over there." > >*Certainly in Classics that's still true—the online world is a very >impoverished window into the discipline. > > >