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.
>>
>>
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>>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.
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