The Reality

Because technology in the world at large has brought disbenefits as well as benefits, it is reasonable to assume that the same applies tothe library situation. Unfortunately, too many librarians have been completely uncritical of information technologies. ..In general the library profession has greatly exaggerated the benefits of technology,especially in the area of subject access.... many librarians seem to assume that more access means better access...Studies of the users of information services, going back some thirty years or more, have consistently shown that what they really want is access to the information of highest quality. They want tools or people capable of separating the wheat from the chaff. They want quality filtering. The profession seems to have lost sight of this...In its love affair with technology, the profession is losing sight of its professional ideals, of the ethic of public service(Lancaster 1999 p807)."

[Those who] ...do not value the culture of knowledge and use money and technology to feed self importance and feelings of power. Those who feel insufficiently powerful can come to see technology in terms of personal aggrandizement, to want control over it in order to control others; they may consider anything new to be desirable because it is new and not because it is useful...Library administrators who value technology above the collections they administer, and who find staffsless docile than machines, want more machines and fewer people...Education technocrats give computers to the teachers and say'they will help you teach' but what they mean is 'computers will teach in your place and I'll have money to buy even more technology'.Library technocrats say to librarians and staff 'Computers will help with your jobs' but what they mean is 'Technology will eventually replace as many of you as possible (but not me) and I'll have moremoney to spend on technology" (Kirkland & Gorman 1999 pp608-609).