A colleague and I went to see "EXPLORING INTERNET", an
"interactive satellite teleconference" this morning. We were in a large
auditorium at the health sciences complex on campus; I understand there
were other groups watching all over the country. One feature we liked
was that one of the panelists was a law librarian! (See below for more.)
Most of the program was in the format of a talk show, with an
interviewer asking questions of panelists seated in armchairs. I thought
it worked well -- the conversational style was easier to listen to than
the straight "talking head". There were also a couple video clips and
some demonstrations of e-mail, gopher, Veronica, etc. The demos were a
bit less effective because it was hard to read the screen -- at least in
our auditorium.
The "interactive" part was that audience members could send in
questions -- via FAX, telephone, or e-mail -- that the panelists responded
to on the air. The questions and answers generally worked pretty well,
too. For instance, one questioner asked what good the Internet was for
rural libraries, and one panelist, from NYSERNet, gave some examples of
how it was used in agricultural areas in NY. Other questions included why
gopher is so slow at times, how the Internet is used in elementary
schools, how to interest community college faculty and staff in the
Internet, whether ERIC is on the Internet, etc.
The main speakers were Rick Gates (author of the monthly Internet
Hunt), Jean Armour Polly, and Richard J. Smith (instructor who taught
"Navigating the Internet" via e-mail). They were all good -- informative
and articulate.
There was also a segment featuring four speakers who talked about
how they used the Internet in their work -- two from academic libraries,
one from a public library AND Sandra Gold, director of Library Service for
Lord, Bissell & Brook, a Chicago law firm. She said that law-lib was her
e-mail discussion list of choice, giving several examples of issues she
followed on law-lib (copyright, vendor pricing policies, and cutbacks in
vendor support in law schools that would have an impact in firms down the
road). She also she did a quick demo in LAWNET gopher. My colleague and
I were very pleased that the special librarian on the panel was a law
librarian and that she did the good job that she did -- that's good PR for
law librarianship generally, as well as good information in this particular
instance. Thanks, Sandra!
=====Mary Whisner, Head of Reference======================
=====Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington======
=====whisner@u.washington.edu=============================
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