ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ A p ril 2 0 0 0 / 281 THE W A Y I SEE IT Librarians in cyberspace A pilot’s view by Deborah J. Grimes I am a library director, which means that I d o n ’t get to spend as much time with our students as I would like. But some o f m best days are those w hen I go out of my office to work with students one-on-one and find that I’ve still got it—I can still answer obscure reference questions and I can inevi­ tably find good sources of information for them. Last week, for ex­ am ple, I h elp ed a student find several bio g rap h ical refer­ ences, both print and electronic, on Jesse Jackson. I w as the first person to teach her that the Internet is not one source (as in, “You must have m o re th a n o n e source o f inform a­ tion for this assign­ m ent”). I taught her that the Internet is not a single source, as she thought, but a stream of sources flowing past like planets and meteors and, alas, space junk, as we zoom through cyberspace looking for what we need. I saw myself as a kind of cyberpilot, navi­ gating the jetstreams of information and con­ necting my passenger safely with her infor­ y mation destinations. We found good sources of information, such as the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition page with its biographical text on Jackson, as well as articles from national newspapers. We also found the junk—or what w ould be considered junk for a college stu­ dent—elementary school Web assignments, dead links, and undocum ented Web pages. Sometimes w hen I work with students, in fact, oftentimes, I go b e y o n d th e m ere p ick u p and delivery of informa­ tio n an d actually teach them how to choose information d es tin a tio n s ju d i­ ciously and how to u s e th e m e f f e c ­ tively. But it is the c y b e rp ilo t im age th a t c a tc h e s my fancy. D o n 't g e t m e wrong. I’m no video game techie. The last video game I played was Pac Man, and, be­ cause of what I conclude can only be a spa­ tial learning disability, I inevitably ran right into the monsters instead of away from them. Needless to say, my game times w ere very brief. My information flight log, however, is quite lengthy, and I’m generally on target About the author Deborah J. Grimes is director o f library services a t Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; e-mail: dgrimes@shelton.cc.al.us mailto:dgrimes@shelton.cc.al 282 / C&RL News ■ A p ril 2000 when it comes to identifying and locating information sources. Lib rarian s as cyb erp ilo ts Like pilots, librarians receive special train ing and instruction in using specialized equipment and in performing complicated tasks. Although w e are not involved in the life-and-death situations that are the daily trade o f pilots, like them, w e find that much o f our success is based on skill and intu ition. Service and duty ethics are as strong among librarians as among the military. We train and practice on information flight simu lators before going out with real passengers or cargo. We pick up hot information spots on our radar and log them for others to find; we are continually mapping and expanding our cybernetic horizons and destinations. We rely heavily on a ground crew o f support staff who provide the infrastructure w e need to do our work and w e rely on the informa tion traffic controllers in our organizations who serve as team leaders and department heads. We conduct our pre-flight briefings by dis cussing inform ation targets w ith other cyberpilot librarians; w e have in-flight com m entary b e tw e e n fliers o r a fter-fligh t debriefings when w e discuss a particular topic or a particularly difficult search with other cyberpilot/librarians. We even chew the cyberspace fat with our colleagues by bragging about our successes ( “Yes, I did find a line drawing o f a wart hog online”), our unusual encounters ( “Yes, the student who asked me if I thought he was schizo phrenic was satisfied with the treatment in formation I found”), and our near misses ( “I was ready to give up on biographies o f fa mous cosmetologists when I tried one more search term and found three magazine ar tic le s ” ), and the n e w fro n tie rs and cyberoutposts w e discover ( “Let me tell you about this great site I found today”). We chart ou r fligh ts so that oth er cyberpilot/librarians (and our patrons) can find their ways to some o f our favorite in formation destinations (hence, the booming industry in virtual reference desks and online subject guides). There’s actually a cyberpilot’s license on the Web. It is proposed by R. W. Burniske as a way to teach children not only h ow to use computers, e-mail, search en gines, and message forums, but also to teach them about ethics and acceptable use o f Web resources.1 Maybe w e should consider some thing along the same lines for ourselves, as well as for our students. Top gun On my best days, when I am flying free in cyberspace, and when my computer and my imagination really get going, I can actually imagine the g-forces pushing me back into my ergonomically designed cockpit (Okay, it’s really just a desk with a keyboard exten sion, but go with me). And like Tom Cruise, I ’ve learned never to leave my wing man— never leave another cyberpilot/librarian alone when there’s a h orde o f in form ation -h u n gry students around. So, if you find me in my office in my leather flight jacket and aviator glasses, call me by my cybernickname (Dewey? LC? Yahoo!? Google?) and remember that, as a library director, I have responsibilities on the flight deck as well as in cyberspace. But, on those days when I find I can navigate with the best o f the best, even a library director dreams o f being top gun in information cyberspace. Note 1. See http://www.techleaming.com/db_ area/archives/WCE/archives/bumiske .htm for “The Cyberpilot’s License: A Modest Proposal for Educational Curricula,” by R. W. Burniske and http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~burniske/ cpl/ for an online prototype o f Burniske’s proposed license. ■ ( “Collection … continued fro m page 279) responsible for getting out RFPs and handling bids), or people in the contracting company who want to focus on completing the project as rapidly and efficiently as possible, may not view collection protection as a high priority. Therefore, it is important that a library staff embarking on a renovation project under stands collection protection issues and make the commitment to include a person respon sible for the safety and protection o f the col lection at all stages o f planning and imple mentation o f the project. Failure to do so could leave the library with a nice building housing a seriously damaged collection. ■ http://www.techleaming.com/db_ http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~burniske/ C&RL N ew s ■ A p r il 2 0 0 0 / 2 8 3