Anyone who has worked in an academic reference position can attest to the value students attach to assistance in achieving their assignment goals. Once upon a time I had a student make a trek back to the library to show me his grade, with the "I couldn't have done it without you" accolade. I can also recall helping an attorney find information from the Code of Federal Regulations that assisted his case against a truck driver who backed a semi across a dark highway in the middle of the night, leading to the death in a crash of the attorney's client. A family in Janesville, WI, gave millions of dollars to the public library there saying they could not have started their family business without the assistance they got there. I suspect others could provide many similar examples, but it would be wonderful if there were a way to gather the data systematically, other than the ROI studies accessible from the ALA web site.

On 04/30/10, Laval Hunsucker  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks very much to Louise ( and to Holly Willett 
> as well ). How unfortunate that this particular JHU 
> example, apparently, actually came down to a case 
> of life and death. 
> 
> Can anyone refer to such ( potential ) evidence from 
> outside the medical realm ?
> 
> The archival example is also most interesting, but 
> archival resources would seem to me to constitute a 
> category apart.
> 
> 
> -Laval Hunsucker
>  Breukelen, Nederland
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Louise S.Robbins <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thu, April 29, 2010 3:59:45 AM
> Subject: Re: Where do libraries fit in the "information-seeking food chain"? (fwd)
> 
> Of course, two examples don't provide robust evidence, but a few years ago, a Johns Hopkins researcher used a therapy on a patient that proved fatal. The research existed that would have warned him not to use this therapy in this instance, but working without expert searching assistance, he did not find it. It made the news at the time. 
> 
> More personally, I was doing research at the Library of Congress and told the archivist what I was looking for and the purpose of my research. She immediately pulled out and handed me a remarkable letter from William Carlos Williams's wife blaming Assistant Librarian of Congress Verner Clapp for a breakdown Williams suffered in about 1952-3. Williams's biographer did not see that letter. 
> 
> Could one do a dissertation today without interlibrary loan? Especially if one is not at one of the major major universities.
> And how about the collection building and organizing that is also part of what librarians and archivists do? What about the social activists who are tooled in the library? And the children who become readers?
> 
> On 04/28/10, Laval Hunsucker  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> > This is a very good and useful post of Bob's, in my opinion, 
> > and it largely rings true.  ( The part about Powerpoint reminds 
> > me of a nice little film, "How NOT To Use Powerpoint", 
> > of which some of you may be aware :  
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BP2HlNmRJ4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BP2HlNmRJ4) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BP2HlNmRJ4) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BP2HlNmRJ4)) .
> > As they say, "In der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister". )
> > 
> > With respect to Bob's good question :  
> > 
> > > Why should we expect students and perhaps even faculty
> > > to follow a different principle for our area of concern? 
> > 
> > Here's something I've been sort of wanting to ask, and I'm 
> > not being facetious :  
> > 
> > Does any of you know a librarian who has ever actually 
> > come out and said the following, or something comparable, 
> > to a researcher, say an historian or
> >  a geologist
> >  or a social 
> > psychologist or a classicist or a microbiologist or a 
> > musicologist ? :  
> > 
> > "Prof. A, I have carefully read through your recent article, 
> > X, in The International Journal of Y, and, I want to tell you, 
> > it can clearly be shown that this article would have made a 
> > more significant contribution to the field [ or avoided such-
> > and-such a shortcoming, etc. ] if you had in the process of 
> > preparing it only consulted with a librarian, or had only 
> > previously followed a course of instruction by library staff 
> > on effective literature searching in the databases which the 
> > library has licensed and made available to the university 
> > community."  Or suchlike.
> > 
> > Follow-up question :  does any of you know of an actual 
> > case in which, though no one may have pointed this out to 
> > the researcher involved, such an assertion by the librarian 
> > could more or less objectively have been demonstrated
> >  
> > to
> >  be correct ?  
> > 
> > Last question :  Is anyone here in a position to produce 
> > valid and reliable evidence that, in any academic field of 
> > his/her choice, the state of knowledge at the moment ( in 
> > history or geology or social psychology or classics or 
> > microbiology or musicology or anthropology or whatever 
> > you like ) is less advanced, or the achievements to date 
> > less impressive, than they might have been, namely 
> > because its specialists have made insufficient use of 
> > librarians, librarians' methods, or recommended library 
> > resources ? 
> > 
> > OK -- forget maybe about a cause-and-effect relationship, 
> > if you like. What about even statistically valid evidence of 
> > a positive correlation ?
> > 
> > One could put the same questions, mutatis mutandis, 
> > regarding the scholars'/scientists' accomplishments as 
> > educators rather than for the moment as researchers, if 
> > one so desired. 
> > 
> > Why am I posing
> >  these questions ?  Are they silly ? Am I 
> > being much too overly simplistic ?
> > 
> > *Can* librarians and other "information professionals" 
> > render, empirically, their oft-heard claims and critiques 
> > credible ?  Convincing ?  Irrefutable ?  Have I missed 
> > something, and have they, in practice, accomplished 
> > such a task already ?
> > 
> > I'd really like to be steered toward some clear cases in 
> > point, should they exist.
> > 
> > You can also turn it around :  Any obvious cases of googling 
> > scholars' ultimately screwing it up ?  Of a discipline that's not 
> > as far as it could be, or is deteriorating, because of too much 
> > googling by its researchers ? 
> > 
> > Isn't this kind of like where the rubber really hits the road ?
> > 
> > So to repeat Bob's question quoted above :  "Why should we 
> > expect students and perhaps even faculty to follow a different 
> > principle for our area of concern?" Why
> >  indeed ?
> > 
> > If the real validity and value of our way of looking at things 
> > can be shown, in black and white as it were, with solid 
> > pragmatic evidence, will the outside world then not *have* 
> > to listen, and then to behave accordingly ( unless they 
> > genuinely *aren't* in their right minds ) ?
> > 
> > If these *can't* be shown, should we then finally give up on 
> > all the lamentations and protestations and preaching to the 
> > choir that we've been doing for as long as I can remember, 
> > and start expending our energy in a more meaningful 
> > ( productive, facilitating ) way ? 
> > 
> > It was perhaps a fun game, but who needs it anymore ?
> > 
> > Am I talking nonsense ?  [ Don't answer that ! :-) ]
> > 
> > 
> > - Laval Hunsucker
> >    Breukelen, Nederland
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From:
> >  Bob Holley <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Sent: Tue, April 27, 2010 1:04:38 AM
> > Subject: Re: Where do libraries fit in the "information-seeking food chain"? (fwd)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I would like to present the concept of “it’s good enough” to
> > meet my needs. My PowerPoint presentations are minimalistic. With a few hours
> > of free instruction, I would be able to present results that would be dazzling
> > compared with what I do now. But I’m always busy and have other competing
> > priorities. The PowerPoint’s that I do produce are “good enough” and don’t get
> > me booted off the podium.
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >   
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > As long as faculty accept and give reasonable grades to research
> > produced from a naïve use of Google and other “easy” resources, time stressed
> > and efficient students won’t feel the need to develop more complex information
> > seeking skills because what they are doing produces “good enough” results.
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >   
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > I’m sure that most of us have areas in our life where we could
> > do much better with a bit of extra effort, but we don’t bother because what we
> > are doing meets our needs. Why should we expect students and perhaps even
> > faculty to follow a different principle for our area of concern? I’m sure that
> > we’ve all been in situations where all we wanted to do was minimally accomplish
> > a task and judged all the additional attempts to impart knowledge as
> > frustrating for wasting our time on a topic where we didn’t want to know more.
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >   
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > Bob
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >   
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > Robert P. Holley
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > Professor, School of Library & Information Science
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > Wayne State University
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > Detroit, MI 48202
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > 1-888-497-8754, ext 705 (phone)
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > 313-577-7563 (fax)
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> (email)
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >      
> > 
> > 
> -- 
> Louise S. Robbins
> Professor 
> School of Library and Information Studies
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> 600 North Park Street room 4253
> Madison WI 53706
> [log in to unmask]
> Phone: 608-263-2955
> Fax:  608-263-4849
> 
> 
>       
> 
> 
-- 
Louise S. Robbins
Professor 
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
600 North Park Street room 4253
Madison WI 53706
[log in to unmask]
Phone: 608-263-2955
Fax:  608-263-4849