Librarians do not select, acquire, organize, and provide access to all forms of 'literature' in the traditional sense today. Where would you or others, put all the changes in new scholarly communication today? When I was an assistant editor for OCLC PAIS, back in 2000, I indexed internet documents ten years ago that were not part of any library collection, but freely available on the Internet for access by anyone. The items we indexed then, were only a small chip in the iceberg of the vast amount of materials out there, that never reached the index pages. Each week we also would spend several hours physically sorting through publications at the NYPL new acquisitions section to review materials, there were too many to ever be able to index. Would they ever reach the shelves and the catalog, and the user?
As Louise implies, the original question is based on a faulty assumption, which is that the only value of a library is direct reference assistance.What academic researcher could even begin to do a literature review if librarians did not select, acquire, organize, and provide access to that literature? I don't know any academician who could afford to subscribe to every journal in her area of expertise, let alone every subject index, and purchase every relevant monograph -- assuming that she had the time to wade through all of the reviews of published works to determine which journals and monographs were relevant, as well as reliable and valid.As for discovering the weaknesses of the research -- isn't that what peer review is for? I suggest that if a researcher does miss significant works in the field, the work is never published, making it impossible for the reference librarian to make the statement below.As we all know, it is impossible to either prove a negative or demonstrate what would have happened if only history had been different. It must be obvious to any competent researcher that there is no way to "produce valid and reliable evidence that ... the state of knowledge at the moment 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 ?" How can one possibly produce evidence for something that is, by definition, non-existent?Let me reverse the question -- can you produce even one published research paper for which the author did not make use of library collections?Suzanne M. Stauffer, Ph.D.Assistant ProfessorSchool of Library and Information ScienceLouisiana State University275 Coates HallBaton Rouge, LA 70803(225)578-1461Fax: (225)578-4581Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?--T.S. Eliot, "Choruses from The Rock"