LISNews: Librarian News

Don Warner Saklad passed along Mistakes and Failures at the Reference Desk By Lydia Olszak
This study, based on data collected through observation and structured interviews, explores the incidence of mistakes and failures by reference staff in an academic library. Three main questions are addressed: (1) what actions or behaviors constitute a mistake or failure? (2) what techniques are used by reference staff to alert each other of mistakes? and (3) do mistakes at the reference desk conform with the typology developed by Bosk in his study of medical mistakes? Results suggest that reference librarians must deal with competing goals and that providing a correct answer may not be the most important goal for every transaction.

Hoser Yahoo was one place with a story on This Study that isn\'t exactly library related, but I can\'t resist.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ran a study called \"The Heritability of Attitudes: A Study of Twins\". They studied the genetic basis of individual differences in attitudes in twins. The study found that genetic factors accounted for 35 percent of the variation in attitudes, while environmental factors accounted for 65 percent.
And, yes, this included reading.

AOL announced that it is raising its monthly fee to $23.90, its first price hike in more than three years, and This News.com story says that competitors such as EarthLink won\'t be far behind in trying to boost rates.I\'ve seen elsewhere that DSL and Cable Modem companies are raising rates as well.

According to a recent survey by Telecommunications Reports International, the number of U.S. homes with Internet access dropped slightly during the first quarter of 200 (Let\'s just ass-u-me it\'s accurate).

So... Does all this point to more people using their friendly neighborhood library to access the internet, and if so, is this even good for libraries?

Lee Hadden Writes:\" The March 29, 2001 issue of Nature has an interesting article by Jared
Diamond on \"Unwritten Knowledge: Preliterate societies depend on the wise
words of the older generation,\" Vol. 410, page 521.

Quotes from the article include: \"For us moderns, all information
essential to survival is transmitted in writing. We cannot conceive of a
preliterate society\'s absolute dependence on old people as the equivalent
of libraries.\" or \"We don\'t know, let\'s ask the old man (or woman).\"

You may purchase this article fro $7.00 if you do not already have an
account with Nature or access to it in your local library. Further
information is available at: nature.com\"