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I'm working on a proposal for a museum library to shift its index use
from exclusively on-line (Dialog and others) to a mix of on-line and
cd-rom. I'd love to hear from anyone who has made this kind of shift, or
from anyone who'd care to share their opinion on the advantages and
dissadvantages of the two technologies. I also wouldn't mind
recommendations for recent articles on the subject. I've done a lit
search but haven't found much directly related to the subject. Respond
to me or to the list as you see appropriate. Both long diatribes and
short comments are welcome. Although I'm specifically concerned with the
art museum environment (closed set of patrons), the experience of
academic librarians would be at least partially relevant.
I should also mention that the proposal is based on the idea of freeing
up the reference librarians by allowing patrons to do much of their
searching on networked, accessable cd-rom, rather than having reference
staff do ALL the index searching themselves. Thanks!
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Ned Kraft, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Acquisitions Dept
Washington, DC 20560 --- Phone 202-357-1994 FX 202-786-2443
BITNET: [log in to unmask]
