Article: Being organic gives reference librarians the edge over computers.(Building Digital Libraries)

A few years ago, the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter of the Special Libraries Association hosted a special dinner meeting that featured a screening of the classic movie Desk Set. For those who haven't seen it, the plot (in brief) involved a showdown between corporate librarians and the new computer that was planned to replace them. To make a long story short, the machine malfunctioned, the librarians won, and Spencer Tracy won Katharine Hepburn's heart--entertainment on several levels.

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In thinking about what librarians continue to do better than electronic systems, I can't help feeling that the more things change, the more they ...

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