I have stayed out of the thread of this conversation because I straddle the
fence being both a librarian and an archivist (who collects manuscripts,
rare books, etc. in exactly the same way that a museum curator develops and
catalogs artifact collections....the extent of my collection is a direct
result of my own goals, initiatives...and support is in direct contrast to
the number of users, researchers, fund-raising, etc.).
 
Anyway, there was a comment that librarians sort and categorize information
but do not create it.   That is a statement that I strongly disagree on.  In
many libraries, librarians are actually creating information.  They research
and create in-house databases or compendiums that may be unavailable anywhere
else.  Some of these databases may indeed be lists of information....albeit
NEW lists....other databases are compilations of new knowledge gathered from
a variety of sources.
 
For example, here we have created and maintain a BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WEST FLORIDA.
Begin in 1968, the Bibliography is a listing of every item that we can find
that has been published about the West Florida region....books, journal
articles, government publications (Federal, State, Local), dissertations,
newspapers, periodicals, Supreme Court opinions....anything if it has been
printed or promulgated.  Each listing (arranged by date of publication and
then sequentially, e.g. 1993-107, 1993-108) is accompanied also by an
annotation giving further information.  For example, we might list a 1920
history of a particular county---now the original book did not have a personal
name index, but we have created one and list it as the annotation.
Further, in addition to the sequential listing of the Bibliography, it is
accompanied by a massive index to these entries.   At the present time, the
Bibliography exists as 8 volumes or groups; coverage is from the year 1535 up
to 1994.   In addition, most of the materials listed are then kept by this
Department in file cabinets arranged by the BWF number....unless they are books
or government documents or maps, and these are elsewhere in the collection.
Four volumes have been published (we printed and bound 150 sets in 1981), and
four volumes exist in electronic form (with several printed editions).
 
    If a new publication of some kind comes to our attention, I shall endeavor
to obtain a copy (purchase, solicitation, etc.) and try to learn everything
about it.   Because many of the items in the BWF are regional or local, there
is NO other source for this information except the writers, publishers, and
agencies themselves.  That, as every museum curator knows, is fieldwork.
 
     Archaeologists are among our heavy users of the BWF because in one
database, we have synthesized the information.   Otherwise the researcher would
have to try hundreds of indexes and databases to see if a journal article has
been published (assuming that the particular article or journal is indexed in
THAT index or database), check separate sources for dissertations, totally miss
a history of a company or genealogy of a family cited as part of a Florida
Supreme Court case because these are cited as 'Smith vs. Jones' and don't tell
you that they may concern the probate of the will of George Ohr and his
pottery works in Biloxi by a married daughter, Miss X Smith....and so on.
 
     My institution is NOT alone in creating these new tools or information
sources....many libraries have similar projects on a variety of subjects.  So
to pigeonhole libraries as simple sorters and filers of information is a
great discredit.
 
 
Dean DeBolt, University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
University of West Florida, Pensacola
 
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Phone:   904-474-2213
Fax:     904-474-3128