[Sigia-l] About bloody time?

[James Aylett]

Andrew Boyd wrote:

>> And as to making it easy to find stuff (Andrew Boyd)... you're
>> kidding, right? I can rarely find anything *subtle* using either
>> Amazon or Google, and that's when I turn to librarians and
>> specialist researchers.   
> 
> ...here was I, laboring under this terrible misapprehension, when I
> should have been advising clients for years that the organisational
> library and corporate records managers are their real friends, and
> that the mess was a figment of my imagination :)   

:-)

> Seriously now, all joking aside: outside of an academic setting, when
> was the last time that you easily found anything useful within a
> large organisation by going to their library? Or, for that matter,
> the average corporate intranet? Perhaps I am jaded by having worked
> in and around government organisations for a long time, but I've
> never had much joy from them.     

Apparently Sun's library system is very good. In general most collections are poorly organised, but the point of a librarian is that you don't have to deal with the organisation yourself anyway. A good librarian should be able to (effectively) do a fuzzy contextual search to find what you *actually* want, in a way that computers aren't very good at.

> As an aside: where do you go to look up ISBN numbers?

I'm trying to remember what I use ISBNs for. The only thing that comes to mind is to find a book that has been linked to on Amazon.com in Amazon.co.uk. Admittedly I don't have to write academic papers or anything, so I don't need to worry overly about citation.

James

-- 
James Aylett
 Chief Technical Officer    t +44 20 7183 9334
 Tangozebra                 Supplier of the Year, 2007 Revolution Awards
 A division of DoubleClick

Tangozebra may not be held responsible for the content of this email
as it may reflect the personal view of the sender and not that of the
company. Should you receive this email in error, please notify the
sender immediately and do not disclose copy or distribute it.

Tangozebra runs anti-virus software on all servers and workstations,
and cannot be held responsible for any infected files that you may
receive. Tangozebra advises all recipients to virus scan all emails,
and to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.

Digital Advertising and Marketing Ltd t/a Tangozebra is registered in
England. Registered number: 4287527; Registered address: Compass House,
22 Redan Place, London W2 4SA, UK