An information overload. Movieclassics.wordpress.com |
One of the texts in my online studies for Library and Information Technology reprints a photo still from “Desk Set,” a 1957 movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. In it, Hepburn is the director of a corporate research library.
Tracy’s character has been brought in to install a super computer that can supposedly look up any fact quicker than Hepburn’s staff of reference librarians. The movie ends with victory for the librarians when the computer blows a fuse.
I was reminded of that film this week during my reading on reference services for one of my Cuesta College courses. “Libraries in the Information Age” by Denise K. Fourie and David R. Dowell state that reference librarians and technicians must increasingly help patrons evaluate information for credibility.