Re: What's the point, indeed! (formerly site-license docs)

[Dickie Selfe <rselfe -at- MTU -dot- EDU>]

>On the other hand, this might make you feel better: I did a survey
>of our users, which included questions about when and how people
>look for information. One of the options was "I ask a coworker"
>(I think most of us do this before consulting the manual). Some users
>at a large company, for reasons I don't understand, named the
>coworker they get their information from. Interestingly, everyone
>seemed to be asking the same person. When I looked at the Answer Grape's
>survey, guess what? Turns out this person is looking for information
>in the documentation *all the time*! I wonder why!!

>Faith
>weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com

Sounds like we still have a bit of the old oral culture left in us after all!!
Perhaps a paper delivery system isn't as useful as it pretends to be.
Other electronic mechanisms ?might? be more effective.  Simple ascII
versions of our flashier paper publications are a useful and cheap
supplement.

Just a thought:

Will large databases of documents, data, images, . . . that can be searched
with the help of "intellegent" engines take care of some of this
information flow problem?  Is anyone out there working on hypertext systems
that will allow for this sort of activity?

There was one such virtual librarian in a book called _Snow Crash_ that I
liked as a model.  It's late in the day; I'm starting to free associate.


Dickie Selfe            102 Walker
rselfe -at- mtu -dot- edu          Michigan Technological U.
906-487-3225            Houghton, MI  49931