Please, anyone who wishes to comment on the report, consider doing so directly. Please do not rely on remarks made on discussion lists or blogs to be picked up. I know that some of the comments that people might make on discussion lists, or on their blogs may not be suitable or "ready" for formal comment to the Working Group, but some may, and might thus be of considerable interest to the Group, and might lead to changes being made in the final report. (Of course, for all I know, Diane Hillmann, whose message sparked this response, either has done so, or is planning to do so. But so far the WG hasn't had any submitted comments on the draft distributed to them. I hope that you do submit them, though, because they are right on point). But what this posting has done for me is push a magic button that has nothing to do with the Working Group report itself. So please forgive the gentle tirade. Some of the recommendations that Diane has commented on in section 5. STRENGTHEN THE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE PROFESSION below are of "peculiar" interest to me, because -- we as a discipline seem not to be well enough inculcated with an understanding that an important way that the discipline advances is through investigation, collaboration, research and PUBLICATION. We do little experiments locally and don't turn them into papers. We do investigations locally, and put them up as "whitepapers" or reports on our own websites or blogs. We consign our work and thoughts to the Internet equivalent of "grey literature". We give little presentations at conferences and don't formalize them into written papers. They are not indexed (unless they get picked up somehow in Google). They may never have been recorded/preserved in any way. And so, the value that any of these efforts might have released to the profession is severely limited. There's a kind of narcissism in habitually restricting access to your work and thoughts to only those who frequent your (generic you) blog or wiki, or who participate in the discussion lists you are on, or who think to check your website. I'm sure that those who generously mount and maintain blogs don't view it that way. They think that they are, in fact, communicating extremely broadly. And, for that matter, they are. But it's a different kind of communication with a different kind of purpose. Please, dear educators, as you are shepherding students through their professional degrees, don't let them escape without an understanding of the importance of formal communication; of the importance of sharing their work. And don't let them escape without some inkling that it's not enough to KNOW about the work, or to KNOW HOW to do it. They also have to THINK about it, analyze, investigate, and CONTRIBUTE to the formal literature. We really can't afford to be making decisions about the future of any aspect of librarianship by "gut instinct". We need real information. (And by the way, the need to do formal investigation and communication and publication is NOT restricted to academic librarianship. Don't let the people who think they are headed for public, school, or special libraries off the hook) <rant mode off> janet Janet Swan Hill, Professor Associate Director for Technical Services University of Colorado Libraries, CB184 Boulder, CO 80309 [log in to unmask] ���� ***** Tradition is the handing-on of Fire, and not the worship of Ashes. - Gustav Mahler