Monday, June 1, 2009

It's a scary world

Twice in the last week I have found myself thinking "I must add that to my blog!" Oh oh. Still can't quite believe it, but there it is.

So - "oh oh moment" number 1.

Attended a presentation last week by a UQ academic presenting outcomes of a survey on Queensland Youth and the Environment. Commissioned by a QLD Government department I was intrigued to see that on two key questions asked via the online survey - both relating to sources of and reliability of information - that neither question provided an option for participants to select "libraries". To state the obvious, options included such wide ranging selections as CEO's, the internet, family, government etc - but whilst newspapers were mentioned, libraries were not. Thinking I had dozed off for the relevant part of the discussion I waited with bated breath - but still no reference to libraries as a "source of information" nor as a "reliable source of information." To say I was astounded is an understatement. To add insult to injury, when I politely questioned whether witholding libraries was a concsious decision or not I received a 5 minute "waffle" response. This was followed by one of the data entry team noting that they might have been included under - "other".

Being quietly apopleptic by this stage it did not help that the researcher then suggested that the solution might lie in the fact that "information is all virtual now anyway isn't it?" You will be somewhat relieved to know that I countered this misconception in as polite and positive a way as I could.

The session ended with the MC for the event noting that "it was wonderful to know that Government was now in the position to determine policy based on authoritative research." Yikes.

"Oh oh moment" 2 to follow!

No comments:

Post a Comment