Moderator: Suzanne Sweeney, Jackson Library, School of Business, Stanford University
Panel: Charles Faulhaber, Professor, Spanish & Portuguese, and Director,
The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley;
Steven Wolf, Assistant Professor, Botany,
CSU Stanislaus, administrator of CSUBIOWEB, and Chair, CSU Committee on the
Web;
Arthur Chandler, Professor, Humanities, San Francisco State University.
The three professors described their use of electronic communications, especially the Web, both in teaching regular courses and in distance learning projects. Charles Faulhaber is using a Web site as the core communication vehicle for a graduate-level distance learning course he is teaching this semester in medieval Catalan, with students at Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. He discussed some of the problems with distance learning, and was forced to conclude that, on the whole, it costs too much to be used on a regular basis.
Steven Wolf talked about the use of the Web in the CSU system, and how each computer on each desk can be a "library." He teaches people how to set up their own servers. Arthur Chandler spoke about using the Internet for communication. He noted that there is something really engaging about this medium. He discussed the issues around electronic publishing, noting that you have total control over something if you publish it yourself. Publishing on the Net certainly solves the distribution problem. In preparing for the talk, he asked his students what libraries should be doing. They said we should have more terminals linked to the Net and the Web. There should be a URL for every catalog and book. Microfiche can be put on CD-ROMs, and EVERYTHING can be put on the Net. Chandler "bon mots": "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." and a definition of cyberspace as "The real place that isn't there."
Summary by Helene Whitson, SFSU