cni-directories: telework/telecommuting
telework/telecommuting
lou@CSMIL.UMICH.EDU
Thu, 23 Jan 1992 18:19:32 -0500
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1992 18:19:32 -0500
From: lou@CSMIL.UMICH.EDU
Subject: telework/telecommuting
> Are there people out there who do this to some extent already? Do people
> see much of a future for telework in the library workplace, especially
> as we become more involved with virtual libraries? I'm interested in
> hearing from people who telework for at least some portion of their
> work hours.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bernie Sloan
I'm not presently doing much teleworking, but I'll put my $.02 in.
I think there's two kinds of work that will take different paths
in terms of teleworking. Work presently done by groups that meet
in a single physical location will probably be done remotely the
same way in the future. The technologies that will make this pos-
sible are higher bandwidth telecommunications networks, which will
allow us to see and hear each other, and advanced groupware, which
will work with networks to allow us to work on the same documents
in common. Library committee work will thus be unavoidable, no
matter how far we go for our vacations. :-(
Solo work will depend on the nature of the work itself. For exam-
ple, cataloging of print sources will have to happen where those
sources physically reside. However, reference work could be revo-
lutionized. Instead of a reference worker being associated with
a physical collection, he or she will be another resource on the
network, who knows how to navigate the information resources that
reside on the network. They may actually be more like information
brokers than what we today think of as reference librarians. People
doing this kind of work would certainly be considered teleworkers.
--Lou Rosenfeld
![[CNI Home Page]](/Images/home.gif)
|
