cni-directories: RE: Telework/Telecommuting
RE: Telework/Telecommuting
JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL
Sun, 26 Jan 1992 10:50:58 +0200
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1992 10:50:58 +0200
From: JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: RE: Telework/Telecommuting
If you include in telework that portion of the workday devoted to
e.g. email which *could* be done from anywhere, I figure I telework
for at least 25% of the time. If you mean, do I actually sit at home,
the answer is no (but only because my boss wants me in the library
and sees no reason to buy me a modem for my home machine). The work
I actually do involves a lot that could be done from anywhere: I don't
have to be in the library. E.g. getting (and giving) information by
email to all over the world; writing reports; managing the library's
VAX (the VAX is in the computer center so does it matter if my terminal
is in the library or my home?). If we had CD-ROM instead of microfiche
for our LC databases (name authorities etc.), then theoretically the
catalogers could also equally well work at home. Most of the reference
people could not; but when we get to the stage of having a lot of
CD-ROM databases on the campus network and therefore, presumably,
need to provide reference aid to remote users, it would make sense
to have a reference librarian supply such aid by phone and email,
and that too is telework, independent of where the reference
librarian is actually sitting. Our software has just added an
acquisitions module which we're in the process of implementing.
Once all acquisitions are via computer, and the main acquisitions
aids (e.g. BIP etc.) are CDs on the network, acquisitions also
becomes largely telework.
In short, I think much of technical services is or will soon be
telework; but I don't think, for administrative reasons, that the
catalogers/acq. staff will be actually doing it from home: they'll
continue to come to the library as before. The university will want\
them to clock in and out; the library director will want them
available for meetings, announcements, etc., and it's psychologically
a very fundamental change to make, from having all your staff "here"
to having them scattered around. And again, it makes for problems
in discussing difficulties with co-workers.
Re. reference librarians, I think most of them will stay in the
library, but there is or soon will be a definite case for one or
more reference librarians doing, essentially, telework, per campus
network.
Who really *has* to work in the library? Only the circulation staff,
the remote-store or closed-access staff if you have such things,
the book-shelvers, and those ILL staff who supply books and photocopies
from your material to others (the other half of ILL, getting material
from distant sites, is largely telework already).
What does everyone else think?
Judy Koren, Haifa.
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