mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (04/06/88)
I hate to take up net bandwidth with a non-flame, but a just have to comment about people that say "look it up in the library" or "look up the REFERENCE" in the library and get it from ANOTHER library. I work two blocks from the library of one the most highly regarded computer science departments in the world. I find that trying to look up things in it is very, very difficult. First, if they have the best, or even a good, BOOK on a given subject, it is ALWAYS checked out; presumably someone else needs to know the same thing. Second, the wonderful state of Illinois has higher education as its ABSOLUTE LOWEST PROIORITY, so the library has to cut back on buying books; journals get priority. For a non-expert such as me, looking things up in journals is essentially useless- they generally ASSUME that the reader knows everything I'm looking for; I need a book. Finally, the turnover in the computer book section of all the local Waldenbooks and B.Daltons is so big that the probability is that one of them has the book I'm looking for- right there. I realize that C-U may well be an abnormal area in this regard, but I think it is a true statement that big University libraries are for specialists only. Doug McDonald University of Illinois Department of Chemistry