2-4-6-8 .... what tool do we best appreciate

Sometimes in the dark of night I ponder how the fields of librarianship and archival studies differ, I don't always come up with deep thoughts, they tend to hit me at other times, such as during an MLA Annual Conference when I realize that I have never heard anyone at an archival meeting refer to a spouse, child, or any family member, while at MLA, no matter the topic, families frequently come up. Also, new electronic tools are simply mentioned at archival sessions (ie. we decided to place our new finding aid on the web using whatever-whatever and it has receive blank number of hits because this other new dandy thing) while at library meetings (not at ALA, but elsewhere) they are presented as the holy grail -- now if we do this cool thing online all those folks who don't understand us and appreciate what we do will now think we are wonderful.

Library 2.0 they say ... well, I have yet to hear a discussion of this which did not forget or ignore what has really come behind us ... take the info to the user, ok, where they are may be different now (they are online) but we have often take it to the user (whether we used a pack mule, a bookmobile, or went to a prison) ... a library will be "socially and emotionally engaging center for learning and experience" --- American libraries have been doing that all along.

I am not saying that things are not changing, but it is, in large part the tools that are changing. Yes, we should utilize new tools that are right and appropritae but we should not ignore all that we have done so far and how we have done it. We are coolier now, we are hippier now becuase we are online, we have always been cool and hip ...