Thursday, April 15, 2010

Why bother?

When I find an important library, depository, repository or archive website (almost always academic) with broken or inaccurate links, I often look for the "contact us" link and notify them. Often, that link is broken. Silly me, I keep looking--click, click, sigh, click. (I don't swear.) When someone gets back to me I'm asked, where is this link, I can't find it. I e-mail back. They (usually he) reply that it's not their fault, they are underfunded, or they just have too much to do to add dates to research or clean up broken links, yada, yada.

Now we know why the college kids that invented Google and Facebook are billionaires, and librarians are among the lowest paid civil servants.

4 comments:

June said...

The route to your conclusion escapes me.

Norma said...

Really June? Well, let me spell it out. If your mind set and government job keeps you from investing your own money and taking risks, you only grab the low hanging fruit.

OklahomaRose said...

Well, the route did not escape me! Perhaps June needs to drive on the road and not the edge of the ditch.
I have encountered the same situations while attempting to do serious research for my blogs and it is extremely frustrating to click on a link to exactly what you were looking for just to get an "Oops. That link appears to have been broken." I'm as weary of that "Oops" nonsense as I am of "Was this information helpful to you?" Check 'Yes' or 'No'. Apparently, judging from the amount of sarcasm of late in Google's Helpful Forums for the Mildy Retarded But Able to Function bunch who would rather just get down to business than know one functional thing about HTMLs and all that other stuff that made Bill Gates wealthy beyond his heirs ability to spend, hundreds of bloggers have had it with the "Was this helpful" stuff!
I love your blogs, Norma. Wish I had found them years ago. I, too, prefer truth to toxic politically correct rhetoric. So did the Lord. He didn't have much time to waste mincing words either. Amazingly to the point, the Man was, and yet just as amazing the amount of varied interpretations of what He said vs what He meant -- depending upon how deep one is in one's own stuff.
Have a blessed day! Shalom!

Norma said...

Rose: You make it all worth it.