Beta Blockers

摘要

What is it about libraries that makes them rush to adopt "emerging technologies" from vendors? I'm talking about the words that make all experienced librarians shiver, that moment when the director stands up at a meeting and announces, "We're going to be a beta site!" Is there a deep-seated inferiority complex that haunts us? Why do we think that if we "partner" with a big vendor we will become worthy of praise? Were we all rejected in high school? Is our inferiority complex so deep that we still secretly want to be as cool as those 16-year-olds who taunted us back in the Nixon administration?