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Archiver > GENMSC > 1998-12 > 0913180142


From: Margaret J. Olson< >
Subject: Re: Dumb Newbie Question
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 05:09:02 GMT


: So, am I just being stupid here? Is it really acceptable to ask other
: people to do all your research? Or is it only acceptable on that one
: mailing list?

Let me play devil's advocate ...

First of all, there are people on mailing lists and newsgroups who have
many good reasons for not going to the library. Here are two.
A) Disabilities
B) Living hundreds or thousands of miles from a library with the kinds of
resources needed. Looking for Connecticut when you live in Korea
can be difficult. Looking for Delaware when you live in Arizona
may not be so easy, either.

Every so often someone gets testy and posts "for goodness sakes, GO TO THE
LIBRARY and stop wasting our time" and I assume feels pretty small when
a response comes back about the requester having had a stroke and not
being able to drive or leave the house. If you don't want to help out,
it's better, in my opinion, to just ignore the messages - don't do lookups,
but don't criticize the asker. You can't possibly know all the
circumstances.

Second ... if this person is saying "Will you all go to your library and
copy everything you can find on Williamson" they are asking you to do
their research. If they say "I need the pages from Dills History of
Greene County, Ohio, would someone with access to that book be so kind
as to look up and send me pages 22-35 and any others mentioning the
Haines family" they've already done some research and need help in getting
copies from sources. If Dills is unindexed, they've really done research
if they know the page numbers!

They should always offer to pay costs, of course.

So -

I say that if the mailing list has useful messages, then just ignore the
ones you don't like and stay subscribed. If it's driving you crazy,
though, for goodness sakes unsubscribe.

Margaret

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