(In October 1996 this looks very out of date... and in July 2004 even more so. Still, it's interesting to see how things looked a while ago. A more up to date CV is available)

Hugh Allison Blackmer

I began my search for a new career in January 1991 with the question of what would be the future of computers in libraries. The subsequent four years has turned out to be an odyssey of practical exploration of many dimensions of this realm. Along the way I became a Reference Librarian and developed my lifelong interests in the sciences into a professional specialty. Not a week has passed that new facets of these enterprises haven't emerged; the details of what seems most important or what is the leading edge of my own evolution as a Librarian continue to shift, and I see no prospect that this will slow down or become humdrum routine. In another four years I expect to know more about all of these dimensions of librarianship and I hope to be more useful to my library and university colleagues, to students trying to cope with information universes, and to corporeal and electronic library users from near and far.

I was hired in July 1992 as Reference Librarian with particular responsibilities in the areas of Bibliographic Instruction and Circulation, and with the expectation that I would interest myself in library applications of nascent Internet developments. The day to day round of reference desk duty and research consultation is difficult to summarize and quantify, but its essence lies in knowledge of a multiplicity of information resources, enthusiasm for finding answers to questions, and commitment to gentle furtherance of the education of the patron. I have greatly enjoyed the process of learning this craft, and still find interesting surprises almost every day. The formal summary of courses and workshops taught, classroom appearances made and presentations given is recorded in my annual reports, but these tallies do not address the content or the evolutionary directions of the work I have done. Since these electronic aspects of librarianship are the most distinctive of my activities, I will summarize them under several headings:

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