Are Online Librarians Teachers?

In my column "The Age of Online Instruction (LJ 9/1/02, p. 36,38), I made the bold assertion that "in this age of online libraries, librarians in all types of libraries are online educators." I should know better than to make an assumption without facts. John Ferguson, instructional services and systems librarian at Richland College Library in the Dallas County Community College District, immediately challenged the statement. Ferguson, who has survey results to support his assumptions, found that not quite half of academic libraries in the United States are currently "teaching libraries" and far fewer are "teaching proactively, rather than just reactively."

p. 36