I’d never heard this term before but it makes sense. An “elevator answer” is a question’s response that you can give in the time it takes to ride an elevator. More than just one sentence, but not a 15-minute discourse. David Warlick is looking for more elevator answers for the question about whether schools need librarians any more. He was recently asked by an IT guy (of all people) at a National School Boards Association Conference whether schools could deal with their budget crunches by getting rid of libraries and librarians, since computers and technology provide so many answers nowadays. Here’s a glimpse at his response:

This is one of those questions that I absolutely love to hear — if I have an hour to answer. It’s a question that I hate, if I only have a minute to answer. I said that the key word here is information, that information has not only become infinitely more important than it was ten years ago, but its very nature has changed (digital, networked, overwhelming, and containerless). In most schools there is only one person who understands this and is qualified and equipped to help the schools adapt — the librarian.

A great response, if you ask me. It’s hard to sum up all the issues and facts into a short response, but David has done well with this. Just the same, if you have any good “elevator answers” for this question, I’m sure he’d love to hear them. Visit his post Who Needs ‘Em? and leave a comment.