As Clear As Mud -Reply

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

Several points re other folks' writing.  First, good writing is not
something we can request of another person; not everyone can
write well, and apparently some folks have very definite and
perhaps permanent limitations in this area, despite their best
efforts.  I know I usually write quite well (and in impossibly vain
moments have been known to re-read portions of my own writing
for amusement--how I do go on!).  However, since I have some
other, rather marked limitations in other areas, I have cultivated
compassion and understanding, tempered with the
self-knowledge that others are attempting to be compassionate
with me, in other areas.  When someone with limited writing skills
attempts to communicate with me, I try to listen, and I allow for
their lack of capacity.  After all, if everyone could write well, this
skill wouldn't be valued, and I wouldn't get paid to do it.  And it is
quite possible to strain oneself into interpreting the murkiest of
documents, if the will exists (I'm currently reading Bishop
Spong's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, and Spong has
a knack for slicing through thousands of years of interpolation
and obfuscation of what is perhaps the hardest text of all).

Furthermore, every intellectual issue, however plain it
might be, has a point beyond which it cannot be simplified.  It is
then up to us to hitch up our mental britches, as it were, and apply
ourselves to learning more about the topic.  Just like the librarians
in this library who use the occasional quiet moment to peruse a
reference work or memorize a new acronym, simple Calvinist
effort on the reader's behalf can work wonders, and is a more
communitarian activity than petulant complaint.

I feel an anecdote bubbling to the surface.  About a year ago I
was giving a presentation on the Internet to a group of librarians
somewhere out there in LibraryLand.  I tried very hard not to
speak in acronyms, not to use terms unfamiliar to people
unacquainted with the Internet, and to make the presentation
overall as nonthreatening and inviting as possible.  However, at
the end of the presentation a librarian immediately raised
objections to my use of "jargon."  Disappointed in myself, and
determined to clarify what I meant, I asked her what term she was
referring to.  She replied, "Dialog."  

It is a reasonable presumption on my part that a reference
librarian with an MLS will at least have heard of Dialog (and she
was not the only one in this setting who claimed this term was
foreign).  However, I have had other reasonable presumptions
routed, so I am no longer, sadly, too surprised by this sort of
incident.  

Finally, what is reasonable knowledge for a librarian  in the
networked environment varies dramatically from person to
person, library to library, area to area.  We have no standards
(and had none in the past, if my experiences are any indication). 
We cannot assume someone with an MLS shares a common
education, even on ridiculously simple issues, but particularly in
the area of new media.  That's not good, but that's the way it is,
until *we change it.*  If you were waiting for "them" to deal with
this issue, find a mirror.  It's time for us to take the roles, and the
responsibilities, to improve our profession so it survives.  

And on that rather grand note, I return to the pile of stuff on my
desk--

Karen G. Schneider
opinions mine alone
Contractor, GCI/Director, Region 2 EPA Library