(Fwd) Packard Bell commercial

[Thomas Dowling]

>      Let Packard Bell know about this outrage by emailing them at:
>      

"Piranha pool of a mediascape"?  "Outrage"?  Perspective check, anyone?

Why should we do this?  What will we accomplish by bitching at PB?  So
their advertising firm made a commercial that was unflattering to libraries
and librarians--it isn't as if the mediascape are above doing the same to
lawyers, dentists, fathers, and a number of other stock caricatures. (And
admit it, at least to yourself: we've all told or laughed at lawyer jokes
that were more than a little unflattering.) 

I'll go out on a limb and guess that PB (which either is or aspires to be
the largest vendor of retail PCs) does at least a little market research
before launching a television ad campaign, which suggests that a
non-negligible percentage of their potential customers/our potential users
sympathize with this view of us.  Now, those users find out that the
library community's response to this ad is a vitriolic letter writing
campaign directed at PB.  Their reaction will be: A) "Gee, maybe I'll go
check out what's new at my library!" or B) "Get a life, losers."

I know there's a therapeutic value to group kvetching, so feel free to
weigh in, but this has been a recurring motif among librarians since before
I became one, and I haven't noticed significant improvements in our lot so
far.

As a slightly singeful aside, following up to the list when the original
post requested responses off list--especially when it was copied over from
a different list to begin with--and then quoting the entire original post
to do so, won't convince many people that we're the destined leaders of the
electronic age.

Thomas ("But we SHOULD sue the estates of Meredith Willson and Frank
Lacey") Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu