Open letter to Brock Meeks (fwd)

[Roy Tennant]

I just sent this to Mr. Meeks. If I receive a reply, and receive 
permission to post it, you will see it here as well.
Roy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:43:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roy Tennant <rtennant at library.berkeley.edu>
To: brock.meeks at msnbc.com
Subject: Open letter to Brock Meeks

Mr. Meeks, 
I am responding to your piece "The Case of the Radical Librarian" 
(http://www.msnbc.com/news/104439.asp). Specifically, this paragraph:

"This issue is too serious to be resolved overnight. There must be a full,
public debate on the issues before the community and its library decide
together what course to take.  Surely librarians aren't afraid of healthy
debate. Or are they?"

This has, and is, being debated (some would say ad nauseum). I manage the
electronic discussion Web4Lib (web systems and libraries), and I can
assure it you it is being debated long and hard. Our traffic jumped 50% in
June and July when this issue was being most hotly debated. Go see for
yourself at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/archive.html. This subject
has also been discussed on PubLib (public libraries, the archive is at
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/PubLib/archive.html). Mr Burt also recently 
had an article published in American Libraries, the journal of the 
American Library Association. American Libraries is mailed to all the 
members, some 50,000 librarians worldwide. 

We are not in the least "afraid of debate." Our profession is founded on 
such principles as the freedom to read, open access to information, and 
the rights and responsibilities of a free society. I therefore find your 
insinuation that the library profession is trying to stifle dissent in 
general, or Mr. Burt in particular, to be insulting.

Roy Tennant
Web4Lib Owner