Self-promotion

[Karen G. Schneider]

Ok, I tried really hard not to post to this group on filters, but I didn't
punt... just ran down the field after the rest of the folks.  At any rate,
despite my issues with Burt--which have less to do with his views than his
MO--I will say that false modesty has no place in the library profession.
I recall having my sig file banned on LM_NET because it was deemed a
"commercial" (for mentioning my previous book). Right now there is
discussion on the Council list about not campaigning (and how else do you
run for office...?).    

This displaced gentility has no business in our profession, particularly
among folks discussing technical issues.  I think it's a holdover from this
being a feminized profession, and we don't talk about money, etc etc
because it's just pin-money anyway--our hubbies make the real dough (hmm,
my lesbian spouse is still out of work...). Years ago Jean Armour Polly
told me, "librarians do great things, and then they never crow about it."
That may account for the glacial rate of change in some library systems,
particularly with new technologies.  And while I'm curious about Burt's
funding, anyone with a small budget can have a website.  Look at me.  (oh
oh--more self-promotion!)  For as low as $25 a month, from some companies,
you can have a virtual server.  I pay a little more (not much more) to get
the value-added prestige of being hosted by Panix, New York's true granola
Internet service.  Publishing a monthly column for the library press helps
pay for this kind of toy.  

I ran a whois on Burt's server, and it looks like he's running on a local
provider, so maybe he's taking peanut-butter sandwiches to work and
enjoying the pleasure of having his own website.  Or all the money flowing
in to filteringfacts.org is funding it...  At any rate, any library hanging
off of someone's personal page should take note that for very, very little,
they can at least have a site up, a domain name, execute some scripts, etc,
and even have multiple mailboxes.  For that matter, some filters can now
run through local ISPs, so you could conceivably have a virtual server for
your library webpage and still block whatever it is you want to block.  Add
that a lot of commercial databases offer options for licensing without any
more local configuration than knowing your IP addresses, and you can have a
web presence and online databases on a fairly modest budget (of course, if
the filter blocks your database... ;>  )

Thanks, btw, for all the Netscape grayed-out stuff.  The best part about
that thread is that I've seen this problem and thought, "nah, it's a local
problem."  Oh--so it IS the software.

And don't forget to buy my book!
____________________________________________________________________________
___

Karen G. Schneider | kgs at bluehighways.com | schneider.karen at epamail.epa.gov
Director, US EPA Region 2 Library | Contractor, GCI | Opinions home-grown
The Internet Filter Assessment Project: http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/
Author, Forthcoming: A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal Schuman, 1997)