Consciousness of disinformation (a follow-up)

[Robert J Tiess]

In response to two quotes:

1. First Jim Hurd wrote:
>
>An interesting question.  Do libraries also make clear that many
>of their books contain a lot of nonsense too? My favorite used book
store
>here in Bloomington is named "Caveat Emptor".  I would be very fearful
of
>any Library that contained only "The Truth". 

2. Then  chris (a.k.a. RageBoy) wrote:
>hear, hear!  this whole concern about "disinformation" sounds
>suspiciously to me like a high-brow version of the CDA, rationalized
>by a similar paternalism; *they* must be protected from themselves.
>
>I wonder which information providers could be considered unequivocally
>trustworthy.  let's consider some possibilities of uncompromised
>sources:
>
>    1) Universities -- because they never take whacking huge grants
>       from the Federal government.
>
>    2) Journals -- because they are refereed by collegial peers
>       unsullied by academic politics.
>
>    3) Print publications -- because the principle of "church and
>       state" prevents multi-million dollar advertising buys from
>       influencing decisions about editorial content.
>
>    4) Government publications -- because it is the government Of, By
>       and For The People, and only wants what is best for us.
>
>Balance this against an open Internet where people can for the first
>time speak their own minds and decide for themselves what's crap and
>what's not.  If they can't do that online, then why should they be any
>more expected to sort fact from fiction in a library or a bookstore?
>Unless, of course, we begin to CONTROL the BAD information...  and
>that road leads to a very nasty sort of elitist intellectual fascism.

First, you both are approaching this issue without much consideration.
We're talking libraries, not bookstores; big difference.  One develops
collections and assembles informative materials, the latter tries to
sell you everything and anything, caring little or nothing at all for
you.
Free speech, an "open internet"--who in the library community is against
the ideal of these things?  You're talking about content (i. e.
information)
providers, not patrons, who have been, and will continue, I hope, to be
our
focus.  Content providers are fairly protected to promote whatever they
want.  Further insulation they need not.  My sole interest is, throughout
this discussion,  the patron, the content viewer, the content
interpreter;
the vital side of any given information transaction.  Yet I do dually
perceive the concept of disinformation as a webmaster of several sites
and, removed from that, as one of millions of patrons/net users.  The
change in perspective brings with it new insight.  I highly recommend it.

You both miss my point here and unnecessarily confound the issue of
online disinformation by tying it to the CDA.  It has nothing to do with
the CDA.  It would if we were to approach the notion of patron education,
as both of you seem to suggest, as barriers to intellectual freedom; but
that's a foolish leap of logic.  Now, what I'm saying, and what others on
this list have come forth to say, is that there is nothing but benefits
in
educating our patrons to the potential problems with Web-based
information:  empower them, so THEY decide, by themselves, without
further intervention.  No one's asking anyone here to "control the bad
information."  That's utterly preposterous, and certainly well out of the
boundaries of any librarian's duties.  Also this nonsense about "fact
and fiction in bookstores" also has little to do with the Internet as it
exists
in libraries, as books in the hypothetical store are fixed objects, while
Internet resources are *dynamic*, can be retitled, reworded, removed,
replaced, or relocated; the information can change, and that change can
create problems.  "Elitist intellectual fascism?"  Absolutely not! 
Intellectual
democracy:  educate then emancipate the patron, developing in her or
him a consciousness of disinformation.  Or don't, and send people out
on the net without a warning or disclaimer and create huge liabilities
for
your institution.  Assuming every single patron will simply "know" what's
good or bad prima facie is dangerous practice.  I see nothing wrong
with a brief disclaimer and user education, and neither should you.

Patrons have been conditioned to expect integral, persistent information
from computers, which, to this point, were employed largely in the
static contexts of electronic article access and as gateways to databased
materials.  By virtue of the Internet, the content providers are not
companies, but anyone, which is celebratory of free speech, granted, but
problematic in the tracking and maintenance of dependable information.
For librarians, for people who work in libraries, this is a key
realization,
particularly within those small, low-budgeted, cramped-for-space
libraries,
who now use the Internet to expand their collection and reference
abilities
via the Internet/WWW.  For larger libraries, the issue is no less
relevant,
but perhaps not as noticeable, as patrons do have more resources to
explore before taking their research to the Internet.  In either case,
education is warranted and, I'm certain, in full purview of that
institution's
mission statement.

And it's not "Caveat emptor."  It's more like "Caveat lector."

					Robert
					rjtiess at juno.com