An Albertist Response to John Harvey

[albert j. pinto]

Dear John Harvey (Irving Public) and Library List Community:

I am undoubtedly grateful that you rightly judge the rediscovered
works of Albertus Magnus to be "undoubtedly significant scholarly
works" (all the more so since he called the Universal Doctor...and
for a "Global Village")!

Now as to your crafty assertion that the site "seems" to be of
"only one purpose" - namely to sell a product - let me ask you
to use a little common sense. How many CD-ROM offerings, if the
same are but essentially commercial, are presented to potential
clients as a singular offering - namely, one obscure genius in
a format that is read by only a small corps of scholars (Latin)?
Every academic commercial website I know offers many scholarly
works: after all, they are in the market essentially for profit.

But even if they have grander motives in mind, as no doubt most
institutional libraries have these days, would you prevent them
from making significant announcements to the Library community:
especially since libraries get a dollar a page, I have heard,
for photostating these same products for teachers and students?

Now as to the understated corrosiveness of your statement that
my site provides "three small samples": do you know a server that
will post 2.6 gigabytes of splendiferous tiff images for the good
of faith and science in the third millenium? Please tell me the name
of that generous institution or library and I will send them the corpus
for the overall good of souls!

And if my site was "essentially commercial", if my "only purpose" was
to sell CDs, why would I be so naive as to post two religious samples
in this secular world of library commerce (namely, the treatise on the
Blessed Virgin Mary and the jpeg of Albert the Great's Commentary on the
Apocalypse)? This is especially significant because the third sample, his
catalogue of virtually every major discipline of scientific research,
essentially and cosmically speaking, would obviously show that my choice
of jpegs in the first two samples were not geared toward purchasers at say
the Kennedy Library, but rather that these would do well to look to
the Blessed Virgin Mary before they engineer a world-wide web catalogue
without Her! Surely, being a libriarian from Irving, Texas, you are well
aware of the consequences of "media censorship" and even "dis-information
services"... Please be assured then that the Opera Omnia Alberti Magni has
something for everyone - whatever their field of science - for public and
corporate and governmental and even academic settings! For as my original
essay pointed out, these things are never called library "mergers"...but
"mind-melding". Why not shuffle off a few shekels for Albert the Great?

Oh my, have I breached netiquette with the jot and tittle of my last remark?
Well then, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's... And I will render the full
works of Albertus Magnus for free to any server who will post the entire
corpus. Moreover, I will assist or send for free the same corpus to anyone
truly unable to afford it. Why is the price substantial? Because it is worth
it. And because I need to pay the small corps of Latin scholars still around
in this world to translate the corpus into english. Will any institute grant
us the necessary funds for such a truly noble and universal project? If so,
I would then be undoubtedly surprised and utterly humbled. Any suggestions?

Scholastically yours, al pinto - http://www.AlbertTheGreat.Com



----------
>From: John Harvey <jharvey at irving.lib.tx.us>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
>Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Response to "Censoring Roy" at Web4lib
>Date: Mon, Jun 12, 2000, 6:01 PM
>

> Albert J. Pinto wrote:
>
>> Dear Censoring Roy: You may be something of an interpretive king for the
>> library community...
>>
>  <snip>
>
> in response to:
>
>> > This message is in violation of the Web4Lib Posting Policy at:
>>
>  <snip>
>
> which was itself in response to:
>
ATG News: Albertus Magnus CD-Rom, AlbertTheGreat.Com, and a
Cyber-Christendom Cruise-aid...

Come again? What has Rome to do with Rom-Yule-Us? What has Washington to
post about Post-
Mediaeval Christendom? What have news services to say about the "Good News"?
Or is it good
news at all? Is it not now "Nerd-blasphemous, Ungodly-geekish, Advertising"?
Inquiring minds want
to know... But "who will give a hearing to our report"? Could it be that
news and commercials are
merging? Never...It is mind-melding!  Well then, let me get right to the
pitch. Albert the Great is the only soul in the history of world thought to
have made commentaries on every major discipline of science & faith,
philosophy, culture, theology and mysticism.  In fact, he is called
"Universal Doctor".

On magic and minerals, dreams and the physics, biology, politics,
mind-metaphysics...
His pen whirled on alchemy and meteors sublime, he even made space for
ethereal time...

So then what to the wondering mind should appear? But a treatise on
heaven..."pre-ecology's
sphere"!  Whence I knew with my mind and with half my eye's wink, that these
works all
translated should cause us to think.

For they're still in the Latin, hardly opened before...
But I say that his works are like presents galore!

Must we wait until Christmas to shout the good news?
As Rushdie for Ramadan or but Hanukkah for Jews? Or
Gate's Day for Middle Aged Geeks or Judgement Day for
Genetically-Linked Freaks? When will the plain-and-clear be
reported as such? Scientists simply need him so much!

And souls need this news brief...for faith's "final touch".
As surely as rainbows need Van Gogh or God's "Daily Light"!

Al Pinto - ATG News - http://www.AlbertTheGreat.Com/newsview.phtml?idnum=8


>
> It strikes me that this is not a matter of censorship at all. Mr. Pinto's
> original message seemed to have not even a tangential relationship to the
> clearly stated mission of this list, which, the last time I checked, was to
> provide an open forum for those in the library and information sciences
> field to discuss issues related to the Internet as it affects our chosen
> field, whether in a public, academic, corporate, or governmental setting.
>
> Although Mr. Pinto's site does provide three small "samples" of undoubtedly
> significant scholarly works, it is essentially a commercial site whose only
> purpose seems to be to sell a product.
>
> If Mr. Pinto wishes to promote his wares, he is obviously free to do so, but
> this is not the appropriate place.
>
> John C Harvey
> Irving Public Library
> jharvey at irving.lib.tx.us
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