FW: 7 Deadly Sins article

[K.G. Schneider]

Posted to DIGREF, but of interest to Web4Lib, methinks...

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com


-----Original Message-----
From: K.G. Schneider [mailto:kgs at lii.org] 
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 9:57 AM
To: 'Discussion of digital reference services'
Subject: 7 Deadly Sins article

I have been somewhat out of pocket this week due to a household move (I had
to exist for about 24 hours without DSL service, but by biting on a dishrag,
I somehow survived the experience). 

I read the 7 Deadly Sins article in AL this morning, in between niblets of
the NY Times and NPR, and stood up from the chair I was sitting in. It was
THAT bad. I have a lot to say about this article, and I want to do it well,
so I'll be composing it offline and publishing it on my blog in a day or
two. Suffice it to say that I can list seven deadly sins of VR, but it's a
different list. (And the first six are "failure to market.")  

As most of you know, Anne Lipow, one of the kindest, most decent champions
of VR died last week, and it felt like a slap in the face to read this
article, not simply because it rebutted VR, but because--and this is key to
understanding this article--it is so virulently anti-technology, and at
that, anti-technology in a way that panders to the fears and prejudices of
the bibliofundamentalists (if you are looking for a more polite term than
"dinosaur" or "Pleistocene"). 

I don't want this to devolve into an ad hominem discussion, but
additionally, I was really rather startled at how poorly reasoned and
written this piece was. I'm accustomed to far more fluently reasoned
articles in AL. I have read many articles I have disagreed with--why, even
by esteemed educators on this very list!--that I enjoyed and learned from
because they were well-written. This would not be one of those articles.
Again, I think of Anne--a writer, a thinker, a librarian-philosopher, and a
publisher who took care of her writers--and I am reminded, as Jimmy Carter
says, that life is unfair. But on the other hand, I'm also reminded that
what goes around, comes around--and on behalf of good librarianship
everywhere, a cause Anne championed, I've pulled out my whetstone and am
honing my vorpal sword. 

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at lii.org
Director, Librarians' Index to the Internet