[WEB4LIB] FW: LJ: ALA Prez-Elect Gorman on the "Blog People"

[kevin smith]

Just thought I would share this blog entry with the list:

http://ashkev.weblogs.us/archives/025631.html

Response to ALA Prez-Elect Gorman on the "Blog People"

Michael Gorman,

I was very upset to see your recent comments on "Blog People." While I
agree with much of what you have to say about Google Print and funding
library services, I was very disappointed to see you berate an entire
class of librarians who, you say, you know very little about. Those of
us who blog have varied interests, backgrounds, educational
backgrounds and viewpoints on nearly every issue.

Criticizing the "Blog People" is akin to criticizing "Television
People." Shall we put Robert McNeil and Jerry Springer in the same
category? After all they both work in the same medium. Are the Wall
Street Journal and the National Enquirer equivalent because they both
publish newspapers? It is as if I said "based on the few graphic
novels I have read, the authors are incapable of writing anything of
substance," while ignoring the works of Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware.
Your comments are format-bias, clear and simple, and are inappropriate
from an elected officer of the nation's largest professional library
association. There are some fine library blogs out there. I would
recommend that you take a look at a few of them before attacking a
large and growing section of the library and information science
population.

You wrote "…I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of
sustained reading of complex texts." This is inaccurate and unkind.
Most of the bloggers that I know are dedicated professional who read
as mach about their profession as they can. Many have also written
books, journal articles, and have presented at major conferences. In
my experience, it is rare to find a recent Library School Graduate who
is not keeping a blog.

I hope that you will reevaluate your snap judgment of bloggers and
offer an apology to the many hard working dedicated librarians who
maintain blogs, and who supported your candidacy as ALA president.

(Theses opinions are my own. I am not speaking on behalf of the Cass
District Library.)

Kevin Smith
Assistant Director
Cass District Library
1-269-445-3400 X 31


On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 15:41:20 -0800 (PST), K.G. Schneider
<kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:
> (Note: based on the December traffic, I think most of the discussion
> actually happened on Web4Lib, not blogs.)
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/5ujgt
> 
> In which we learn, in a response to blog entries critiquing Gorman's
> December 2004 L.A. Times article about Google Print, that the library
> blogging community is uneducated, fanatical, and obtuse. "[The] Blog People
> (or their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of
> information) have a fanatical belief in the transforming power of
> digitization and a consequent horror of, and contempt for, heretics who do
> not share that belief. ..."
> 
> "Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that
> many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex
> texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an
> accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. ..."
> 
> Nice. Really nice. Good use of the ALA presidential bully pulpit. No
> citations, of course.
> 
> 
> K.G. Schneider
> kgs at bluehighways.com
> 
>