or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk



How Others See Us

   June 14th, 2007

Michael GormanYesterday, a few major libraryland blogs talked about Michael Gorman's outlook on the state of Web 2.0, as posted on Encyclopedia Britannica's blog. Since I agree with most of what they said, I won't post my own comments here. But what I do want to say is this:

I wasn't really surprised to see this much activity by library-related bloggers. This is what we do for a living, so when the former President of the American Library Association makes some narrow-minded comments that are counter to the direction of the field, it make sense that we'd whip up our own little tempest.

However, when someone outside our teapot, in a forum as large as Boing Boing, also takes note of him, I start to feel ashamed. To offend a bunch of librarians is one thing; to make librarianship look bad (by poo-pooing the very tools we and our patrons are using to organize and access information) to the rest of the world is entirely different.

gorman, librarianship, libraries, library, library 2.0, library2.0, michael gorman, web 2.0, web2.0




Tags: , , , , , , , , ,


One Response to “How Others See Us”

  1. Kate Says:

    He makes librarians look bad. Frequently. It’s so frustrating.