Monday February 13 2012
© 2012 Radio Open Source | licensed for free distribution under Creative Commons
This site is based on a design by Orman Clark
Monday February 13 2012
© 2012 Radio Open Source | licensed for free distribution under Creative Commons
This site is based on a design by Orman Clark
Laughing… I had two cats circling my legs as I talked on the radio.
Thank you for inviting me on the show. It was great fun and I enjoyed being able to express my passion for ensuring equitable access to quality information.
I think Mary’s cat noises were to indicate the clash of ideas going on between our fiesty librarians and Mr. Wales.
How about a broadcast about the phenomenon of the strategy of potential sex partners getting tested together before having sex?…
The strategy of get tested together before having sex for sexually transmitted infections is going on unobserved except informally by some doctors, some clinicians such as at Dartmouth student health services http://www.dartmouth.edu/~health/ http://www.dartmouth.edu/~health/
This post was clearly meant as sarcasm. The two “gatekeepers” who appeared on the show are attempting to control the flow of information so that their lives/jobs/purposes are still relevant. They claim to want to protect the poor, stupid “end users” from their own ignorance. NEWS FLASH!! “End users” don’t need your dumbing things down for them, thank you very much!
Actually, the post was sincere. In the control room we like good talkers who make good points well, and both Lydia Moland and Karen Schneider did that.
I love the Wikipedia, and I’ve gone willingly — and fascinated — to see Jimmy Wales speak. But new technologies introduce new challenges, and if we believe that everyone who sees those challenges is simply a threatened gatekeeper, we lose the ability to learn from experience. Bloggers do great work, but stand on the shoulders of Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Mitchell. Wikipedians have made an inspired source of information with an extraordinary tool, but they have so far failed to completely reinvent epistomology.
And do you really believe that librarians and professors are “irrelevant?” The Wikimedia Foundation makes textbooks; are the teachers who will teach from them irrelevant? In the future will we all stay at home and go to Wiki college? And do you really believe, as sources of information blossom, that there’s no need for a corps of librarians to help us learn what to trust? How did librarians become evil? It’s, like, the least evil thing you can do with your life. Have you ever seen a movie about a librarian gone bad?
You’re welcome, in this comment thread, to continue to maintain the irrelevance of professors and librarians; it’s the kind of conversation that we had hoped to inspire, and we really do thank you for it. But please don’t imply that Karen Schneider and Lydia Moland have neither lives nor purpose. Our guests give a lot of themselves when we invite them on our show, and they do it for free. Treat them with respect. Jimmy Wales did.
The Bad Librarian: I believe that was a movie starring Harvey Keitel..?
Librarians can (and frequently do) play a crucial role in information literacy in our society; in fact, it’s quite a classic role, one we’ve been doing since the turn of the last century, when librarians helped immigrants navigate the rough waters of a new country.
The library services with staying power into the next century are services to children, the public library as a physical commons and meeting ground, literacy, engagement in standards development, brokering information tools for communities, and user guidance/instruction. How everything will play out will be fascinating to watch.
I am not threatened but excited and engaged in the major changes in information technology. I direct a library without books or walls; I work with librarians who have grown up with the Internet; I believe (and am not at all bothered by this) that the paper-based book will become an anachronism in my lifetime.
Nevertheless, I also believe that users need high-quality information. I don’t dispute the commitment of Wikipedians to their effort, but I do respectfully question the processes and the end product. Hopefully most of us are on the same page with respect to goals and can agree to disagree and learn from one another.
Feel free to ask me offline about Saklad.