thanks for an important entry.

first off, i think the general situation of
the mixing of libraries and cyberspace is
filled with some massive shortcomings…

second, i see lots of librarians who seem to
realize it, and who seem unafraid to say so.

however, it doesn’t seem that this “criticism”
is doing much good. the infrastructure still
is being badly managed; the decision-makers
are still making bad decisions; and there is
precious little dialog being held concerning
exactly how to improve the general processes.

so users end up being stuck with inferior tools.
(or, even worse, libraries end up losing literally
millions of dollars when vendors go bankrupt.)

even with some of the “leading” universities –
i can mention the university of michigan here
– their output looks exceedingly stupid to me.

if something along these lines doesn’t change,
and _soon_, i am afraid the world will _never_
learn how to manage the library of the future.
we’ll be stuck with whatever google gives to us.

as a final comment, there _are_ a lot of people
who seem to take any input (not just criticism)
far too personally, and are then quick to respond
with too much vitriol. for the most part, though,
i find they are simply turning to their blogs and
disallowing comments, which is “convenient”…

-bowerbird

“Also, our times seem to be marked by a weird sort of non-absolute absolutism- those who are not with us totally are totally against us.”

I’ve run into that time and time again, on topics as diverse as ebooks, the One True Path for Open Access, and copyright–the last from both ends of the spectrum. (I suppose being attacked by copyright absolutists as being anti-copyright and by “free everything” absolutists as being a copyright hardliner must mean I’m doing something right…) And, at times, on the Library 2.0/social software area, although less so there as time goes on.

In practice, there are lots of powerful and prominent people who I will disagree with openly and without qualms, either because I know them or have a pretty good idea of their character. It’s the slightly less prominent, slightly less powerful people who occasionally worry me.

There are at least two kinds of circles. The circle that pleases me, and it’s a growing one, is the circle of mutual respect that doesn’t require mutual agreement–which means it’s true mutual respect rather than clique-formation. It’s a big circle and one I’ll try to keep doing my part to make bigger and even more inclusive.

I hope that you (and everyone, or at least my friends) know that I am in the same boat as to having to throttle back and even outright avoid some discussions. As you say, “I hate even saying that.” But the truth is the truth. My avoidances generally fall into the 2nd issue, which should be fairly evident since all of my blog “heroes” were due to their allowing me into a “trusted circle” of discourse. But the 3rd wanders into my mind on occasion as I learn to adjust to the “realities” of the world and (very) soon to be on the market.

I only want you to write whatever is comfortable for you. I know how to find you for more sub rosa discussions, if need be.

Great point on the tenured librarians showing the way. Not necessarily how, but that it might even be allowed, much less accepted as a part of discourse is the important point.

I do hope you decide to write the essay!

I think I’ve heard of security through obscurity before. Maybe I should try that…or maybe it’s a little late. (Although my day job has, in fact, been a little obscure, maybe too much so.)

Another protective factor can be working in a weird niche of librarianship that nobody actually cares enough about to disagree violently with. I can “speak truth to power” about OA, insofar as I do, because OA is a small enough, weird enough niche that it’d be hard to put together a posse to shut me up.

I learned from my first-job interview process to keep workplace issues off-blog. That, on the whole, I believe was a smart and even healthy choice. I have also learned to moderate my tone somewhat when discussing OA issues, because the [censored] blog keeps getting quoted! I’m still ambivalent about that; my voice in those posts feels less human and less like me, but I also can’t deny that the change creates greater reach and more impact for the blog and for me.