Yesterday afternoon, after finishing the rough draft of a monster perspective for C&I, I wasted a few minutes doing a focused egosearch (using Bing)–this time looking for items that directly referenced that five-year-old issue, that is, items containing “civ6i2.pdf”
Found 59. Including two or three from an LIS course. Looking at those, they were student papers…and it was interesting that all used precisely the same language about Library 2.0 and “Library 2.0”: they called it a rant. And, other than one stating how ignorant I was, that was about all they had to say.
Rant. Interesting choice of terms for that essay. Interesting coincidence of usage. I’m sure whoever taught the course didn’t bias the readers in any form. And I’m sure the students actually read the lengthy, multifaceted treatment–didn’t just glance at it and leap to judgment.
It’s a good thing I didn’t encounter those papers a couple of years ago, when impending loss of sponsorship and other situations encouraged me to rethink C&I (which I’m now doing again). If I assumed (which I don’t) that most downloads of that essay only serve to convince people that I’m an ignorant ranter…well, that would help me make a decision.
But hey, they were grad students in that notoriously difficult field of LIS, and maybe there were getting an early start on Hostile Reading, the real-world counterpart to charitable reading. ‘Cuz I think you had to be engaging in some damn Hostile Reading to turn that essay into a rant.
In other news: Only four days left for the 25% discount on The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010 and the 20% discount on C&I print volumes. Of course, if some good friends (no, I’m not being snarky–only good friends would have told me this) are right about almost nobody really giving a damn about the book anyway, then this doesn’t matter.
Ah, but the Pleasanton farmer’s market is back after a two-week break, so it’s nearing time to shut down the computer and go hold the bags while the smart one in the household finds good fruit & vegetables & bread. And maybe the fog will eventually lift–although, even at 38F, I won’t complain about the weather, given the dismal state of other areas.
Cheers, and have a good weekend.
