Redhaired Future Librarian

Blog People Tri-Dux

Sigh. The dean of Indiana University’s School of Library and Information Science is at it again.

One of the hallmarks of blogging is the “ego-search.” That’s what it’s called when one searches for one’s own name (we used to use Blogger, but Google is so fast now you can practically search Google the day after you’ve posted something controversial to find out what others are saying.) One you’ve done your ego-search, you can either respond to the people who’ve responded to you, or you can ignore it and move on. Sometimes, this starts excellent conversations about important issues. This is not one of those times.

One of the most disturbing things about this series of criticisms of blog-people is the underlying belief behind the criticism that everyone is not entitled to speak in public. Anyone who has access to an Internet-enabled computer (meaning, just about anyone who has access to a public library) can start a blog instantly, and for free. There’s no need to even pony up 5 cents a page to photocopy your great words. What you do with your blog is completely up to you. You can talk about your pets, your pregnancy, your lack of pregnancy, what your shoes think, basically, whatever you want. This is part of the problem these critics have with blogs. There aren’t enough barriers to suit the elitists. They don’t have to read these blogs… but they’re upset that the blogs even exist, that someone can publish without having to go through the gatekeepers.

As Jessamyn at Librarian.net puts it, ” you call me crassly egotistical and then get huffy when I call you a fool?” Dr. Cronin’s writing indicates he thinks conversations flow one way… from him down. A lot of people were upset about what he wrote the first time. He was telling people they didn’t have the right to write. That upsets people.

The worst part about the response to the responses is the unwritten undercurrent that the people are being uncivil simply by disagreeing with him. Unfortunately, too many people believe that disagreeing with them is the same as being hateful to them… people are too used to surrounding themselves with people who agree with everything they believe and they don’t know how to react when someone says, “I disagree.” Sure, some people were rather rude in their responses, but not everyone was.

It concerns me that he says research into blogs has been underway at IU for years. Since he admits that in 1997 he wrote an editorial that bloggers would see as anti-blogging, it worries me that the research has been carried out in an environment that might fail to see what blogs are and what potential they have for libraries, librarianship, and free speech.

The Lethal Librarian also has some good words to say about the continuing saga.

I originally found the note about the current editorial at The Gypsy Librarian.