Librarian Ire

Exhibit A, anti-ALA

summ: Run by idiots. Elected by... ?

So I snagged a copy of the Feb. 15th edition of the Library Journal from the staff room. I am quickly zipping through its mediocre contents, when an article catches my eye. There on pg. 44 is "Revenge of the Blog People"! Well, this may be interesting seeing as I am now of member of the blog people.

The article is written by a Michael Gorman, who until now I had never even heard of. Apparently he is the upcoming president of the ALA. In his little editorial he seems to be discussing digitalization, google, and bloggers. All of which, it seems, pretty much suck. Anyway, my eyes were opened by a lovely paragraph titled: "Who are Blog People". It seems we blog people - and that includes you readers! - 'judge on the basis of what we think rather than what is actually said/written' and that 'we are not in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts', 'our intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts'. I'm puzzled about this whole 'complex text' thing. What texts is he referring to? Plato? Read all his works, half of them in the original Greek. Cicero? Ditto above. The Bible? Tolstoy? Dickens? How to be an ALA president for Dummies? Granted, I have only read 2 books this week, so perhaps this dumps me in the dunce pile.

You know though, upon consideration, Gorman says that 'he had not spent much time thinking about blogs' but that 'he had heard of the activities of bloggers'. His essay seems to be contrived from a number of blog comments about him forwarded to him by his friends. There's something here... wait for it... Ah! I see. Mr. Gorman apparently satisfies his intellectual needs by an accumulation of random facts. Bravo, idiot.

posted by Loki at 2:35 PM