While danah boyd is on schedule to contribute, and she always rocks out, we haven’t seen her yet. One woman, Rebecca MacKinnon, didn’t get her due for work she had done until I mentioned it (How many more times in my life will I have to do that?) — and because the correction was in a comment, her name doesn’t show up in a search of the site, though Google nicely scoops up the citation with this tailored search.

(How fitting that the Britannica blog limits its search function to the “authoritative” posts rather than the comments from the peanut gallery — even when the peanut gallery is where the facts reside.)

I’m for scholarship; I’m for teaching students research methods; I’m for pushing people past the world of simple Google searching. I’m even — maybe especially — for making Wikipedia’s editorial process more transparent and accountable; as I commented on one post, Wikipedia in some ways duplicates the hidden pathways of accountability used to reinforce power structures in empires big and small.

But when I hear a group of straight white men huffing and puffing about “traditional epistemological and pedagogical practices” — on either side of the argument — I remember that those practices, and the walls they build, have also been used to demonstrate the seemingly innate supremacy of their own kind.

Keep digging, Britannica; that hole is almost big enough to swallow you up for good.

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So out of the tens, even hundreds of thousands of librarians Britannica could have selected, they pick the guy who is dedicated to bombasting us back to the Stone Age. His subjects are “many,” they warn us. I’d prefer “few but deep,” but perhaps that’s just me. Not only that, but there’s a part 3; he’s not even done yet.

Naturally, I am encouraged to give the B-dudes loads of link-love on their site. Free Range Librarian “could play a prominent part on this forum.” But do i wantz that cheezburger? (Hey, Pappas, thanks for letting me comment as much as I want… that’s so Web 2.0 of you!)

Do you all remember when I said, no, I am absolutely not supporting Michael Gorman for ALA President? More precisely, I said I was supporting Barb Stripling for ALA President. I had spent years on Council with Gorman and Stripling. My words seem prescient: she had a blog, she understands technology, she has the common touch… O.k., o.k., I’ll stop rubbing it in. Just remember this: Gorman was ALA President for a year, but he’s ex-president for life, and he’s riding that pony to town. For millions of people he now represents librarianship. We have a lot of work to do. (danah boyd, girl, we’re counting on you.)

Should we who get these messages post on that site… or count on the power of trackbacks to draw the conversation back onto the Web… or take some other approach? (I have considered translating Gorman into plain English… and possibly translating the English into lolspeak.)

I’ll ponder all this, and hope for your comments, as I spend this day rendering unto Caesar.

—————————–

Dear K.G. Schneider: Published at the Britannica Blog (http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/ ) is the first of three biting commentaries on learning and education in the era of “Web 2.0.” They’re written by Michael Gorman, past president of the American Library Association. His subjects are many, including blogging and the “citizen journalist,” intellectual laziness in the era of digitized sources, Wikipedia and anonymity on the Web, and the “cult of the amateur” and the “flight from expertise” that many see as characteristic of the Web today. Notable writers will be offering additional and alternative views. These writers include:

• Sven Birkerts (Harvard University; author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age)
• Nicholas Carr (noted writer on information technologies and author of The Big Switch: Our New Digital Destiny)
• Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur: How the Democratization of the Digital World is Assaulting Our Economy…)
• Thomas Mann (noted reference librarian)
• Dan Gillmor (director of Center of Citizen Media and author of We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People)
• Clay Shirky (consultant, writer on information technologies, and professor in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program)
• danah boyd (fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communications)
• Matthew Battles (formerly of Harvard University’s Houghton Library and author of Library: An Unquiet History)
• Scott McLemee (author of the “Intellectual Affairs” column for Inside Higher Ed)
• Robert McHenry (former editor-in-chief, Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• Gregory McNamee (veteran freelance writer, author of 25 books, and a weekly contributor to the Britannica Blog)

We encourage you to visit the forum, comment on the posts, and leave a link in your comments back to your own site. For the benefit of your readers, we’d appreciate a link to the forum from your site as well. We expect considerable traffic to the blog during these weeks, and you and your site could play a prominent part in this forum. You’re welcome to comment as often as you like, in response to as many posts as you’d like. Best wishes,

Theodore Pappas

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Having alienated most of his core audience, Michael Gorman has published a two part vent on Brittannica.com that demonstrates how ably he functions as a still point in a turning world. His hair is still blue (I didn’t know he actually liked that picture), he’s still using lots of long words to make small points, and he still hasn’t grokked the Web.

Jason Griffey, over on Pattern Recognition, does a nice job explaining the weaknesses in Gorman’s argument, and I expect more to come from various sections of the biblioblogosphere and beyond.

But I must point out that in the weird way that political extremes resemble one another, I agree with Gorman on some issues. I’m not convinced that the hive mind is always wise (the same mind that elected Bush at least once); I don’t fetishize Wikipedia, and am skeptical of the more woo-woo claims on its behalf; I appreciate the role of individual expertise. Nor do I think every text benefits from audience participation.

But as soon as I start to warm to Gorman’s argument, he turns his cannons toward “Web. 2.0″ — and immediately demonstrates he is fighting the wrong battle.

To start with:

• “Bloggers are called ‘citizen journalists’”: Some bloggers are citizen journalists — as Griffey points out, so was Thomas Paine — but that statement is a simple rhetorical error (or dodge)
• “Alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular”: Many reputable doctors encourage the use of alternative medicine; if cranberry juice can fix a bladder infection, do we really need to ask Big Pharm to pollute a river to do the same thing?
• “Millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy — the belief that every word in the Bible is both true and the literal word of God”: This is true, but irrelevant; Christian fundamentalism predates the Internet by, hmmm, close to 2,000 years
• “[S]cientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics”: This may be the most inscrutable statement he’s ever made. It conjured up the presidential administration’s resistance to scientific thinking about climate change. But did Bush and Cheney really pick up their ideologies from instant messaging, Facebook and Twitter? “Say, Dickie, what caused global warming?” “IDK… my BFF Jill?”

Gorman’s real motive becomes clear when he makes reference to a Goya etching, El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos, which he — to cut to the chase — looked up in a book. (Books are always and forever accurate, right?)

I know about this etching partly because I read about it decades ago and partly because I recently went to authoritative printed sources for confirmation of what I had read and for additional information and insights. These reference works were not only created by scholars and published by reputable publishers but also contained the paratextual elements (subject headings, indexes, bibliographies, content lists, etc.) also created by professionals that enabled me to find the recorded knowledge and information I wanted in seconds.

O.k., so enlighten me. What harm would be caused if I read this information on the Web, and not in a book? For that matter, what if I didn’t have to worry about “paratextual elements” and just found what I needed through a search engine, with a few contextual clues to reassure me this was a reasonably sound reference and not the work of some 12-year-old (or an outdated art book with old references…)? And what does any of this have to do with Web 2.0 (which in Gorman’s head seems to be the name emblazoned on the side of the firetrucks in Fahrenheit 451, ready to come burn down his bookcases)?

What’s most disappointing is that these “blog” posts (to the extent anything published by Britannica can be said to be blogged) should have been written by Gorman, and not by Jaron Lanier, on whose ideas Gorman extensively, but ineffectively, piggybacks. Lanier is a worthy hawker in this marketplace of ideas. Was his hair not blue enough? His language not fusty enough? (I leave the third question unstated, but while we’re on that general subject, note that fewer than 10 of the Britannica’s “blog” authors are female.)

This contretemps would be funny if it weren’t so annoying. There are important things to be discussed about authority and order and metadata and quality and such, but elevating Gorman to the level of expert pundit on anything related to the Web suggests that Britannica isn’t seeking the intelligent exchange of ideas, but is looking to build its Technorati rankings through the now-tiresome back-and-forth of Gorman-says-X, now-we-disprove-it; I am sure Britannica is now busy finding people to “respond” to their manufactured controversy, like one of those episodes on afternoon TV shows I see at the gym where after the wife tells all, the dazed cuckold is brought onto stage to stammer his chagrine. Yes, I too have now contributed to that weary business, and I wish it were not so necessary to have done so.

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“If you believe, as I do, that there is a crisis in library education that threatens the very existence of libraries and librarianship, you are likely to draw a negative reaction from a variety of people. First, there are the millenniarist librarians and pseudo-librarians who, intoxicated with self-indulgence and technology, will dismiss you as a ‘Luddite’ or worse. They and their yips and yawps can safely be left to their acronymic backwaters and the dubious delights of clicking and surfing. … ”

It’s like saying there’s patriotic Americans and then there’s them durn Democrats. You either believe in library education, or you are “intoxicated” with technology. I’m not entirely sure what he means by “intoxicated by self-indulgence,” unless he means that it takes enormous personal effort to ignore the impact of technology on library services.

Soon, deliciously soon Gorman will be an ALA past-president, and then the New York Times will call Leslie Burger when they want a sound-bite on the state of things informational. Oh tasty future!

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So Gorman feels Andre Codrescu hijacked his keynote at Midwinter by switching topics midstream. Perhaps Gorman has some inkling at this point what it’s like to think you’re inviting someone to the table to talk about one set of issues, only to have them betray you before the cock crows three times.

I missed hearing Codrescu. I had one meeting that ended halfway through, so I began walking toward the convention center, only to run into one or another Important Person I Needed To Speak With, and by the time I showed up, the hordes were streaming out of the center and toward the shuttles.

“He brought up some tired old topic,” said a friend as we headed toward a chic little bar for blood orange margaritas and serious gossip. Oh really? I thought. “Cuba,” she said. We agreed that it was strange Codrescu wasted his moment to talk on behalf of New Orleans. But never mind. The blood orange margaritas were delicious, the night was enchanting and became more so, and the Midwinter ALA President’s Program was far, far from my mind.

The difference between Codrescu and Gorman is that Codrescu grew up in Communist Romania so has authentic experience to back up his comments, while Gorman, when he speaks of blogs or Google or the Patriot Act, is innocent of real experience.

Just six more months, and Gorman–or Gumby, as he is called in some corners–will be the past-president, and the New York Times won’t phone the director of some library in Fresno to get his take on the latest techno-digital issues. I’ve got my short-timer’s calendar at the ready.

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Before you conclude that Jupiter has aligned with Mars, let me hasten to add that Gorman is incorrect in criticizing the “online” format of the encyclopedia. Brittanica is online, as well, and it’s more accurate for it: the encyclopedia can absorb updates and corrections on a far more timely schedule than the print encyclopedia.

Why not let a thousand flowers bloom? What harm does it cause? First, arguing the merits of a user-contributed encyclopedia dumbs down the discourse about evaluating information on the Web. Second, the direction of the Web is that free is better than accurate. This is not a good direction, should you happen to believe that factually sound information is important.

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I’d like to ignore Gorman, but he keeps popping up like a bad penny. The press love to interview him, and he rationalizes his comments by claiming he is merely expressing personal opinions, not (mis)representing the views of ALA–as if the Wall Street Journal cared what the director of CSU Fresno had to say.

The really amazing thing about blogging and the Web in general is no one can ever have the final say anymore, which is something that hasn’t quite sunk into Gorman’s mind. I encourage you to leverage the power of the Web to respond to Gorman’s statements to the mainstream press. Here are a few suggestions, based on actions I’ve taken when I see Gorman quoted in the press:

* Write the reporter(s) who wrote the article and explain that Gorman is not speaking for ALA or librarianship in general. Point the reporters toward the plethora of posts about Gorman, including the summaries on LISNews.

* Post a response to Gorman on your blog, and link to the newspaper article from your website. Then cc the reporters.

* Send a letter to the editor at the newspaper he is quoted in. Stay on message: Gorman doesn’t represent ALA; Gorman doesn’t represent librarianship.

I’m no apologist for Google. Sit by me at ALA, and I’ll fill your ear with my concerns about sole-sourcing digitization to a private company, or about my observations about fair use. But Gorman isn’t making intelligent arguments about Google, or anything else. He is portraying us very badly in the mainstream press, but remember this: he doesn’t get the last word–in fact, the story of the Web is there is never a last word, only a dialog that goes on forever.

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The citation for the WSJ article quoting Gorman: Kevin J. Delaney and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “Google Will Return to Scanning Copyrighted Library Books,” Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), New York, N.Y.: Nov 1, 2005. pg. B.1. According to Proquest, this is the fourth of five articles on Google that Trachtenberg and Delaney have co-authored.

What Gorman said in the November 1 WSJ article:

1. He “feels” the Google book scanning project “is a potential disaster on several levels” that is “reducing scholarly texts to paragraphs. The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue.”

(This is Gorman being Gorman, fully on-message in his argument that snippet-reading grows hair on your palms.)

2. The American Library Association “doesn’t have an official position on the subject.”

(N.b.: This is one area where the reporters could have stretched a little farther. A quick Google search would have revealed plenty of unofficial positions.)

3. The idea of reading “snippets” online (I suspect “snippets” was his word, not theirs) is “ridiculous.”

(This is just the snippet argument again, this time not obscured behind the smokescreen of “scholarly texts.”)

4. As a published author, the Google database is a “flaunting” of his IP rights.

(The article emphasized that the project is still focusing on books out of copyright, so this is a factual flub.)

Aside from Google and ALA, two other entities are cited in the article: the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors’ Guild. Both groups are formally engaged in litigation over Google’s scanning.

Three library representatives were quoted before Gorman: Andrew Herkovic of Stanford, John Wilkin of the University of Michigan, and Tom Garnett of the Smithsonian. Herkovic and Wilkin are both involved in the project, and had positive comments about it. The Smithsonian, however, will “maintain a conservative stance until the disputes are resolved.” (I read Garnett’s position as “the second mouse gets the cheese”: not a bad approach in general, and one I espouse for most new technologies.)

Then come the two Gorman paragraphs, which occupy over ten percent of an 1147 word article. This is understandable: Gorman talks a lot, he’s colorful, he’s willing to go way out on a limb, he fits the narrative template of an old-tyme librarian, and he holds a key position in a large organization. It would have been nice if the WSJ had tracked down one of us peons, but the WSJ isn’t that concerned about peons to begin with, so the focus of the article can’t be faulted as far as the newspaper’s goals are concerned.

On a related front, Leslie Burger has already been elected, but it’s not too early to send the message that we will be thrilled, just thrilled, if she helps make us all look good to the outside world. (I didn’t vote for her, but I have never thought of her as a charlatan like Gorman; I just preferred Christine Hage.) Perhaps she needs some talking points from the biblioblogosphere and TechnoLibraryLand (it’s a small island off the LibraryLand peninsula). What would you say to Leslie?

It’s also not too early to pointedly ask the latest ALA candidates what their opinions are, and to make it clear they are being watched. I plan to send them the link to this blog post.

And now it’s late, and I need to tend to My Craft.

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It’s All Good reports that Michael Gorman again went after Google (in re the project now called Google Book Search) in an article in the Wall Street Journal (11/1/05), asserting once more, “The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue.”

Have you noticed how none of us have said anything? It’s not that we have drunk the KoolAid and now agree with Gorman. It’s that we’re so over him. I just don’t hear Gorman any more.

Gorman has labored strenuously for nearly a year to alienate most of his constituents, including many people (not me!) who supported him for his one-year post as ALA president. Like George Bush, he has wasted precious capital on completely the wrong things. Gorman has used his time in office to take ill-considered, rambling, fundamentally wrong-headed pot shots at librarian bloggers, Google, and technology in general. He not only hasn’t toned down in the face of criticism; with the WSJ comments, it’s clear he thinks he’s quite clever by half. I only hope that if some other “MSM” outlet covers Gorman, it has the wherewithal to ask how well he truly represents librarianship.

The sad part is there is much to be said about Google, yet it’s happening elsewhere, away from the Wall Street Journal. The good discussions, the really acute, witty, thought-provoking critiques, take place on Web4Lib, among the likes of Rich Wiggins and Roy Tennant. Meanwhile, thanks to Gorman’s spittle-flecked ravings, the rest of the world can think of us as simple-minded throwbacks. All the “@ Your Library” money in the world can’t compensate for that kind of enduring bad press.

I’d like to think Leslie Burger will be different. She doesn’t have to do a fresh install of Red Hat to impress me; it’s also o.k. if she doesn’t read blogs. But following the humiliating regime of Michael Gorman, it would be nice to have an ALA president who made us look just a tiny bit better in the eyes of the world, and who encouraged us to harness technology at the beck and call of the services we provide. Leslie, soon it will be your time. We count on you.

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