Free Range Librarian

We are the standard-bearers for accurate, unbiased information.

What exactly is this unbiased information thing? I understand your issues with copyright violations and so forth as unprofessional, but why on earth are you expecting bloggers to be journalists? Just because blogs have been used and examined as a form of grassroots journalism in the last American election doesn’t mean that the blog form is in fact a member of that particular family.

I think if we think about blogs as part of a multitude of voices the internet gives us; no one should be trying to provide “unbiased’ information through a blog. A blog kept by an individual, say, an individual librarian, is one person’s perspective. In the case of a conference being blogged; well, people should be blogging about what they think, and linking to what they feel like talking about, not trying to efface themselves from their own content. The idea that anyone is even suggesting that such a thing is possible is troubling.

Be smart, be thoughtful, be well-informed; but you can’t take your perspective out of a blog. Trying to do so is just going to make your blog less rich and less interesting.

Even items that claim to be “news” come with the bias of the owner of the press. If you are a single layperson writing about your experiences or your thoughts about what’s interesting and happening in your line of sight, yes, you shouldn’t be claiming some kind of journalistic, objective integrity, or expecting it. Hearing someone’s take on what they’re experiencing is just as newsworthy as some attempt to be unbiased and objective, don’t you think? And, I think, a lot more interesting. Blogs are great, but I don’t think journalism is the right model in this context.

I understand your frustration with unprofessional librarians. Hell, the library literature is full of that sort of thing; article after article is full of typos, poorly-researched assertions, outright errors, and a complete lack of useful, critical thinking. I would love to see librarians produce nothing but intelligent and thoughtful prose. But I think asking us to follow some kind of unbiased, faux-journalistic code is going in the wrong direction. As you say, librarians get ticked off if people without an MLIS call themselves librarians; why try to be journalists?

The ALA doesn’t pretend not to have an opinion; why should we?