Family Man Librarian

In my previous post I ranted a bit about soundbites in our library profession and how I fear that such soundbites are too easily digested without question. Karen Schneider encouraged me to listen to the MP3 recording of the live panel discussion at ALA from which I derived my original criticism. So this is what I did late yesterday.

First, kudos to LITA (one of the only areas of ALA that I have any respect or use for) for making the recording of that session readily available. Second, I realize now that I should indeed have listened to that session first because it provides a much more well-rounded picture of the entire discussion than what I had initially derived from Roy Tennant’s shorter writeup. Just to be clear, I’m not then criticizing Roy for his short writeup. That’s usually the way information is reported from conference sessions. Instead this incident reminds me that basing one’s judgment on one short writeup isn’t a good idea at all. I should have known better by now.

So let me admit that I was too hasty to rush to judgment. Sorry.

But let me also state that I still have a problem with the growing prevalence of soundbites and the lack, at times, of more in-depth reflection and questioning about important issues like the role or future of the library catalog. Stephen Abram just commented on my previous post and in his comment mentioned the fact that all of the panelists in fact do provide deeper insights in terms of their writing in various forums or in books and articles. That’s a valid point.

I also still have issues with some of what was said in that particular panel discussion. (One example is the brief mention of use of sentence case in cataloging, which I truly think is a strawman argument, even as I concur that the average person can be confused by it, and agree that we need to be aware of how broadly cataloging data is being used in ways far beyond our small library universe.) But as Stephen reminded me, in a way, this discussion was purposefully about soundbites to stimulate debate and further discourse.

In sum, I’ll be more careful about getting as full a picture as possible about a discussion blogged or reported by someone before commenting on it. And maybe I need to spend more time and effort articulating my own views and possible counterpoints to some of the neo-dogma that I see out there.