Mike Gorman Stampeded by Barbarians; woodcut at 11:00
Today gatekeeper and sole protector of all human civilization,
Mike Gorman, was crushed beneath the unshod feet of pseudo-literate
members of the dark forest tribe blogeoisie. As they rushed onward over
his shocked and dismayed carcass, one stopped to offer this comment:
"Bar-bar, bar-bar" which this reporter translates as "Yes we burn your
manuscripts simply to light our midnight druid frenzies."
I seem to have come to this party late. Mr. Gorman, president
elect of the American Libraries Assoc., published an op-ed piece in the
Los Angeles Times late last year ("Google and God's Mind," December 17,
2004). That seems to have gone to pay-per-view web status Not true, I was uncareful. Article above is now pdf link. So I can
only go by what I read here in a recent article which seems to be his
reply to criticism: Revenge of the Blog People! As Mr. Gorman himself explains - Bloggers rip me: "I
had heard of the activities of the latter and of the absurd idea of
giving them press credentials (though, since the credentials were
issued for political conventions, they were just absurd icing on absurd
cakes)." Well I give him points for the multiple ad hominim. To this he adds: "I
have spent a lot of my long professional life working on aspects of the
noble aim of Universal Bibliographic Control a mechanism by which all
the world's recorded knowledge would be known, and available, to the
people of the world." His Bona Fides for the benefit of those inclined to be sympathetic. From here he scurries on to his defense:
"...in the eyes of bloggers, my sin lay in suggesting that Google is OK
at giving access to random bits of information but would be terrible at
giving access to the recorded knowledge that is the substance of
scholarly books"
I'm beginning to see why he attracted the ire of people who
actually know how to use google as a search engine, or who have
discovered that there is useful knowledge that has escaped from books
(where its safe and quiet). Who may even have helped it escape. If he
had stopped here I might even have considered him, but he doesn't - he
can't. He continues:
...Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have
seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of
sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their
intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and
paragraphs.
I've actually read one of his books: Technical services today and tomorrow / [compiled by] Michael Gorman and associates.
Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 1998. What can I say; I
work in a technical services department. I thought it might help explain
what I do for a living. By his own logic (and my guess is that his own
logic is what he would leave last), that would mean his writting
is just such a collection of thrown-up randomness not rising to
the level of "Text". Mr. Gorman has written or edited a great many
books. Consider just the last two: The enduring library : technology, tradition, and the quest for balance,or Our enduring values : librarianship in the 21st century. What stirring and non-leaden titles. Such enduring nobility of great soul, and in only one man!
---
Update: My sources within the vast library industry tell me that
Michael Gorman is actually a decent and upright kind of person.
He may just have heard the word "Google" a few too many times.
9:54:02 PM  ;;
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