[Publib] 2.0: It cheapens us, it cheapens everyone

[James Casey]

Kathleen offers some cogent observations in reaction to Joe's remarks.
The times are changing and we can't just demand a return to the "good
old days" when every published word was painstakingly edited and/or
reviewed.  I recall the days when it could take a year or more for a
manuscript submitted to a scholarly journal or publisher to get through
the review processes and finally appear in print.  

The problems run deeper than simply the rampant growth of the 2.0
technology explosion and the sloppy, dash-it-off publications that Joe
correctly cites.

Has anyone read a newspaper lately?  Inaccuracies, misspellings,
incorrect usage, blatant errors, typos, etc. are to be found even on
those print resources.  I've seen books published by reputable presses
with errors on every page (even reference books), books with pictures of
historical figures incorrectly labeled, blatant factual errors, etc..
The final version of FACTS ABOUT THE PRESIDENTS (2001) had errors
throughout the final pages describing the Clinton and Bush
administrations.  I pointed this out to the publisher (Wilson) at an ALA
Conference (a dozen or so factual and typographical errors on two or
three pages).  The Wilson rep merely shrugged his shoulders.  The price
tag on that book was something like $80.  One scholarly biography of the
Emperor Claudius had picture plates with Roman coins incorrectly
labeled.  I wrote to the publisher and got zero reply.  When the book
was reprinted sometime later, the errors were still there.  I could go
on and on.  However, I'm describing a deterioration in standards that
has been going on for many years.  I'm afraid that the 2.0 culture has
only served to generate a more elaborate and extensive symptom of the
disease.

K-Secondary education had deteriorated in our country to the point where
writing, editing and simple caring about quality seem to be a thing of
the past. Higher education hasn't necessarily picked up the ball.  My
wife taught English to MA candidates for ten years and was often totally
aghast at how some of the people in her classes could have passed
through a BA program with basic writing deficiencies that should have
been totally unacceptable even at the high school level. I served on a
review panel for a Ph.D. candidate and was so appalled at the lax
attitude of the program that I was prompted to telephone the accrediting
body to find out if the program was actually accepting of this very
deficient program.  I ended up resigning from the review body and blew
away a nice chunk of money rather than be a party to such a travesty.
The individual who's Ph.D. proposal was so incredibly bad was awarded
the degree after payment of the necessary fees.  He went on to become a
Superintendent of a school district in West Virginia (and probably earns
significantly more than me).  That was 20 years ago.  --- And then we
have been watching the matchless articulation of our current President
of the United States since 2001. .  .  .

James B. Casey -- My own views
Director of Oak Lawn Public Library
ALA Council Member



-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Kathleen Stipek
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:47 AM
To: Joe Schallan; Publib
Subject: RE: [Publib] 2.0: It cheapens us, it cheapens everyone

While I think that there can be some use for wikis and similar
technological resources both for librarians and the general public, I
have some of Joe's reservations about accuracy and authority in
information resources.  Right now, we can't tell who is contributing to
Wikipedia or any other wiki.  There may be a way to chase down the
information on somebody's screen name to find out if this person knows
what he's talking about, but the ordinary patron hasn't got time for it.
And most ordinary  patron is 'way too trusting.  They believe that if
it's on the internet or in print or on TV, it is so because it's illegal
to lie.  They don't understand that this is not even close to being so.
In the past, this is where librarians have come in as information
evaluation specialists.  Our stock in trade has always been hunting down
reliable, authoritative information.  Here I part company with Joe.  I
think that librarians need to participate in the internet, perhaps not
in Wikipedia except in areas where we have either personal or
professional expertise.  We need to be the ones demanding transparency
in information provision.  No more edits or contributions with screen
names.  If your information is good, you should be prepared to put your
name on it and state your sources.  We could add wiki reviews to LJ,
RBB, etc., and make a point of which ones have source details and which
are anonymous.  As it is anybody, with wonderful information or lousy,
can create a wiki to enlighten or endim the world.  We as librarians,
information evaluators, need to be involved, to separate and identify
the trash and the treasure.  Reference book publishers cringe when RBB
reviewers observe 'not a necessary purchase.'  Internet content
providers should cringe when a librarian review of their wiki or other
resource observes 'not a necessary link.'  The time for passivity is
over.  Someone needs to evaluate the quality of information out there,
and we have the tools and the talent.

Kathleen Stipek
Alachua County Library District
401 East University Avenue
Gainesville, Florida 32601
352-334-3931  (fax) 352-334-3948
 
     --Non, merci.
       Cyrano de Bergerac


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Joe Schallan
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:51 PM
To: Publib
Subject: [Publib] 2.0: It cheapens us, it cheapens everyone

This book from last summer got under my radar and I have just discovered
it. Since it directly relates to my recent remarks on crowdsourcing, I
thought I'd share an excerpt with the list:

Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur -- How Today's Internet is Killing
Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy, New York: Doubleday/Currency,
2007.

Blurb: In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider
Keen exposes the grave consequences of today's new participatory Web
2.0. He reveals how amateur, user-generated free content threatens the
very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American
achievement. 


>From Chapter 1:

. . . democratization, despite its lofty idealization, is undermining
truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience,
and talent. As I noted earlier, it is threatening the very future of our
cultural institutions.

I call it the great seduction. The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the
promise of bringing more truth to more people-more depth of information,
more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate
observers. But this is all a smokescreen. What the Web 2.0 revolution is
really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us
rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered
judgment. The information business is being transformed by the Internet
into the sheer noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously
talking about themselves.

Moreover, the free, user-generated content spawned and extolled by the
Web 2.0 revolution is decimating the ranks of our cultural gatekeepers,
as professional critics, journalists, editors, musicians, moviemakers,
and other purveyors of expert information are being replaced
("disintermediated," to use a FOO Camp term) by amateur bloggers, hack
reviewers, homespun moviemakers, and attic recording artists. Meanwhile,
the radically new business models based on user-generated material suck
the economic value out of traditional media and cultural content.

- - - - - - - -


Keen could have added "reference librarians" to his list of purveyors of
expert information whose ranks are being decimated, of course.

Excellent coverage of the book and the issues it raises may be found on
the BBC website:

http://tinyurl.com/2ju5sz


Librarians, ever eager, in their inexhaustible insecurity, to emulate
the latest fad to prove their hipness and coolness, have come up with
"Library 2.0,"
a term which, as near as I can tell, means we will embrace all the
various social-networking sites and tools to reach our patrons, in a
sort of vast, blissful emailochattic, facebooky, myspaceish,
ningytwittery, blogospheric, flickristic, picasametric, mahalodic,
youtubian, wikidly del.icio.us informational orgasm.

If any of you heard Joe Janes at Internet Librarian in Monterey, you
know he excoriated librarians who gripe about Wikipedia's authority and
accuracy but who do not join the Wikipedians to make the source better.

Given Keen's analysis, perhaps the correct response to Wikipedia is
precisely NOT to participate in it.

I'd further ask, Why we should give away our expertise for nothing?
Kindle Ask NowNow thinks our expertise is worth exactly two cents an
answer, and at that rate, the Mechanical Turks aren't making even
third-world sweatshop wages. Not even remotely close, if you do the time
and the math. Sure incentivizes delivery of high-quality information,
eh?

The crowning glory of our profession was once its insistence on accuracy
and authority.

Should we not, finally, continue to insist? Isn't such insistence what
makes us, finally, what we are?

Joe Schallan
Phoenix



 
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