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

[Kathleen Stipek]

Somewhere in The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks, Robertson Davies has
Marchbanks, his alter ego, observe something along the lines that he
didn't accept the people's mathematics, and he didn't see why he had to
hold with other views of the masses.  As an unrepentant elitist, I tend
to agree and believe that this Jacksonian democracy of internet stuff is
a mess and should go away.  I am also a realist and know that it isn't
going to.  Therefore, we  experienced information evaluators need to get
involved and do what we can to attain transparency of sources.
Librarians are still the ones who know how to evaluate a resource, and I
would suspect that sites that want credibility--and plenty of
hits--wouldn't object at all to transparency.  
 
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


________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:38 PM
To: Publib
Subject: Re: [Publib] 2.0: It cheapens us, it cheapens everyone


My personal take is.. I've opted to be vocal about the weaknesses I see
in Wikipedia and similar online efforts, and to NOT participate. I
wouldn't have said "cheapens," personally, but I know what Joe is
getting at. Chasing the latest technological whizbang without applying
our own professional standards for authority, credibility, quality, and
so on to it is not helping our profession, or our patrons who rely on
us. So, in that sense, the bandwagon effect applies. We are probably all
somewhat "guilty" of 2.0-ism, but like many savvy souls on the Internet,
it's a good time before the logs are all burned to step back and say,
what are we doing here?

My $.02 won't even coffee..

For Friday, will Joe write something about Super Bowl mania in Phoenix?
:)

Best,
DrWeb aka Michael
drweb at san.rr.com


On Jan 31, 2008 10:55 AM, K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:



	On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:46:57 -0500, "Kathleen Stipek"
<kstipek at aclib.us>
	said:
	
	> 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.
	
	
	This is a valid problem but is not adequate for supporting the
broader
	argument that 2.0 "cheapens" us.
	
	A number of people (including me) have written at length about
	Wikipedia's problems. As Kathleen says, we need to participate.
We have
	not been loud enough in this conversation. For a really good
discussion
	about the role of expertise, see Liz Lawley's talk to Google:
	
	http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ctyi98ruvzY
	
	Karen G. Schneider
	
	


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