[Publib] Darien Revisited

[kmccook at tampabay.rr.com]

Pushmata,
Is this from that library journal blog that doesn't like libraries?
--Kathleen

Union Librarian: Kathleen de la Peña McCook
http://unionlibrarian.blogspot.com/
===

On 11 Apr 2009 at 22:49, Backwage at aol.com wrote:

>  
> A quick gloss on the Darien Statements; a fuller analysis will follow,  
> meaning that I'm going to write it over again, but only after a couple of 
> drinks  tonight.  If this were an assignment in a college class, I'd fail the  
> writers for lack of imagination, very poor writing and not having demonstrated 
>  any particular thesis whatever.  My remarks in brackets. 
> M. McGrorty 
> -----------------------------   
> The Darien  Statements on the Library and Librarians
> Written and endorsed by  John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill, and Cindi Trainor 
> The Purpose of the  Library 
> The purpose of the Library is to preserve  the integrity of civilization. 
> [Somebody has been drinking.  Though the authors attempt in advance to  
> excuse this sort of verbiage by saying their statement is "grand," it is  
> actually grandiose, and inaccurate.  Civilization, by which most people mean the 
> accumulation of culture and  learning, has neither integrity in the sense 
> of reputation nor integrity in the  sense of undefiled wholeness.] 
> The Library has a moral obligation to  adhere to its purpose despite 
> social, economic, environmental, or political  influences. The purpose of the 
> Library will never change. 
> [Only individuals have moral  obligations.  Otherwise, a library  could be 
> immoral by failing in its obligation.  Institutions can´t have obligations; 
> they  can have generally accepted roles.  The Catholic Church doesn't have a 
>  moral obligation--its priests and worshippers do.] 
> The Library is infinite in its capacity  to contain, connect and 
> disseminate knowledge; librarians are human and  ephemeral, therefore we must work 
> together to ensure the Library´s  permanence. 
> [Hardly.  Were that true, the library would be  about the size of the solar 
> system.  If the authors were thinking of the capacity of the internet as a  
> component of the library, then they ought to refer to that-and the internet 
> is  not the library any more than publishing is.  The library is dependent 
> upon both,  controls neither and at best has some operational relationship 
> to both.  Librarians are human; there´s a  surprise.  They are  ephemeral; 
> who knew?  Really, did anybody assume otherwise?  And if we must work 
> together, it is not  because we all die, nor because we are human, but because our 
> systems operate  optimally through cooperation.] 
> Individual libraries serve the mission of  their parent institution or 
> governing body, but the purpose of the Library  overrides that mission when the 
> two come into conflict. 
> [Most definitely not so.  The purpose of the library as an  institution is 
> debated and debatable, and there is not a library system in  existence which 
> perceives that its parts or branches owe allegiance to any set  of rules in 
> opposition to those put out for the whole.  Nor do those sub-parts 
> subscribe to  that.  This statement is not only  untrue, but there aren´t half a 
> dozen librarians on earth who would accept that  the branches need to "preserve 
> the integrity of civilization" at the expense of  any plan or design in 
> competition to their rules and  regulations.] 
> Why we do things will not change,  but how we do them will.   
> [Sure our reasons for doing things  will change.  Always have  changed.  
> The role of the library  expands, and contains our reasons for doing things 
> for different reasons.  An astonishingly naïve  statement.] 
> A clear understanding of the Library´s  purpose, its role, and the role of 
> librarians is essential to the preservation  of the Library. 
> [Nice thought, and I wouldn´t alter  that, though it´s not true.  The  
> library has limped along for a century or more though many librarians can´t now 
>  and might not ever have been able to recite precisely why the place ought 
> to  exist, and even though their reasons might have been radically different 
> from  one another.  Besides, the public,  who writes the check for all 
> this, has only a vague feel-good idea of what the  library is for, and they 
> consistently support the  institution.] 
> The Role of the  Library 
> The  Library: 
>     *   Provides the opportunity for personal  enlightenment.  
>     *   Encourages the love of learning.   
>     *   Empowers people to fulfill their civic  duty.  [duties, unless you 
> think  there´s only one] 
>     *   Facilitates human connections.  [I will leave that alone for now 
> though  it is the worst sort of vague jargon] 
>     *   Preserves and provides materials.  [That´s the best we can  say?] 
>     *   Expands capacity for creative expression.  [more  anon] 
>     *   Inspires and perpetuates hope.  ["perpetuates" is not true, and can
> ´t  be.  And hope-just hope?  For  what?]
> 
> The Role of  Librarians 
> Librarians: 
>     *   Are stewards of the Library.  [do what, serve  drinks?] 
>     *   Connect people with accurate information.  [And inaccurate  
> information-that´s part of the role.] 
>     *   Assist people in the creation of their  human and information 
> networks.  [Winner of worst jargon award for this  hour, in tough competition.  
> Also  meaningless.] 
>     *   Select, organize and facilitate creation  of content.  ["content" 
> means  happy.  Libraries have  contents-material and otherwise.   Try 
> again.] 
>     *   Protect access to content and preserve  freedom of information and 
> expression.  [Try  `materials´] 
>     *   Anticipate, identify and meet the needs of  the Library´s 
> community.  [Their  communities, and no, I don´t grant you leeway for a first draft 
> that´s been  posted on the internet]
> 
> The Preservation of the  Library 
> Our [Whose? Those three authors´  methods?  And what would those be?]  
> methods need to rapidly change to address the profound impact of information  
> technology on the nature of human connection and the transmission and  
> consumption of knowledge. 
> If the Library is to fulfill its purpose  in the future, librarians must 
> commit to a culture of continuous operational  change, accept risk and 
> uncertainty as key properties of the profession, and  uphold service to the user as 
> our most valuable directive. 
> [Whose methods would those be?  Those of the three authors?  And what 
> methods would those be that are  so outdated that they need to be rapidly 
> changed?  The next sentence is really bad, the  worst sort of tech-speak.] 
> As librarians, we  must: 
>     *   Promote openness, kindness, and transparency  among libraries and 
> users. 
> [Kindness.  Say it to yourself and try not to  snicker.  Blessed are the  
> librarians, for they promote kindness among users.] 
>     *   Eliminate barriers to cooperation between the  Library and any 
> person, institution, or entity within or outside the Library.  
> ["Any person, institution or entity . .  ."  Reads like an ordinance.  And 
> what exactly would that mean, in  English?] 
>     *   Choose wisely what to stop doing. 
> [First, stop putting together stuff like  this which weakly replicates the 
> Library Bill of Rights without any rigor in  analysis.] 
>     *   Preserve and foster the connections between  users and the Library. 
> [Excellent.] 
>     *   Harness distributed expertise to serve the needs  of the local and 
> global community. 
> [Dude, there is not nor will there ever be a  phrase such as "distributed 
> expertise," I don´t care how many times you´ve heard  it in library tech 
> conferences or over ale at the local brewpub.] 
>     *   Help individuals to learn and to use new tools  to create a more 
> robust path to knowledge. 
> ["Robust."  Isn´t that one of those hot descriptive  terms whose best 
> substitute is nothing?]  
>     *   Engage in activism on behalf of the Library if  its integrity is 
> externally threatened. 
> [I thought the point of this exercise was to  demonstrate that the `
> integrity´ of the library was in fact externally  threatened.] 
>     *   Endorse procedures only if they guide librarians  or users to 
> excellence. 
> [And of course, working librarians so often are  asked for their 
> endorsement of policies or procedures.  And the use of `excellence´ here is  exactly 
> as valueless as when the right-wingers used to invoke the term in their  own 
> exhortations, as "In Pursuit of Excellence." 
>     *   Identify and implement the most humane and  efficient methods, 
> tools, standards and practices. 
> [Humane.  We are apparently euthanizing pets  here.  Bad  use.] 
>     *   Adopt technology that keeps data open and free,  abandon technology 
> that does not. 
> [Wow.  They ended a sentence with `not.´  I would have bet nobody would do 
> that.  Not.] 
>     *   Be willing and have the expertise to make  frequent radical 
> changes. 
> [Three major grammar errors in a short  sentence.  Breathtaking.] 
>     *   Hire the best people and let them do their job;  remove staff who 
> cannot or will not. 
> [Who hire?  Remove by what rationale?  Oh  sure, why not.  Just say 
> whatever  comes to mind.  Let´s have some more  wine.] 
>     *   Trust each other and trust the users.  
> [So spectacularly vague it makes the  previous "content" look like an 
> honors  thesis.]