Oh, my sweet, sweet Janet,
Janet Hill <Janet.Hill_at_colorado.edu> wrote:
> Since you asked --
It was a couple of rhetorical questions, but don't let that get in the
way of going for the man rather than the challenges put forth.
> your approach, through this thread at least, has appeared
> to me to be combative and dismissive. You deem it "honesty". Others deem
> it "condescending". Passion is good. Stridency is not helpful. Strong
> opinions are good, but not as weapons. Radical ideas are good, but not as
> dares. Real progress in a system as laden with inertia as ours demands
> cooperation among and participation by many. Positions stated in a manner
> that drives people away from genuine exchange does not engender the
> cooperation, participation, thought, and invention and progress that you so
> fervently desire.
Let me make something perfectly clear, something that's been on my
mind for a long time and that I feel is probably as important in any
of these discussions as any of the open threads ;
All through my many years of engaging with the library world there is
one strong common phenomena that keeps me coming back for more, and
that is that people like me who voice their opinion in here a bit
louder and harsher than the hushed levels librarians normally enjoy,
we (well, I) get tons and tons of private mails from other librarians
write letters of appreciation and thanking me for saying what
sometimes needs to be said (and sometimes needs to be said in a strong
way). These are in general people who prefer not to engage in voicing
opinions against the library administration, who dare not open their
mouth in fear of people like you, because you're the professor, and
they are not. I'm not merely blabbering about stupid things no one
cares about, or daring people into stuff you deem silly. Lots of
people are worried. Lots of people want change before their jobs gets
cut further. Lots of people want to steer the Titanic of the library
world in a different direction. But they often can't state this out
loud, for many, many reasons, mostly because we're all human, and
humans often do stupid things that the rule books weren't designed to
trigger.
All of your opinions on what is good and bad conduct is simply nothing
more than your opinion, and I doubt you'll be able to back it up once
scrutinized, so asking rhetorical questions should be *easy* to
dispel. Why aren't you?. Again I notice that *your* only contribution
to this discussion has been to attack the person. Well done.
Regards,
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Fri Apr 23 2010 - 23:21:07 EDT