On Tue, 24 May 2011, Laval Hunsucker wrote:
> David H. Rothman wrote :
>> Maybe we can say that the role of librarians is for them to encourage
>> patrons to be their own truth-seekers, just so the users have the
>> facts to be intelligent about it.
Pretty reasonable statement, since one needs "facts" ("truth") in order
to seek same, but what patrons really need are objective guidelines as to
how to distinguish "truth" from manipulation in materials representing
themselves as factual.
> It still sounds pretty patronizing (and condescending) to me, though
> possibly I'm misreading just where you're coming from.
I suspect there is a misreading afoot, since it would be highly
patronizing *not* to train and encourage patrons to be their own
truth-seekers.
> James Rettig ... wrote ... "every information seeker should be free of
> the librarian's expectations"
That would depend upon how you might define a "librarian's expectations."
Mine would be that every information seeker can learn how to discern the
nature of objective "truth."
jgm
John G. Marr
Cataloger
CDS, UL
Univ. of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
jmarr_at_unm.edu
jmarr_at_flash.net
**There are only 2 kinds of thinking: "out of the box" and "outside
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Received on Tue May 24 2011 - 17:13:01 EDT