On Fri, 29 Jul 2011, James Weinheimer wrote:
> ... she was terrified, but had no idea what to do except--sweep her
> patio.
This image also chracterized around half of the electorate (pretty
important people who run all of our lives and budgets), who simply do
not understand the issues or the complexities of political
rhetoricbeyoind sound-bites.
> Librarians have to show that they are relevant and they have to do it soon
In order to be relevant, Librarians have to become proactive. If they
cannot be proactive, then they need to research why and publish on that.
No one else, particularly no one outside of commercial venues (think: the
media) has the insight, opportunity, or resources to organize workshops
and prepare hand-outs explaining the details behind specific issues,
sound-bites, and rhetorical practices in the media nad elsewhere. At the
very least, simple directions to factual Web sites could be prominently
advertised (although this practice only reaches people with access to
computers).
> the economic/information environment is changing very, very quickly.
Yes, Virginia, there are people out there would would like to remove
government funding from libraries. In particular, until proven impossible,
there are people out there who would either like to turn libraries into
profit-making corporate entities responsible only to major investors, or
close them to limit the dissimenation of information altogether.
> Our relevance is no longer taken as a given.
We have always been the ones to assume our own relevance. We have not
always (if ever) show a willingness to defend or develop and
increase our relevance. Assuming that others will take our relevance as a
given is impractical, since there are "others" who will more vocally
argue the opposite.
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
the box."
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Received on Fri Jul 29 2011 - 19:50:34 EDT