On Mon, 15 Aug 2011, Cindy Harper wrote:
> Now - how much $$$ would it take to convert these concerns to public service
> announcements from ALA that make people aware of the freedom they are giving
> up when Google chooses their search results, and the advertisers determine
> what options they know about?
How many concepts do you want me to respond to at once??? :)
$$$ ??? As long as that is the first consideration, we will always be
in deep doo-doo. (PS: have you taken notice of the rather belated synopses
of "Nixon's Colossal Monetary Error" popping up in the "news" today?)
Convert concerns to public service? Simple. Just demonstrate all the
search engines and their effectiveness and teach critical thinking and
responsibility in interpretation of the written and spoken word. You would
not even have to teach responsibility in speaking and writing, since
students (people) would begin to demand them.
Announcements from ALA? I'm afraid ALA is already too bureaucratic and
self-interested as a "corporation" [remember those comments about it not
being "responsive" enough?] and too dependent on the largess of other
corporations and commercial interests to be overly concerned with social
responsibility (unless its membership introduces to it a different
dominant paradigm).
The real problem with Google and advertising is that their broad social
affect is too subtle for them (or the average citizen) to notice (or even
care about?), relative to the constraints of their huge bureaucracies and
concerns with the "bottom-line." Fiscal success (or pursuit of it) tends
to inflate the pleasure centers of the brain and overwhelm the rational
centers (if one is not already born with the problem).
Could librarians make the "announcements?" If not, might it be because we
are going the same way as ALA and Google? BUT: we could certainly
introduce the problem in critical thinking curricula and demonstrate it by
demonstrating various search engines (and, in the process, demonstrating
practical reasons for discouraging use of the phrase "google it").
OK, back to $$$-- what quicker way to motivate ALA than to send in
individual purpose-earmarked donations en masse?
Cheers!
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 Mon Aug 15 2011 - 17:13:45 EDT