On 8/3/13 8:38 AM, James Weinheimer wrote:
> But all of that assumes that a community no longer needs the library
> itself.
I don't know where that comes from, but my message was the opposite. The
community very definitely needs the library. Unless you think that the
library is books and journals, but not learning, creating, communicating.
> What people (and many librarians) need to really understand (not just
> know but to fully understand) is that the Googles *do not care* about
> you and your welfare.
I guess there are people who haven't figured this out, but thanks to
Edward Snowden the message is reaching farther than it ever had. I'm
seeing a sea change here. Not that it will turn us from a
consumer/capitalist society to something more caring, because that ship
has sailed. But the image of the Internet as a big bag o' friends is
definitely tarnished.
kc
> In fact, they *cannot* care. They are corporations, and their *only*
> goal is to maximize their own profits. This is not a political screed,
> but merely detailing the facts. By law, maximizing profits can be
> their *only* goal. If the management of a corporation put a
> community's goals before the goals of the corporation, they would be
> fired and very possibly jailed. If Ebeneezer Scrooge had been head of
> a corporation and not the owner of his own business, he could have
> done nothing to help Tiny Tim or anybody--except using his own money.
> And he never could have given poor Bob Cratchit a raise out of the
> corporate funds. Milton Friedman discussed this (minus Scrooge) in an
> article from 1970 whose title pretty much sums up the article: "The
> Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits":
> http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html.
> As he put it there, "... in his capacity as a corporate executive, the
> manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation... and
> his primary responsibility is to them." That is, not to the Bob
> Cratchits and not to the Tiny Tims. Such a fact is extremely important
> to understand and accept. I am not finding fault with this corporate
> mentality, but I do think people need to be fully aware of it and of
> its consequences. Finding reliable information is certainly not any
> less complicated than it was before the internet, and it is even more
> unpredictable since you may click on something that is so shocking it
> may make you fall off of your chair, it could be full of total,
> outlandish lies or outrageously biased. There is a genuine danger of
> "filter bubbles" and the like. The corporations *do not care* about
> that. They *cannot* care--that is, if they continue to be profitable.
> So, libraries can continue to make their physical spaces available for
> after-school care, for children and for courses on how to use a
> computer. But finding reliable information is just as important for a
> community as it has ever been and should still be at the heart of a
> library's mission. Therefore, to say that "The Mission of Librarians
> is to Improve Society through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in Their
> Communities" effectively leaves the mass of people completely to the
> mercy of the corporate information world. In other words, libraries
> should just make Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit as happy in their misery as
> they can be. That would make the Googles happy since it would stop
> competition. Shouldn't there be an alternative? Task number one for
> librarians should be to create that viable alternative. It would be a
> noble task that would appeal to many, I believe.
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Sat Aug 03 2013 - 12:20:18 EDT