The right press
After all the foofooraw about the New York Times “hip librarians” article, I feel I owe it to journalism to point out when journalists get librarianship right.
Andrew LaVallee got librarianship right and is to be commended for it. A full list of everything he did right in this article would be longer than the article itself, but just for starters:
- No buns. No shushing. No covert sneers. No misogyny. Dayenu!
- A real debate, not something trumped up out of nowhere. Nor is it fluffy “style” bushwa. These are people I recognize as librarians (and would even if I didn’t recognize the names), thinking librarianly thoughts and doing librarians’ work.
- Appropriate skepticism, presenting all sides without throwing support anywhere obvious. Sometimes that’s just wishy-washiness or unwillingness to hold to an unpopular truth, granted, but in this case it’s quite fair to let all sides have their say, since nobody knows how these particular experiments are going to turn out.
- Awareness of the online world. Some journalists turn up their noses at it, much the way we do Wikipedia, but let’s face it: online is where immediate response to immediate questions happens.
- Homework. LaVallee did his Dewey research, and expressed the results nicely.
Bravo, sir, well done. Write more about libraries, please!