Librarian

Michael Gorman, ALA president, is scorned by tekkie librarian bloggers and the blogerati. I have been trying here and there to defend him.

But it’s not Michael I am defending so much as a plea to those who see no value in the generation passing out of the ALA leadership…to look at library history and see that they have made many contributions.

Michael has symbolisim for me for once MARC was cutting edge. As a student at the University of Chicago GLS I was taught FORTRAN. And at that time GLS * was one of the only places imagining a future of online catalogs. The addition of MARC to AACR2 was the bridge.

I have put two posts at “Tame the Web”.

I am pasting them below.

Post #1. Why do we hate our own so much?
I ran for ALA president in 1991 and lost to Hardy Franklin but had enough exposure to the responsibilities of the presidency to recognize it takes lot of personal time and commitment. If using Flickr and blogging are what determines professional viability today, and Mr. Gorman does not do either, at least recognize that he has done good things for our field such as the Anglo-American Cataloging rules; a series of thoughtful books including Our Enduring Values, The Enduring Library and Our Singular Strengths.

I remember him giving the Keynote at the Louisiana Library Association in Alexandia in the mid-80s..he drove from Urbana and was kind to all in spite of the state’s poverty. The charge of elitism is an easy one and often simply means that the targeted one has a different way of thinking.
I suppose it is always this way as one generation gives way to another…but Michael is retiring this year and maybe will have the time to learn to use Flickr. Everyone can’t be Hedi Slimane.
In the meantime please try and see that a person is a series of points in time and not the most recent point.
And Leslie Berger will bring a different set of experiences and so will Loriene Roy. We should all be grateful that such amazing people work for the good of the order.
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May I suggest a wonderful book by William Boyd–Any Human Heart–80 years in a life? It might give those willing to cast away a person an understaning that a life is more than blogging.
Post #2. Can you give me examples of his being “elitist and pseudo-intellectual?” I thought it was his lack of technological facility that was under fire. I admit to not having his complete works at hand. In fact the only book close by my desk is his 1978 Anglo-American cataloguing rules. 2nd ed.
Sometimes we just ‘know” different people. I met Michael when I was on the faculty at the Univ. of Illinois and he was AD at the library there. Having been part of the initial implementation of OCLC at Dominican University (AKA Rosary) I had, quite expectedly, been an avid follower of the process.
I can’t expect anyone here to really see what I am defending but i AACR2 was so amazing with the incorporation of machine-readable records…so what I am asking is for an understanding that the capacity to make that happen in pre-PC world was better than blogging.
And yes, my dissertation data were analyzed on punched cards…so I thought MARC was a really big deal.