Making a statement
Fri 3 Apr 2009, 11:59 am
I was all set today for a snarky little post about the Taiga Forum and their odd little website and their odder list of “provocative statements.” Meredith Farkas kind of tagged me or called me out or something, so I was going to build a bit on what John Dupuis said in his post Some provocative statements, and it would probably have carried on with the theme of “Deadly Obvious Statements” started in the comments on Madame Director Jenica Rogers-Urbanek’s FriendFeed post.
But you know what? Forget it. If you want snark from me, see my comments in that FriendFeed post or the comment I left on Meredith’s post. If you want thoughtful, pointed commentary on the Taiga thing, see John Dupuis’ post or Dorothea Salo’s Allaying fear. I don’t want to waste any more time on Taiga.
Instead, I’d like to thank John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill, and Cindi Trainor for The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians. These statements are a clear mountain stream in contrast to the dank little catbox of the Taiga statements.
And let’s talk about provocative. Taiga wants to provoke us to discuss whether the library will be completely culturally irrelevant in five years and whether faculty and administrators hate us more than we hate ourselves. Darien wants us to discuss just what it means to say “the purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.”
I know which discussion I’d rather have. Thank you John, Kathryn, and Cindi.
- License:
- File under: Librarians and the profession
- Tags: darien, taiga
- Comments? 7
Hear hear! I love it that I feel like I have to read the Darien statements at least one more time, carefully, before discussing them. I love it that they’re cast as thought-provoking rather than fear-provoking.
Comment by Iris — April 3, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
First, I get an idiotic grin every time I see that my friends and colleagues are so publicly proud of me. Thank you! (Sincerely, Madame Director.)
Second, I could not agree with you more. Taiga’s pumped enough negativity into the discussion sphere already. I’d rather look forward with hope and optimism, and dedicate my available energy to being a proponent of the parts of our work that truly matter — to us, to our users, to the world. And the Darien document is a far better conversation-starter to that end.
Comment by Jenica Rogers-Urbanek — April 3, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
[...] get me wrong. My reaction is positive. I am just a bit disappointed by the lack of discussion. Steve Lawson and Dorothea and a few others have pointed to the post. Unfortunately Friendfeed and Twitter trends [...]
Pingback by The future of libraries « Suelibrarian — April 3, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
I think both overreach, so I’m not defending the Taiga statements per se. But “I don’t like negativity” and “I don’t want to talk about it” aren’t arguments.
Frankly, I find much to criticize in both. Since you opened the door to style “this is the group of futurists .. and all their stuff in PDF right,” and leaving aside the Word docs of the Darien Statements, doesn’t the whole “the Library”—capitalized every time—irritate you? “The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.” That may not provoke librarians, but you can bet many outsiders look at that and think “overblown Victorianism in the service of an exaggerated sense of self.” The Taiga statements are gloomy, but the Darien ones are pious.
Comment by Tim — April 5, 2009 @ 10:54 am
Tim, the Word doc on John’s site doesn’t bother me because there is also the blog post to link to and read online. Taiga doesn’t give you that option.
I don’t mind “the Library” because I think it helps distinguish the concept of the library from the individual libraries where we work and read.
I don’t mind “negativity.” But I feel like the Darien statements provide a framework for discussing what is valuable about libraries (or “the Library”) in almost any imaginable future. It’s not as memorable and elegant as Ranganathan’s Laws, but I admire the attempt at universality. With Taiga, I honestly don’t know what to do with a list of unsupported dystopic pronouncements. They feel a little like trolling, where to engage them at all is to lose. I don’t know. I could be wrong. I could easily be overreacting.
Comment by Steve Lawson — April 5, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
[...] (Confessions of a Science Librarian); Meredith Farkas (Information Wants To Be Free); Steve Lawson (See Also…); Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector); and Roy Tennant (Library Journal Digital Libraries). [↩]The [...]
Pingback by A Conversation with Kristin Antelman | In the Library with the Lead Pipe — April 29, 2009 @ 5:06 am
[...] and what makes sense to you. I don’t fully understand my own stance at the moment, but like Steve, I know which conversation I want to be having. This entry was posted in libraries and librarians. [...]
Pingback by "The Library" and Other Grand Unifications — August 9, 2009 @ 2:40 pm