My professor handed out an article about the detrimental effects of "info-mania", claiming that excessive e-mail and cell phone use drop our IQ by 10 points per session, compared to 3 points with marijuana use. My discussion group questioned the validity of the sources, and I argued that people never like to work, and would just be playing hangman on paper during meetings if they didn't have their text messaging, so what's the difference? All three of us assumed this was a hypothetical corporate scenario. It wasn't, it was about public library users. My professor wanted us to talk about ways to protect library users from their own stupidity and to educate them on the harmful effects of their personal interests. I stared at him. Some of our class threw out suggestions about time limits except for scholarly research (whatever means they judge THAT by) and monitoring systems to prevent "misuse". I noticed that it was those of us with "bad attitudes" who were horrified by this conversation, sitting with our mouths open. "And then, after they enter their personal information, they can enter their IQ, too, and that would determine how much time they get," said Mat. The class laughed and then went straight back at it. Oh, for the sake of the children! Give me a fucking break. If you catch someone breaking the law by looking up porn in front of children, or masturbating in public, you toss them out or call the cops, you don't deny access for everyone else! But it goes beyond porn, they were asserting that personal email and web surfing should be limited and discouraged. How about we get rid of the fiction section, too? Or how about those naughty romance novels? Ban them all! "So what should we do?" concluded our professor. "Distribute marijuana?" suggested Mat.
I was so upset by this anti-information conversation amongst librarians that I pried my fingernails out of the table after class and went home to administer myself a bit of liquor. This class is going to cost a fortune in booze if it keeps up like this.
I pray that this is just a case of seminar groupthink. I'm hoping that, by now, everyone involved is thinking "*How* could I have said that?"
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, gah!
More to the point, where the heck was the prof in all this? S/he is presumably a librarian, with a code of ethics that includes universal access and patron privacy! That prof should have set the class damn well straight on what is expected of someone in the profession, regardless of perosnal beliefs! Paternalism has no place in a library these days. Hmph.
ReplyDelete(um, this is glinka, clearly a fellow ranty librarian.)
That's what chapped my ass! The prof was saying stuff like, "What kinds of other things could we do to educate people on the dangers of 'info-mania' and help them avoid it?" "How would you implement an observation system?" I asked a couple incredulous questions, "Are we actually talking about limiting our patrons' access to information?!" and "Why is it our business what they're looking at?" but I didn't want to tear into it without figuring out what sort of guy my prof was. He did not impress me on Friday when he handed out an article published by the Christian Science Monitor. Oh, no no no he didn not.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, I find it entertaining to see how badly my spelling and grammer goes in my blog entries when I'm in a fury. heh heh
ReplyDeletedude, send that prof on a visit up here to UBC - we'll sic Ann Curry on him and rip him a new one.
ReplyDeleteOr else everyone will just roll their eyes and say "he's an American, what do you expect?" It's librarians like him who get Michael Gorman elected!
-glink