Like Spekkio, I’m also slightly off topic. And I’m clearly a couple of weeks late to the conversation. So nobody’s going to read this. But I’ll survive. These blog comment things are more about talking to the wall than having a reasonable conversation anyway.

I just looked. Beck’s latest release — the paperback edition of something about idiots and small minds and big government — runs 25 pages of endnotes. So by Spekkio’s logic, Beck can’t possibly be biased. Right?

And, no. That doesn’t make me believe Beck at face value any more than the 26 pages of endnotes make me trust Moore to provide an objective analysis of anything.

In fact, the titles and covers of both books (along with their publication dates) tell me right away at which end of the political spectrum the authors stand.

Citing references does not ensure an unbiased work. And the flavor of Moore’s films and writings is punditry just as clearly as anything from Beck or Coulter. Moore is as much left-wing as Limbaugh is right-wing.

And while we could argue political ideology all day and never get anywhere, I really do have a point to make on the professional librarian front:

Pundits and propaganda come from the idiots on the other side of the aisle. Our side doesn’t produce them. Our guys just tell the Truth.

Or, to quote Ambrose Bierce from The Devil’s Dictionary, a bigot is “One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.”

We all have this lovely human tendency to call the people we agree with unbiased. Or “fair and balanced” if you prefer.

And that’s something we have to get over when serving as librarians.

At this point, I would leave the material selection up to the researchers, and the research guidance up to their advisors and their instructors. In most cases, these human resources are far better than any librarian could ever hope to be unless the librarian was also active in that particular field. Given the number of fields versus the number of active academic librarians, that’s simply impossible.

In short, that means the library has one mission in life: supply material on demand. If the library is unable or unwilling to accomplish that mission, then it’s going to get reorganized by the administration!

I’m sorry, but I honestly believe that should be the professor’s job, not yours. If professors allow students to use such resources, of course the students will! Only when the professors reject the resources will the students develop better researching skills.

When public librarians are assisting students writing a paper they take a different approach to the reference interview than say if a patron approaches and says, “I like Da Vinci code, what other books are like that?”

I’m enjoying you constantly stirring the pot and fomenting skirmishes among the public and academic set. Do us all a favor and do some volunteer work at a public library. The work there is sometimes slow, so you could still blog. At public libraries you don’t have to be sycophantic to profs or deans and publish stale stuff, which you would never speak of to anyone outside of the profession. You also get to assist people with real problems, and not the ones looking for the software that will format their paper automatically to the APA style.

See how it feels when I write that way about where you work? Good.

Signed,
A community college librarian

In the academic library I work in today, I have to balance “what people want” with “what does the college need in order to fulfill it’s teaching mission.” If fulfilling that mission requires access to books by Ann Coulter et al., then I’m going to buy them, regardless of how despicable to me personally I may find her opionions.

I would think by now that arguing that topic X or Y is not a fit topic for study would have gone the way of the argument for or against online resources. Everything and anything is a potential target for research and scholarship today. Professionalism in librarianship means (in part) putting aside one’s personal biases and doing whatever the job requires.

PS: @Real Librarian, who wrote: “In academia, you can sit back on your tenured ass and do what you want.” I’m not sure what planet you’re writing from, but this is as silly and thoughtless a comment as I’ve seen in a long time.