InfoSpeak: Volume 2, Number 2
The Conviction of Michael Gorman
Length: 25 minutes
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Topics discussed:
- Libraries as a right and a refuge
- Education: What's missing?
- The power of the printed book
- Drinking from a fire hose: Information?
The Conviction of Michael Gorman
Michael Gorman is a cultured and accomplished man who dares to speak his mind. Are his views intolerable?
His reservations about the value of Google's plan to digitize the world's books, his doubts about the quality of online blogging, his insistence that the human mind needs the enrichment of libraries filled with books, spark howls of indignant and vitriolic condemnation. Many bloggers have ridiculed him. He has been labeled "anti-digital" and a "luddite," "elitist," "exclusionary," "shameful," and other, less dignified terms.
In his Presidents message in the May issue of American Libraries, he makes light of his detractors:
"If you believe, as I do, that there is a crisis in library education that threatens the very existence of libraries and librarianship, you are likely to draw a negative reaction from a variety of people. First, there are the millenniarist librarians and pseudo-librarians who, intoxicated with self-indulgence and technology, will dismiss you as a "Luddite" or worse. They and their yips and yawps can safely be left to their acronymic backwaters and the dubious delights of clicking and surfing."
Perhaps what bothers people is not so much what Mr. Gorman believes but rather the tone and challenge implicit in his arguments. This is not a man prone to mincing words; he fences with them expertly in a duel of ideas. He uses his intelligence and professional skill to defend the power of the codex -the glorious legacy of printed books and reading.
The American Library Association's traditional motto, "The best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost" is his personal mantra. He has no dogmatic objection to the Internet; however, people who dismiss as irrelevant the traditional medium of words printed on paper are not his allies.
I found that reading Michael Gorman and hearing the man speak for himself are two very different experiences. Submitted here for your approval is our Field Reporter Deanna Sukkar's conversation with him. You may find yourself challenged, perhaps even outraged- but you will not be bored. Please tell us what you think. We would like very much to share your thoughts on this Michael Gorman interview with your colleagues worldwide, the listeners of InfoSpeak.
~ Michael Wood, Program DirectorWrite to: Mailbag@InfoSpeak.org
The public library is the only place in America where you can walk in off the street and get advice from someone with an advanced degree without paying for it.
Michael Gorman
Michael Gorman
Dean of Library Services,
California State University, Fresno
President Emeritus,
The American Library Association
Michael Gorman has been Dean of Library Services at the Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno since 1988. From 1977 to 1988 he worked at the Library of the University of Illinois, Urbana as, successively, Director of Technical Services, Director of General Services, and Acting University Librarian. From 1966 to 1977 he was, successively, Head of Cataloguing at the British National Bibliography, a member of the British Library Planning Secretariat, and Head of the Office of Bibliographic Standards in the British Library. He has taught at library schools in Britain and in the United States--most recently at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Info In-depth
Whither Library Education? Gorman, Michael (2003)
- Who was Eileen Colwell? "...a woman who practically wrote the book on children's librarianship." ~Michael Gormans
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Who is Richard Rodriguez?
"One of my favorite contemporary writers...the library was his refuge."
~Michael GormanI remember to start with that day in Sacramento-a California now nearly thirty years past-when I first entered a classroom, able to understand some fifty stray English words." So opens Hunger of Memory: the Education of Richard Rodriguez: an Autobiography written by noted Mexican-American journalist and author, Richard Rodriguez.
Read how he feels about Public Library service in the 21st Century here.
Read his PBS Online Newshour essays here.
Gorman on Google
"Google is an advertising company. They pose as a sort of hippie commune...they have no interest -absolutely none - in any of our (library) values."
~Michael GormanOn Citizen Journalist
"There is this revolting term Citizen Journalist, as though any fool can write journalism. It's not true...We need expertise in our lives...people who know more than we do."
~Michael GormanGorman on Gaming in Libraries..."Footling pursuits"
"...I do think that a youth spent playing video games is an impoverished youth as compared to a youth spent reading."
~Michael GormanAll over the world, librarians are doing innovative things with technology that no one outside of their library knows about. There are lots of great blogs out there sharing information about the profession, but there is no one place where all of this information is collected and organized. Libsuccess - a one-stop-shop for for all types of librarians.
The Internet in China: Google before the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Want to know more about Citizen Journalists?
Looking for a forum for discussion of gaming in libraries?
Google Groups: LibGaming