Don't scare the horses

Insty points to an instructive commentary by Michael Gorman, who is the Dean of Library Services, Madden College, CalState, Fresno. Mr. Gorman doesn't like a.) Google or b.) "Blog People" -- not necessarily in that order.

On PlanetGorman, Google is a "notoriously inefficient search engine" that "is a wonderfully modern manifestation of the triumph of hope and boosterism over reality." Google's problem is it "gives you thousands of "hits" (which may or may not be relevant) in no very useful order." Of course this says more about Mr. Gorman's Googling skills than the technology, but nevermind, let's move on.

Digitizing books is a bad thing, too. It's "fast food" for the mind, etc.

And those "Blog people?" Puleeeze. They actually disagree, but of course, that's because they can only read in paragraphs -- not full books, like us smarty library folk.

Oh, and check this out. Here's Gorman's conclusion:

My sin against bloggery is that I do not believe this particular project will give us anything that comes anywhere near access to the world's knowledge.

Hmmm, I wonder if libraries are knowledge, or merely access to knowledge. Too deep for this paragraph-thinker.

Bottom line? Give us libraries types the money you were going to spend on this foolhardy digitizing scheme.

The whole tone of the article sounds like a trapped animal, desperate for an escape route, and could have been written a hundred years ago by the President of the Harriers and Blacksmith Association.