My family always qouted the line: “Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt” attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
I forget this wisdom occasionally but apparently Fox News doesn’t know the quotation!
Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money?
Luckily this silliness seems to be limited to the Chicago Fox affiliate. And luckily, also, ALA is headquarterd there and CPL is a great library. The response from Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary A. Dempsey is nicely measured. How totally embarrassing for a new organization to be advocating for a reduction in access to information and knowledge!
It does seem to be getting a good slamming in the biblioblogosphere. Non-library folk are targeting their sad lack of knowledge here where Cory Doctorow states “you look like a total jerk when you criticize librarians,”” and here and here.
We need things like this to draw attention to the value of libraries. Fox Illinois did libraries a favour by articulating the uninformed point of view. It’s always great to show that access to a single channel or medium puts democracies at risk and now we have a great example to point to – even when they’re protected by at least two amendments!
Stephen
One Response
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“Fox Illinois did libraries a favour by articulating the uninformed point of view.”
Well stated, Stephen. I had to log off of Twitter the day that article came out. There was lots of gut reaction anger type stuff going on (and really, I understand this…the piece was pretty irritating) and just lots of negative thoughts.
There’s a really great discussion going on over at LibraryThing by @librarythingtim on this topic. He brings up a lot great points.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/93959