Clay Shirkey with a brilliant, well-reasoned reply to Gorman, for the win!
He even makes the same analogy I did regarding translations of the Bible. 🙂
If Gorman were looking at Web 2.0 and wondering how print culture could aspire to that level of accessibility, he would be doing something to bridge the gap he laments. Instead, he insists that the historical mediators of access “…promote intellectual development by exercising judgment and expertise to make the task of the seeker of knowledge easier.†This is the argument Catholic priests made to the operators of printing presses against publishing translations of the Bible — the laity shouldn’t have direct access to the source material, because they won’t understand it properly without us. Gorman offers no hint as to why direct access was an improvement when created by the printing press then but a degradation when created by the computer. Despite the high-minded tone, Gorman’s ultimate sentiment is no different from that of everyone from music executives to newspaper publishers: Old revolutions good, new revolutions bad.
More excellent responses at:
- Free Range Librarian
- Information Wants to be Free
- Wandering Eyre
- David Lee King
- librarian.net
- Caveat Lector
2 replies on “Shirky FTW!”
Yes, Shirky said some good things, but he also included a slam to libraries, and seemed to confuse the role of libraries with that of publishers. I posted a response to this.
Yes, Shirky said some good things, but he also included a slam to libraries, and seemed to confuse the role of libraries with that of publishers. I posted a response to this.