Another Librarian Speaks - blogs and bloggers are crap

It seems the gatekeepers are continuing to feel the pressure from all the "unauthorized" publishing going on these days. The latest outburst is from Blaise Cronin, who once again avoids the real point by denigrating the bloggers instead of figuring out how to take advantage of the technology.

One wonders for whom these hapless souls blog. Why do they choose to expose their unremarkable opinions, sententious drivel and unedifying private lives to the potential gaze of total strangers? What prompts this particular kind of digital exhibitionism? The present generation of bloggers seems to imagine that such crassly egotistical behavior is socially acceptable and that time-honored editorial and filtering functions have no place in cyberspace. Undoubtedly, these are the same individuals who believe that the free-for-all, communitarian approach of Wikipedia is the way forward. Librarians, of course, know better.

Indiana University Dean and Rudy Professor of Information Science Blaise Cronin