With LJ Piece, ALA President-Elect Gorman Touches a Nerve

-- Library Journal, 3/14/2005

Bloggers are showing American Library Association (ALA) president-elect Michael Gorman that revenge is apparently a dish best served digital. Bloggers, librarians included, are responding in great numbers—and in rather prickly fashion—to Gorman’s recent LJ Backtalk piece “Revenge of the Blog People.” The piece has drawn over 1000 responses to its posting on popular technology webzine Slashdot.org, and emails were pouring in to LJ’s editorial department.

Gorman, whose views do not represent the official positions of either ALA or California State University Fresno (where he directs the library), has received more than 100 messages—more than half of them sent pseudonymously. Gorman said that the response to his piece has called his attention to some “wonderful” bloggers. Unfortunately, he added, most of those who wrote him were not so wonderful: “The majority of my correspondents believe that I either wish them to desist from blogging and/or have the power to make them stop.” Gorman penned his LJ piece in response to bloggers who criticized his December 17 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that questioned the relative efficiency and usefulness of Google’s latest ventures. The ensuing “conversation,” however, has mostly focused on whether Gorman, or libraries in general, are out of touch with technology.