Gorman Abdicates, ALA Leadership in Disarray

-- Library Journal, 04/01/2005

Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA), has stepped down just months before assuming office. “It was the blog people, they did it,” said RLG’s Walt Crawford, a friend and co-author (Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality; ALA, 1995). “They made Mike’s life a living hell,” Crawford said in reference to the outcry following the publication of Gorman’s essay “The Revenge of the Blog People.”

Gorman released a terse statement on Thursday, stating that he was resigning from both his position in ALA and from California State University, Fresno, where he was dean of library services. Gorman will take residency in the London Library and work on the next edition of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, “now more necessary than ever,” Gorman wrote, and contribute original cataloging. “I’m increasingly suspicious of the value of cooperative cataloging. What is really gained?” The blog world was buzzing with the rumor that ALA councilor and blogger Karen Schneider would be asked to step in as interim president and inaugurate a “wholly virtual” ALA. On her web site, Schneider wrote, “About ALA I blow hot and cold. I’m sweet and sour. An insider and an outsider. But if they need me, they know where to reach me.”