In general, I think our community spends too much time looking for where we disagree, and not enough time looking for where we agree, though.

I do agree entirely with what Linden preseneted as Bade’s general point, which is that we ought to be making sure we meet the needs of what I’ll call “the information power users”, the advanced researchers and such. Even if they are a minority of our users, they are an _important_ minority, they are a bigger part of our mission than they are proportion of demographic served.

But to me, the sorts of ‘modernizations’ being advocated by Hillman et al don’t contradict this at all! There is an idea that the ‘modernizers’ want to ‘lowest common denominator’ ‘googlize’ everything, and don’t think sophisticated control is neccesary. I don’t think this is so!

Of course, we ALSO need to meet the needs of the majority of our less sophisticated users.

I think we can do both.

I think we need to spend more time identifying and developing our areas of agreement.

Thanks for your comments. Let me be specific: I have a lot of sympathy for David’s point of view, and I don’t think that “frustrated intellectual” is a pejorative term. He’s a very bright guy and very passionate about his views (a good thing–in my view). He is, however, much more comfortable communicating in writing and clearly that’s an important venue for discussion. But this was a “hearing” not a paper presentation, and I think much of his message got lost (and not just for me) because he misjudged the venue and what was expected from him as spokesperson for a particular point of view. That was unfortunate, for a lot of reasons, but I think the WG was able to pull some good points from his presentation to add to the discussion and they should be congratulated for that–it wasn’t all that easy to do if you didn’t have his detailed paper to digest ahead of time. And no, I can’t distribute a copy of his paper–I don’t have anything but a printout of it. Don’t you think that’s part of the problem? (I do.)

I take your points about how I might have done better in separating my personal opinion from my notes, but frankly, I don’t find it that easy, especially under time pressure. My style is less formal than some people find “professional” but for me that’s part of the lure of blogging. It’s not formal reporting–it’s more immediate than that, and perhaps a bit less filtered. Wouldn’t it be nice if other people blogged the meeting and we could have their point of view too, instead of just reactions to mine? I’d sure welcome it! But how do we encourage that if the people who do put themselves out get flogged for doing so?

However, I disagree that my comments are in “exactly the same mode” as yours. If they had been they’d have discussed your style of dress and the fact that you’re an unintellectual who is “passionately” enamored with shiny penny technology. I don’t think this about you at all; I’m just saying that a similar response would have been in this vein.

I don’t think discussing who is “right” or wrong would be at all helpful here. RDA and the like are realities, and they all have positive and exciting possibilities. But they are also why we’re where we are regarding series authority control, and we should acknowledge this. I think that David’s presentation was and is relevant, and your treatment of it–especially when compared with how you treated the other presenters, those with whom you agree–is extremely unfair. His presentation posed important questions. He prefaced it by explaining he wrote it in the spirit of debate, and he has received nothing but derision here. That’s all I’m saying.

By the way, I enjoyed your presentation also and learned a lot from it.

We are not in personal attack mode; we are simply challenging your notion of professionalism. However, I’d love to read Mr. Bade’s paper, if you have it handy in a PDF or Word document, please e-mail it to me if you are allowed to do so. I was unable to attend the work group and have been catching up by reading summaries such as yours.

The main reason your remarks concerning Mr. Bade are shocking is that you wrote these two weblog entries as if they were “minutes of a meeting,” not your personal observations and thoughts. It reads as such until one reaches that fateful section. For one who was unable to attend the meeting in Chicago, your summary was useful until that point. Your digression from simply reporting of the happenings to personal observation and attack was unprofessional.

At the very least, you could have conveyed the flavor of his testimony in a parenthetical aside; such a grammatical convention would have been of great benefit to you here. Everyone is welcome to her opinion; no one is arguing with you on that!

I attended the Working Group, and I heard David’s excellent presentation. Neither I nor Mr. Beall have “misinterpreted” your remarks. You decided to take cheap shots, rather than address his arguments, and it is, indeed, disappointing but not surprising.

I agree with Nathan, that David’s paper will be referred to quite often when RDA becomes an inevitable reality. The fact that he made us all read rather than look at pretty PowerPoint pictures was, in this old-school, “conservative’s” opinion, magnificent.

FYI: you probably know this, but saying, “if I’ve been misinterpreted, I apologize,” doesn’t count as an apology.

Finally, being an “intellectual,” frustrated or not, shouldn’t merit ridicule.

I was trying to convey the flavor of the testimony not to attack David personally. If my intention was misinterpreted, I apologize.

Diane