My Blog Oath

I feel like a complete hypocrite blogging. Previously, whenever blogging has come up in a conversation, I have likened it to daytime talk shows, where people, feeling magnified into minor gods by mass media, behave like sloppy, self-important, public drunks. I usually also bring up the fact that, since long before the internet existed, acquisition librarians the world over have been employed full time to winnow through mountains of publications, trying to determine what is actually worth saving for posterity. The sheer volume of voices online has made any such equivalent internet endeavor utterly pointless. Aside from controlled access professional databases, the internet’s use as a reliable reference tool is clearly limited.

I realize that the visibility of potentially valuable open access material is now almost entirely up to the collective whim of unqualified end users. As we’ve been told countless times, it’s a bottom-up system, an inductive, even democratic, one. This is inevitably frustrating for anyone trying to use it as a source of definitive, trustworthy information, but I ultimately concede that heterodoxy is evolutionarily superior to orthodoxy, just as biodiversity is undeniably healthier than monoculture. Here’s my single contention regarding placing the onus of estimation upon the end user: I don’t think anyone can truly know how to process and evaluate all the noise unless she has first learned how to sit in silence and have serious, honest, thoughtful conversations with herself.

So, why have I decided to add yet another voice to the cacophony? Because I was asked to. That’s it. I would prefer not to, but I find it less painful to share an occasional thought with complete strangers than to disappoint one of my brothers, one of the “three thinking.” I don’t generally eat meat either, but if I am a guest in another’s home I eat what is offered. I can cook whatever I want in my own home. If, however, my host is interested in knowing what I think of the meal, I will respectfully share my thoughts with him.

To the point: I promise to blog only if I feel I have something useful to share, and I promise to be as brief as my conscience allows. I will try not to be too noisy. I will treat the internet as if it were another’s home in which I am a guest, as if, in fact, it were everyone’s home.

One of Three