{"id":1439,"date":"2017-06-15T17:31:39","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T00:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galencharlton.com\/blog\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2017-06-22T04:07:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:07:17","slug":"what-makes-an-anti-librarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galencharlton.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/what-makes-an-anti-librarian\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes an anti-librarian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assuming the order gets made and shipped in time (update 2017-06-22: it did)<\/em>, I’ll be arriving in Chicago for ALA Annual carrying a few tens of badge ribbons like this one:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Am I hoping that the librarians made of anti-matter will wear these ribbons to identify themselves, thereby avoiding unpleasant explosions and gamma ray bursts? Not really. Besides, there’s an obvious problem with this strategy, were anti-matter librarians a real constituency at conferences.<\/p>\n

No, in a roundabout way, I’m mocking\u00a0this behavior by Jeffrey Beall:\""This<\/a><\/p>\n

Seriously, dude?<\/p>\n

I suggest reading Rachel\u00a0Walden’s tweets<\/a>\u00a0for more background, but suffice it to say that even if you were to discount Walden’s experience as a medical library director (which I do not), Beall’s response to her is extreme. (And for even more background, John Dupuis has an excellent compilation<\/a> of links on recent discussions about Open Access and “predatory” journals.)<\/p>\n

But I’d like to unpack Beall’s choice of the expression “anti-librarian”? What exactly makes for an anti-librarian?<\/p>\n

We already have plenty of names for folks who oppose libraries and librarians. Book-burners. Censors. Austeritarians. The closed-minded. The tax-cutters-above-all-else. The drowners of governments in bathtubs. The fearful. We could have a whole taxonomy, in fact, were the catalogers to find a few spare moments.<\/p>\n

“Anti-librarian” as an epithet doesn’t fit most of these folks. Instead, as applied to a\u00a0librarian<\/em>, it has some nasty connotations: a traitor. Somebody who wears the mantle of the profession but opposes its very existence. Alternatively: a faker. A purveyor of fake news. One who is unfit to participate in the professional discourse.<\/p>\n

There may be some librarians who deserve to have that title \u2014 but it would take a lot more than being mistaken, or even woefully misguided to earn that.<\/p>\n

So let me also protest Beall’s response to Walden explicitly:<\/p>\n

It is not OK.<\/p>\n

It is not cool.<\/p>\n

It is not acceptable.<\/p>\n

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