Shhh

Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Assn., had a nasty little editorial in the Friday LA Times. He's unhappy with all the hype about Google some day delivering all the information in the world. (I must have missed this hype). He states we still need libraries, since you need depth of knowledge, not just a bunch of facts out of context.

I think we already know that, Mr. Gorman. What Google and other search engines do is make gathering information easier, sort of like what libraries were created for. I suppose when the first library was founded, some crotchety itinerant teacher said this new nonsense destroys knowledge because now we won't have to memorize everything.

Google and its ilk are tools, just like library cards and the Dewey Decimal System. We control the tools, Mr. Gorman, not the other way around. And who knows, maybe many years from now Google et al will completely replace physical libraries. I'll tell you what won't stop the transition--pissy, territorial arguments.