RE: Moderating and Administrative Thoughts

[William Sampson <William.Sampson@galegroup.com>]

Postings that are "self-serving" can be beneficial - to a certain degree.
The ability to engage vendors and challenge their products is without
question a desirable outcome of this discussion group. At the same time,
statements are often made by vendors that can be biased or misleading.

While many of the claims made by vendors succumb to the scrutiny of the
members of this listserv, others go unchallenged. It is only through the
knowledgeable response of another vendor that we discover the merit of a
particular vendor's claim.

Not all vendors choose to respond to postings on this listserv. The danger
is not so much in what you do hear, as it is in in what you don't.

William A, Sampson, Esq.

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Friend [ mailto:ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk <mailto:ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk> ]
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 4:14 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Moderating and Administrative Thoughts

I agree with Peter's comment about the value of even self-promoting
postings in enabling challenging dialogue to take place. Such postings
should be factual, and that would be how I would distinguish them from
advertising hype. The challenges in the dialogue that can ensue will
probably be both to vendors and to librarians - my observation on
liblicense discussions is that the librarians do not always have justice
on their side - but as an optimist I always hope that the service to
library users will benefit from frank and open discussion.

Fred Friend

At 17:29 01/06/01 EDT, you wrote:
>
>       Still other readers have expressed a concern to me that
>       sometimes the postings on the list are too self-promoting of a
>       given correspondent's commercial business.  This is a harder
>       area for your moderator, though again liblicense-l strives to
>       include as much as possible, even press releases where they
>       appear to serve a useful and informative role.
>
>Many thanks to Ann Okerson for the entirety of this very thoughtful and,
>indeed, decorous, posting. As to the paragraph cited above, we are all
>rational professionals and can thus distinguish between marketing hype (in
>whatever veild forms it appears) and 'real' arguments of merit. At the
>same time, postings which are self-promoting would invite direct
>challenges from other members of this list which is also a great advantage
>since we, the consumers -- or potential consumers -- can generate frank
>and open discussions about the products we are meant to consume. These
>discussions can open paths of exploration of issues which might not
>otherwise exist and which might actually have some effect on the products
>offered to us. In my personal opinion, I feel that we, the members of this
>list, should feel free to challenge (in a positive and constructive way)
>those products with the intent of engaging their designers and creators in
>dialogue with the library community. If such a forum can exist -- and it
>may very well develop some tensions from time to time -- where (to quote
>an old adage) is the bad part??
>
>Peter Picerno