RE: Moderating and Administrative Thoughts

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

It is in a buiness's interest to explain what they are doing with their
own "spin" but that doesn't mean that we can't ask aquestions about their
explanation.  A self serving explanation is better than no dialog. And
banning all "self" promotion would mean less awarness of what companies
are doing, and their own idea or at least their own explanation of "why".
We know the why--to make more money, position themselves as somehow
"unique" must have, etc.

The self-promotional bits, however, usually mean we have an in for what on
this forum at least have been some amazingly frank and open statements
from various company reps. I'm truly grateful that spokesmen from a
variety of companies have posted here. Those of you who have been at this
awhile know how very difficult it is to even know where to look for
certain types of information about practices, pricing, attitudes. If they
talk, some of that is much clearer and ultimately makes both them and us
better at what we do. The "I have to clear everything with the president
and our pr firm" before I say anything is what we had with our friends at
Gordon and Breach. Sheesh, I think lawyers must have drafted half of what
they put out. That is a good reminder to any company that is "afraid" of
having its reps explain why's from their perspectives. Of course the more
direct influence company reps. have on their own products the better their
information-and the more likely they are to provide useful dialog, and
ultimately, change...which is what all this is about from a library
perspective: Making products better and more cost effective for our users.  

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Friend
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: 6/4/01 4:14 PM
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