In my own humble opinion, both sides of this issue have to be balanced, and
there should be a little more tolerance from both camps. Good grief, isn't
it enough that we have enemies attacking us, that now we have to endure
slings and arrows from colleagues?
Ted, as our President, has a responsibility to look out for the good of
ARLIS and its members. The decisions he makes won't always please all of
us all of the time. His warning was valid IN LIGHT OF THE TIMES. We are
service-oriented and used to answering information requests without
suspicion. I, myself, border on naive sometimes in trusting the motives of
others, and I appreciate a timely warning.
Unfortunately, the best way to communicate that warning to us was through a
publicly-accessible listserv. Whether or not he exercised good judgment in
posting a copy of his message to the Embassy is another story. I
appreciated the example as a good lesson of what could happen, and as an
explanation for his cautionary post.
I thought the original response about "vibes" was inappropriate, but I
supposed that the sender had a right to express an opinion. If we want to
control message content, we shouldn't have an open list.
Mr. Omar had a perfectly legitimate request. It is not his fault that
others/recent history have caused us to be more wary than we might
otherwise be, but perhaps he could be more understanding of our
caution. Maybe someone could have done a "reference interview" via ARLIS-L
to elicit more information from him before his message was publicly
condemned. I am sorry, Mr. Omar, that you felt persecuted. Librarians are
friendly, approachable people, but we're also human.
And, I feel compelled to point out that anyone could email this list saying
they are "John Q. Public" and we couldn't necessarily confirm or deny
that. Terrorists, scam artists, and nasty people in general come in all
shapes and sizes. If I were to say I was Jane Doe from MIT and had a legit
enough sounding request, how many of you would check my credentials before
answering? I could be anybody!
Can we just have a little more tolerance, a little less paranoia, a little
less touchiness please?
Sheryl
Sheryl L. Wilhite
Rotch Visual Collections, MIT
77 Mass. Ave., 7-304
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
(617) 253-7098
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