On 27/01/07, Marion Sumerianlibrarian <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
> it seems we still live in a highly undemocratic
> society where the free exchange of ideas is not
> honored . . . . my evaluation of the overwhelming
> majority of rain postings is that they are boring, as
> well as biased, but i have never stated they should be
> banned.



Look, I find this simply weird.

When I did my research librarian training far too many years ago, and when I
did some graduate research training more recently, I was taught that if
your search construction is professional then any resulting bias (or
presumably boredom) reflects not the search construction but the nature of
the material being searched.

So there exist two logical possibilities: either Peter is unprofessional in
his search construction, or the World's media writes on matters RM in a
biased way.

You can prove the first by producing evidence of consistent failure to
select articles, with the bias consistently favouring one view or another,
rather than falling 50:50 either way as chance would have it (see Evans,
Richard: Lying about Hitler; History, Holocaust and the David Irving Trial,
ISBN 0465021530).

You could if you wished prove the second by producing evidence of RM events
ignored or misreported over a long time by some or all of the media. Sounds
like a good PhD thesis.

There is of course a third possibility, which is that RM generically, and RM
people specifically, are intrinsically boring. For example, I can certainly
prattle on for hours if not days . . .

I get a lot of value out of this list, and sometimes from RAIN. I've had
great discussions on and off list with all sorts of people, even the mighty
Saklad. I think I'm old and scarred enough, if not well trained in history,
librarianship and records, to detect bias and ignore or allow for it. Maybe
my postings have helped or even interested others, even though I suspect I'm
way to the left of Steve "I hate paper", and probably way left even of
PeterK. But from up here in Oz, 'left' is relative anyway, regardless of
bias, we are always on top, and always a day ahead of all of you except our
good mates in New Zealand.

Life rolls on. It would be REALLY boring if we were all the same.

But back to the main topic: accusations of bias are a serious matter. Some
evidence would be nice. If you have none, you can probably figure out the
professional thing to do.

Cheers


Glenn
>
> Glenn Sanders MRMA
> listservs: [log in to unmask]
> work: [log in to unmask]
> Australia
>
> These views are mine alone. They may or may not be those of any
> previous or present employers or clients. I don't know. If I'd asked
> and they'd agreed, I would have signed it "Harry Peck and Co and
> Glenn". Or whatever. But I haven't, so I didn't.

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