Speech Wants To Be Free

摘要

As a profession, we rightly pride ourselves on valuing freedom of expression. The immediate and convenient nature of online discussion, though, hinders us from putting the same thought into our Internet conversations as into our other professional communications. Next-Gens who have grown up with online communication are particularly susceptible to the lure of informality. There is a difference, for example, between being professionally opinionated (a la Kathleen de la Perm McCook, who gives concrete ways the profession can move forward) and being gratuitously nasty about one's coworkers on a discussion list. There is a difference between thoughtfully challenging our associations' policies (a la Karen Schneider, who keeps the independent Cuban librarian issue alive on her personal blag) and engaging in unsupported "I hate ALA" generalizations.