The majority of the article is a good recap for those who haven’t been following the debate closely, but I specifically wanted to touch on two parts.

The first is her idea, which I believe is original because she doesn’t cite anyone, of “infogration”:

As well as trying to ensure that information is accessible to all, Google is involved in trying to make sure that people are accessing more and more information via the Web. Google has done this by pioneering a brilliant new model of business expansion, introduced here as infogration. Infogration is radically different from the traditional model of horizontal integration, which involves buying up competition, and vertical integration, which involves buying upstream and downstream industries. Infogration involves capturing different aspects of physical and social reality and representing them with digital information. In other words, infogration involves the integration of aspects of the world in to the medium of information into which targeted ads can then be placed.

Much more insidious than the regular process of horizontal and vertical integration, this infogration actually involves the gobbling up of our personal lives by corporations in the business of information. Our personal info, our thoughts and feelings, even our health records and genetic code. As Waller notes, one day we will see that we have the genetic marker for obesity and be targeted for weight loss ads wherever we search.

While I appreciate the social aspect of the Internet, it seems like you take any organic naissance of a means of social interaction, and sooner or later it gets sold out to the highest bidder just for the aggregate of information built up. YouTube is a prime example, but any of Google’s acquisitions would do.

The second discussion of Waller’s, and one I have begun thinking about a lot lately, is the differing concept of “information” used by Google in their business goal to organize the world’s information, and by Libraries as exemplified by the ALA’s mission statement.

However, how can these two uses of the information support such dissimilar goals: to make information accessible and sell advertising on Google’s part, and to support democracy on the part of public libraries. Waller quotes Roszak’s The Cult of Information: “‘A fact, a judgement, a shallow cliché, a deep teaching, a sublime truth, or a nasty obscenity. All are “information”.’” She briefly discusses the modern use of the word “information”, and then writes in a very important passage the following (my emphasis):

Google is concerned with the free flow of digital information, information that is accessible anywhere anytime. In other words, Google is concerned with the form of the information. In contrast, public libraries aim to provide access to information in order to strengthen democracy. This requires a balanced flow of information and some sort of ordering of significance. In other words, libraries are concerned with the content of information. Google is only concerned with the content inasmuch as it is enables targeted advertising.

This quote explains exactly why I have been so dissatisfied with my colleagues in libraries, and what I believe the problem to be. With the rise of computer systems for accessing data, librarians have given up on their historical mandate of supporting democracy by not only supplying “information”, but by supplying the kind of information that will allow citizens to come to independent judgments and participate in a healthy democracy.

We have given up on trying to offer some balance, quality control, and yes, even ordering of information based on educated judgement, in favour of ever increasing flows of information, technological utopianism, and a willingness to let corporations solve our problems instead of using our own professional judgement.

I stayed up all night reading that report, and then writing that post.  And I think that was the time I was sure I was going to be a Librarian.  I think I was already accepted to the University of Toronto then, and from that moment I knew that librarianship was what I wanted to be passionate about. I was so interested in the process of going through the library and doing research, and how this would change in the future.

Anyone who has followed my posts since then will know that this passion was slowly killed by that Information Studies program.  The story of the disaster has yet to be written.  If you had been watching me over the last year you wouldn’t even suspect that I cared about libraries any more.  And that is because I didn’t.

The struggle of having to deal with what Bill Crowley calls the “cognitive dissonance” of librarianship versus the information professions in our education.  The agony of realizing that I actually got no professional experience while in school.  The defeat of having no true mentorship in my so-called practicum.  And then the depression of not finding my first professional gig for eight months.  All this killed my interest and desire to be a librarian.

I haven’t mentioned it, but since February I have been working as the Coordinator of Information & Knowledge Management at the Office of the Worker Adviser, within the Ontario Ministry of Labour.  So despite my love of libraries and distaste for the discourse of “information,” I am more of an information professional than a librarian.  I take the problems of the economy in stride:  due to the policies of the government I am employed as a temp (through an actual temp agency).  While I am being paid less then I should, I look and see that people all around me are without work.  Six months ago I myself was without work.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the position.  I went to so many interviews in academic libraries, and had one particularly shocking experience that I feel like I am ready to tell.  But every time I am introduced as the “tech guy” at my office I cringe.  I insist on describing my self as the librarian. I love my computer, and I am a computer nerd, but this is more of my hobby.  I might like model trains, but I don’t necessarily want to do it for eight hours a day every day. There hasn’t been a Master’s level professional here for some years, so getting people back into the habit of seeing this position as a professional has been rewarding.  After showing people that their reference questions would be answered, with care and timeliness, I got a standing ovation at the all staff conference a few months ago.

And yet, I am still more of a book nerd, even though books may or may not be dying.  At least I want to be passionate again about what books represent: introspection, transcendence from one’s daily life, education,  empowerment, and knowledge over information.

I was ready to give up on libraries altogether.  I did so well in school, I had amazing people who were willing to attest to my passion and commitment, and I served through various professional activities.  So I didn’t have professional experience like some others, so what.  When I didn’t get a job for four months, six months, eight months I was down. And parts of this job get me down every day, to the point where I was ready to quit being an information professional.  I realized I am not an information professional.

Should I work a while then leave the profession altogether, I thought.  I even thought that I should focus my efforts on hooking children onto reading while they were young (inspired more than a bit by my partner Xuan-Yen’s work with Green Thumbs Growing Kids, who’ve won a Green Toronto Award for 2009). And I still would love to work with kids more.

While I am still unsure whether what I am doing now will count if I want to try again at academic libraries, I think I’ve come home to my path with a whole new set of ideals and priorities.  Over this year I’ve been searching for something to be passionate about again, and I feel like something is starting.  At least I am writing more.