And today I tried to become a member of ALA and PLA. I got about halfway through the form and their website went down. Again and again. Why is it that the national organization for those who network and connect people to information and people to people keeps repeatedly discouraging me from joining their throngs of committees, round tables, organizations, and initiatives through poorly managed web content? If I continue to have trouble with this my ADD-attuned fingers may just forget about one of the potentially most important connecting opportunities I need to take advantage of me. It’s what happened last year at this time. I need to make amends but I may end up hanging out on Skype instead. Or start making YouTube videos for my own amusement. Really, I think I just need a beer with friends.

So: ALA and PLA members–was it hard for you to sign up? Has it been worth it to be part of the organization? Do you use Skype? What’s it like?

I wonder about their methods:

“Interestingly enough, many of the best practices did not come from computer science; they came from anthropology. So we began to talk to anthropologists, study their techniques, and learn from their discipline. Eventually, we even called our practice “High-Tech Anthropology®” and our team members “High-Tech Anthropologists®.”

I got my undergraduate degree in anthropology. I’m getting an MSI to become an ALA-certified librarian. I like titles and I do, generally speaking, like the educational landscapes I must traverse through to get these titles. Talking to an anthropologist doesn’t make you one.  I feel like this organization, however well intended, has made the same mistake they seek to redress: they are making assumptions that their methods and approaches are correct and appropriate without taking into context the paths that are needed to properly use these approaches and methods.

Besides, anthro is in DDC 301 and computer programming is in DDC 005. That’s like stacks and stacks away.

I espouse interdisciplinarity, the intellectual weight of non-expert knowledge and I like the idea of a practice of High-Tech Anthropology®, I just have a feeling that this is well intended but ultimately kind of misses the point. That or I just pointed out how much of a hypocrite I am and that I really am a Category Nazi who doesn’t like to shake up her p’s and q’s. Probably my reaction is a bit of both.