Some final thoughts and reflections on my recent attendance at the Computers and Libraries 2006 conference in Washington, DC.
- I was happy to meet Kimberly Babcock Mashek of Wartburg College (IA), Erin Kinney of the Wyoming State Library, and Paul Miller of Talking with Talis during the conference yet have been remiss in mentioning them earlier. Many apologies. (I’m bad with names so, if you should feel that you earned a mention, many more appologies as I probably have forgotten your name. It’s nothing personal, honest.)
- Michael Casey: we were both there but somehow never linked up. Maybe next time.
- During the conference Neal-Schuman sold four copies of my latest Web design book. That may not sound like a lot but it was every copy they brought with them and more than most titles sell at a conference.
- The March issue of Computers in Libraries was the one being given away from free at the conference. The cool part is that that’s the issue with my article in it.
- The overlap with PLA basically sucked but I understand the difficulties involved in planning such an event. However, I’ve been thinking about this and I thinking that maybe it was a good thing. Here’s why. Granted, many of the people I wanted to talk to and hang out with went to PLA on Thursday but several people made the comment to me that it was “nice to see new blood presenting at the conference.” One of the things that allowed all this new blood was the fact that the old blood wasn’t there. Those folks not being there also forced me to hand out with different people and hopefully make some new long-term friends and contacts.
Well, unless anything else comes to mind in the next week you can safely assume that this is it for my blogging of CIL2006. Thanks for reading.
Before I get into this post I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear: my intention in this post is to discuss how things are advertised and the appropriateness of what’s played on the radio of a van that’s taking people to the airport. None of what you’re about to read should be interpreted as disparaging anyone’s religious faith in any way.
Shortly after I was picked up at my hotel in DC by a SuperShuttle van for my ride to BWI, the driver turned on the radio. What came on was WGTS which marketed itself as “family friendly radio” which played only “positive & encouraging” music. After listening to the station for a few minutes I cam,e to realize that this was a Christian station that only played music with a Christian message; mostly music containing some fort of praise for God and/or Jesus.
My first thought was that music of this type should not be played in a SuperShuttle van. This might be what the driver is interested in listening to but that does not mean that the rest of the riders should be subjected to it. I would have the same sort of reaction if the driver was playing gangsta rap. I understand that you can’t please everyone all of the time when it comes to music but picking something with a specific message and/or at a far end of the musical spectrum is not appropriate.
Listening to the stations promotional material further along in the ride, I started to question the “family friendly” nature of the content. Granted, I would describe it as perfectly friendly to Christian families, but what about Jewish or Muslim families. Praising Jesus song after song would not be considered friendly someone with a radically different faith. I understand their point when it comes to the fact that they kept pointing out that the lyrics to the songs they were playing were not (traditionally) offensive and lacking in sexual content, but that doesn’t instantly make it “family friendly” when you look outside of a narrow definition of family.
As usual, all comments welcome.
