Thursday, July 19, 2007

Cult of the Amateur

Andrew Keen's new book "The Cult of the Amateur" takes a dim view of the erosion of authority that is the hallmark of web2.0 - everyone a publisher, anyone an expert. His views are not unlike those former ALA president Michael Gorman set forth in an article on blogs a few years ago, which did little to endear him to web2.0-happy librarians. The Wall Street Journal recently carried a debate between Keen and David Weinberger (author of "Everything is Miscellaneous") which nicely illuminates the pros and cons of the matter. See also Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times