There seems to be a certain amount of confusion as to what I was actually
saying in my letter re: the Smithsonian e-mail directory of museum
professionals.
 
It is not about paranoia.  It is not about junk-mail.  It is not even about
privacy.
 
It IS about scholarship and methodology.  And it is, I cannot deny it, it
is about ethics, as well.
 
Let me say at the outset that the proposed directory should be, as it is no
doubt meant to be, of inestimable use to the museum profession, and that I
feel the Smithsonian should be applauded for taking this project under its
official aegis.
 
However, what I was trying to point out (and I am admittedly less than
tactful in how I express it here) is that the Smithsonian is using some
very shoddy research practices in this case.
 
Its directory database, through the whole-sale importation of the entire
museum-l membership list, is unavoidably going to be corrupt.  It will
include everyone who just happens to have been signed on at the time,
professional or not.  Newcomers to the Net who are "trolling" lists.  Kids
coming in from CompuServe, Delphi, or AOL.  (Don't snort.  This is exactly
the sort of list I would have subscribed to as a child, had I had the
opportunity.)  Internet class members who have been assigned to sign onto a
list and sign off again, who happened to pick museum-l, and whose names /
addresses are picked up by review in the interim between the two exercises.
Subscribers who have been no-mail for ages and might not even remember
they are still on museum-l, whose e-mail address might not even exist
anymore.  People who have not read or had the opportunity to read Messrs.
Bridge's and Montgomery's announcements and would have set conceal if they
had known about any of this.
 
We're not talking evil empire, as Mr Bridge suggests in the message he
addressed to me.  We're talking common sense and we're talking professional
procedures vis a vis the gathering of data and the ensuring of its accuracy
and relevancy.
 
This is the reason I do not see this issue as making mountains out of
mole-hills, as others on this list have suggested it does.
 
Mr Bridge, might I earnestly suggest that you include in your directory
only those who voluntarily provide the information you request?  After all,
you could simply add to it the address of the listserv and instructions on
how to do a review.  In that way, at least, the people who buy (or
otherwise obtain) your directory will have an up-to-date listing for
museum-l whenever they want it (unless, in the meanwhile, Mr Chadwick sets
review= by owner), the directory will remain accurate (and hence more
trustworthy), and you will irritate nobody in the process.
 
You can still make active use of the museum-l subscriber base -- by using
it to send out your profile form to each individual on the list who has not
responded.  In that way, those listmembers who missed your original request
for help will thus be given the opportunity to participate -- IF he or she
wishes to do so.
 
(That's the ethics part of my objections.  Granted, this aspect played a
larger role in my initial posting -- that was personal irritation talking:
irritation at the attitude Mr Bridge and his intern seem to be evincing.
Frankly, and again expressed tactlessly, the attitude I am reading is a
rather blithe "If you don't want to be in the directory voluntarily, you
will simply have to go to the inconvenience (however slight) of taking
measures to prevent us from including you -- and if you didn't know about
any of this, or if our inaccurate and irrelevant data make our directory
less valuable than it might have been, why, isn't that just too bad."  It
does not look very good, either on the part of the directors of this
project or on the part of the Smithsonian as a whole.  Is this the way a
professional museum conducts its research?  Surely not.)
 
Have you ever stopped to consider that the fact that not everyone on
museum-l has sent in their profile MEANS something, Mr Bridge?
 
If people want to be in your directory, they can be.  You have, after all,
been kind enough to give them that opportunity.  More than once.
 
If they don't want to be, they should have that right without further
hassle from you.
 
It really is that simple.
 
Mario Rups
[log in to unmask]