Teacher Librarians, Luddites in musty book museums

At the risk of being repetitive...

Teacher Librarian Advocacy is useless, there is no way anyone in government could possibly justify throwing good money after bad by propping up this outdated profession. Why would I say such a thing? Lets take as an example the members of our profession, not the best and brightest (every profession, trade and vocation has superb practitioners) for they are not examples of the whole. No, lets examine the general 'body behind the circ desk' if you will. This person is a moron, trapped behind outdated technology (bitching and moaning about the death of the roneo file) and wishing for the good old days when the library was quiet (wood panelled and probably lit by gas lamps).

Lets think back over the last few months about all the hard work people (many of them on this list) have been putting in. Telling the NSW state government that school principals should NOT be able to take TL money and use it to pay a mere tech specialist. Using the best practice examples of our members to demonstrate all that should (and could) be. How a library can lift a whole school and the TL can drive test scores up, participation up and so much more besides.

Now imagine that Barry O'Farrell (persuaded by this impassioned plea) decided that today was the day he would investigate further. Today he would visit our newsgroup and make sure he was fully up to speed on the issue.

He'd not only allow principals to fire their TLs he'd damn well make it compulsory. And he'd possibly bulldoze all the libraries and sow the ground with salt into the bargain. Then (if he had any sense) he would have us all neutered in order to ensure we didn't reproduce.

Now, I know I have moaned about this sort of thing on here before (and before that). But I can not believe what I have been reading here the last couple of days. How can anyone expect to convince people that our profession should be allowed to be responsible for teaching students to navigate the digital world when it would seem the average member of our profession thinks 'the cloud' is something to yell at. How can anyone tell me that teacher librarians have a role to play in digital citizenship and helping young people navigate the complexity of social media when we as a group are completely unable to deal with a WONDERFUL and SEAMLESS transfer of our discussion list to an updated platform?

Oh, and putting the snark aside for a moment. Thanks to all involved for the upgrade.

So, where was I? Oh yes, people getting their knickers in a bunch about the 'new'. The 'new' is what we do folks. We should not sound like a group of 13 year old girls who have just found out that Facebook has done a redesign. "I liked it better before" This is not the voice I expect from major stakeholders in the knowledge economy.

Don't like it? Don't want to be on the list any more? Then UNSUBSCRIBE YOURSELF! Stop asking the rest of us to do it for you.
Want to complain that there are too many emails? Complain to your spouse or psychiatrist because the reason there are too many emails is because you keep emailing the whole list to complain there are too many emails. I don't care! I can't do anything about it, I am just a member of the list myself. The wonderful free and informative list, which no one forced to to join and, no one is stopping you from leaving.
But please, for the love of all that is sane, shut up and let this list go back to discussing the things that allow me to do my job with a bit more flair than I would if not for this amazing brains trust. Discussions about Olympic copyright, the best picture books, readers advisory methodologies, new books for the national curriculum and even clickview requests (if you must).

Want to complain about the upgrade? Go right ahead. As I librarian I found the link for you http://oztlnet.com/contact-us/ (just like I found the unsubscribe link up above).

Is there some OZTL protocol that says I am not allowed to take the email addresses of the next 5 people who mindlessly ask to be unsubscribed and send them to all the Nigerian scammers whose messages reside in my SPAM folder?
I mean, I know it is unethical, but is it specifically banned? Because at this point in time that seems like perfectly rational behaviour.