librarians as advocates for common sense environmental information

[James Marple <jesl@carolina.net>]

  Several thousand hours of library use in two dozen states, while developing a model watershed management plan for Southern California rivers, has engendered some firm convictions about their role and that of the EPA. As a dedicated generalist seeking to spread the gospel of sensible economic/natural resource management I feel impelled to comment here where sensible people are conversing.

  Laurie welcomed me with "We encourage everyone to follow the moderator's lead to stay on-topic" and I appreciate the need for this in order to have a "productive discussion", but I hope she forgives me should I stray since I was not involved in scoping the discussion. This phrase touched a raw nerve because it is so commonly used when planners "guide" public forums along paths that avoid the pitfalls of carefully examining core issues and basic premises. 

  I have failed miserably in various efforts to set up neutral community databases. I attribute this partly to my lack of communicative skills and partly to the considerable ability of those who serve a business/bureaucratic complex that will go to any length to maintain its essentially total control over the public's database. I can understand why the EPA as an agency would hesitate to offend this most powerful single entity in national affairs. This could negatively impact its budget. But I would like to hear comment on the potential for individuals to work with libraries toward presenting information that provides a balance for the often grossly perverted and incomplete information produced by federal-state-local agencies. The public deserves, despite a general complacence, to have basic premises examined by impartial experts, to have glaring gaps in data filled, to get at least a glimpse of its actual economic and environmental planning options. 

  If libraries work harder toward objectives such as these perhaps more "ordinary" folks will shed that apathy engendered by frequent references of officials and the news media to the public's "inability to comprehend basics".  Perhaps "typical Americans" will recognize that their lack of specialized training makes them better conceptual planners than most professionals.