Encyclopedia of Race and Racism X-Original-To: Hasafran@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 X-Spam-Score: 1.30 (*) [Tag at 7.00] MISSING_SUBJECT,SPF(neutral,0) X-CanIt-Geo: ip=71.74.56.123; country=US; region=OH; city=Reynoldsburg; latitude=39.9549; longitude=-82.7693; metrocode=535; areacode=614; http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.9549,-82.7693&z=6 X-CanItPRO-Stream: lists (inherits from default) X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 128.146.216.84 X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
Dear Mr.. McLaughlin On behalf of myself and my colleague David Ettinger, I am taking the liberty of responding to your kind offer of meeting about the Zionism article in The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Dr. Ettinger has read this message and fully concurs with it as do George Washington University professors Bernard Reich and Walter Reich. We both appreciate your offer, as our library's Gale sales representative, to meet and discuss this issue with us but, in fact, much discussion with Gale has already occurred and we think the time now is for proper action, not more discussion. We realize that, Gale being a large publisher, this matter may not have filtered down to you and, again, we appreciate your offer. Rather than meet, however, perhaps a better use of time would be for me to forward you separately a message from from Lee Jaffe of the University of California at Santa Cruz (I have received his permission to do so) which explains at least some of the discussions that have already taken place. In addition we recommend an article by Gideon Shimoni, emeritus professor at the Hebrew University which can be found at <http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=4739>http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=4739 I realize that it can be embarrassing for any individual or organization to publicly admit an error, but I still hope that Gale will do what is proper: acknowledge the error, disown the inaccurate article, and remove both articles on Zionism from the electronic version of the encyclopedia and the original article from future printings and editions of the paper version. (I assume there are as yet no subsequent printings that include the second article.) Simply putting an accurate article in the encyclopedia to "balance" an inaccurate article, as Gale has done, is not really a good and proper solution. As a librarian, I wish to refer people to authoritative encyclopedias in order to receive accurate information. The "solution" Gale has adopted is thus actually no solution at all and reflects a philosophy that will reduce an encyclopedia to simply a compendium of arguments, even false and outrageous ones, as opposed to a reliable source of accurate information. The entry, in my view, is a stain on Gale's reputation and makes me, personally, less confident in consulting any of its works or advising others to do so. Thank you for your interest and openness and for affording us the opportunity to communicate our views on this issue. I am, sir, Very truly yours, Shmuel Ben-Gad, Gelman Library, George Washington University. --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
