During his tenure as president of the American Library Association (ALA), he was vocal in his opinions on a range of subjects, notably technology and education.
[19] After a careful reading of Gorman's use of the phrase "bogus discipline," one can see that his beliefs are not in contradiction to Ranganathan, however, as he is supplying a critique of library science schools in what he views as a departure from the core values that should be taught.
[20]: 455 The five laws are: As part of his platform when running for ALA President in 2006, Gorman pledged to address what he called the education crisis.
Two publications in particular caused heated debate, particularly within the librarian blogging community: In 2004 Google announced its plan to digitize the collections of five major research libraries.
This would allow both Google and the libraries in question, The University of Michigan, Oxford, New York Public, Harvard and Stanford, to have access to digitized copies of millions of texts.
Michael Gorman, then ALA president, responded to this announcement with an article in the Los Angeles Times 'Google and God's Mind' where he made clear his disapproval of the digitisation project.
Gorman defines information as facts, data, images and quotations that can be used out of context, while real knowledge denotes literary and scholarly texts.
[28] Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian Peter Binkley discussed this view on his blog and also noted that a digitisation project does not necessarily involve shredding the books once they are scanned.
He even suggests that Gorman himself highlights how digitised databases like Google's make it possible for users to find books and order them by inter-library loan.
Overall, Binkley felt that, as ALA president-elect, Gorman should accept that digitisation of books is inevitable and that he should "make himself useful by working to ensure that this reformatting goes well".
[30] In 2006, during his term as head of the ALA, Gorman attended the Online Information Conference in London, where he criticised the library profession for being "too interested in technology".
Karen Schneider, an ALA member who writes the Free Range Librarian blog, dubbed the controversy "Gormangate" and shared her concerns about how his words portrayed the library profession, which was subsequently picked up by the professional press.
Finally, in "Challenging the Technophiles", Gorman argues in favor of "sustained reading of complex texts" but notes that Google and the Internet are not helpful in that endeavor.
[31] While Gorman maintains that he is voicing his own opinion, it was commented that when he is identified as the president of the largest professional library organisation in North America: ...his words have huge legal, political and economic consequences for the entire information science profession.
[33] Gorman noted with alarm the results of an adult literacy assessment, which showed that reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade.
[47] Gorman has written extensively about librarianship and issues in library science in the professional and academic press, as well as editing and authoring several books, including: