Mea Culpa

In my last post, I expressed my disappointment that the websites of both the Springfield-Greene County Library and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection perpetuate the idea that Blende City and Blendville (two early Jasper County mining camps) were one in the same when, in fact, they were two distinct and separate locations. After the post, I received an email from a librarian at the Springfield-Greene County Library suggesting, in essence, that libraries should not be held responsible for the content on their websites any more than they are held accountable for the content of the books that they stock on their shelves. The librarian also pointed out that in a monumental work like Moser's Directory of Towns, Villages, and Hamlets Past and Present of Missouri (which is the source of the website information I cited) occasional mistakes are bound to occur. I have to agree. Libraries are merely repositories of information. It's not up to them to diligently screen every book they acquire or every bit of information they post on the Internet. So, I guess this is my official retraction. The lesson here, then, is that you can't believe everything you read, on the Internet or elsewhere. We need to be critical readers. For the record, though, Blende City and Blendville were definitely two different places.