Views on Library 2.0
My thoughts on Library 2.0 are very mixed. On one hand, I am very excited about what is happening on the Internet and all the emerging technology, but on the other hand, I am old school. In fact, I am so old school that my original draft of this post is with pencil and paper. I find that the easiest way for me to get my thoughts down is with pencil and paper. It is just the most comfortable way for me to write, plus I won’t play games if I write.
I got into this profession because I loved the feel of books; I loved delving into another world. Research is not the same on the Internet as it is in a quiet library full of musty old books. There is no awe, no reverence to a computer as there is to a respected work like the Old English Dictionary. Now, I know there is someone out there saying, “Hey, Technophobe, you can get the O.E.D. online”. And you would be right. The O.E.D., as well as many other resources are on the web and I will even give you the fact that some things are even easier/quicker to find on the web then they are through books. But I worry that we are becoming a society that is relying on technology too much. Wendy Schultz in, “to a temporary place in time...” says that we are not far off from library 3.0 or even 4.0 where she expects to see the library “ as physical places in the library “storefront” , they will also be mobile, as AR (Augmented Reality) overlay we can view via glasses, contacts, or projection anywhere”. This description reminds me of the young adult sci-fi novel by Anderson, M.T., Feed, which created a world where people saw “billboard”, type messages scroll across their eyes. They did not have the ability of independent thought. A character who had enough sense to realize this way of living was not good choose to remove the feed from her head, she subsequently died because she could not survive in this new world. Now I paraphrased the book immensely but the idea is the same, will we become a slave to technology or will technology become our slave. We are at the crossroads to a new way of life, how will we survive, as slave or master?
I got into this profession because I loved the feel of books; I loved delving into another world. Research is not the same on the Internet as it is in a quiet library full of musty old books. There is no awe, no reverence to a computer as there is to a respected work like the Old English Dictionary. Now, I know there is someone out there saying, “Hey, Technophobe, you can get the O.E.D. online”. And you would be right. The O.E.D., as well as many other resources are on the web and I will even give you the fact that some things are even easier/quicker to find on the web then they are through books. But I worry that we are becoming a society that is relying on technology too much. Wendy Schultz in, “to a temporary place in time...” says that we are not far off from library 3.0 or even 4.0 where she expects to see the library “ as physical places in the library “storefront” , they will also be mobile, as AR (Augmented Reality) overlay we can view via glasses, contacts, or projection anywhere”. This description reminds me of the young adult sci-fi novel by Anderson, M.T., Feed, which created a world where people saw “billboard”, type messages scroll across their eyes. They did not have the ability of independent thought. A character who had enough sense to realize this way of living was not good choose to remove the feed from her head, she subsequently died because she could not survive in this new world. Now I paraphrased the book immensely but the idea is the same, will we become a slave to technology or will technology become our slave. We are at the crossroads to a new way of life, how will we survive, as slave or master?
posted by JerseyGirl @ 8:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home