Historical Redundancy Writing Anxiety

Reading one of my FIS 1311 classmate's blogs (Hamilton, 2007) I've just diagnosed another anxiety disorder in myself. I don't know if this is something that any of you (yes, you two people who are reading my blog) suffer from but it’s a mildly irritating one for me. It is called (or rather, I am calling it) Historical Redundancy Writing Anxiety. Let me explain…

In training to be librarians we are all learning about just how much and how rapidly things are changing in our field. Same old story, advances in technology mean new rules, new practices, etc. But as Angela points out (Hamilton, 2007) how do we know which technologies will last and what will become the next friendster?

So this is where my anxiety comes in. How do we even start to talk about new technologies, start to plan for their implementation, etc. when they could never really happen (and by happen I mean be successful enough that everyone uses them)? I am muzzled by my ridiculous fear of future generations reading my work and laughing at how dumb I sound in raving about fanciful technology and its implications. I don’t want to be the person who in the ‘50s talked about moving sidewalks and flying cars!

That said I realize that we need to have these discussions, obviously it isn’t all science fiction, we can sort out some facts, look at trends and make an educated guess about where things are going. We need to make contingency plans, even if they become outdated two minutes later. And yes I’m being a little facetious with this anxiety (really I haven’t let my fear of what others will think get THAT bad) but my point is really that these things are changing so fast and they don’t necessarily evolve in a logical way! As Bowker and Star point out, there are a myriad of other factors that influence which system remains (economics, advertising, conspiracy) and it is rarely related to which is the best or most effective system. (Bowker and Star, 2000) So in some ways it requires some kind of mystical fortune telling ability to accurately predict what Information Studies will look like in even 10 years.

Reference List

Bowker, G & Star, S.L. 2000. “Introduction: To Classify is human” in Sorting Things Out:

Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (p. 9-32).

Hamilton, A. “Trying to See the Future” (2007) Retrieved September 22, 2007 from http://www.indestructible.ca/

Trials and Simulations

Okay this is not library related per se but I felt the need to share this idea I had the other day. The library connection is that it is a way to connect books with cutting edge technology. It is quite simply put – Kafka’s The Trial : The Videogame!

Brilliant, isn’t it? I think so. What could be more fun than navigating the myriad of complicated bureaucracy in order to clear yourself (or your avatar or whatever the kids are calling them these days) of charges which you don’t fully understand. The game would start like the novel with your character informed of a need to appear in court. Then you would have to solve puzzles like “what are you charged with?” “where is the court?” “who is your lawyer?” "what is the meaning of all this?" You’d have to talk to other characters and try to figure out what is going on, of course, no one would be helpful. And for each character you talk to, you would have to wait up to 30 minutes for them to talk to you. I should explain, there is no way to win this game. The software would be accompanied with a deluxe instruction manual, in 47 volumes, all containing complicated jargon which means absolutely nothing. Also, answer keys or whatever they are called (you can tell I play a lot of video games!) would be readily available on the web, they would of course be equally as dense as the manual and probably less helpful, they would perhaps even give you the wrong directions.

I think this would work very well! It would be the anti-video game! A post-modern game to frustrate the notion of video-gameness. I think the main audience would be bored and over-educated grad students. What better way to procrastinate while writing your paper “… Taste Awful, But they Work!: The semiotics of Medicinal Candy Advertising in a Post-Trauma World of Late Capitalism” than deconstruction the notion of entertainment and simulation through a video game designed to frustrate you!

Clearly I’m an idea person, I have no computer skills so let me know if you like my idea and are technically savy! I’m in need of a partner (to do all the work basically) Millions of dollars from disaffected academics no doubt await the release of this great concept!

Don’t think this will fly? Well there is always my Animal Crossing expansion pack “Animal Double-Crossing: Orwell’s Animal Farm Plug-in For Animal Crossing” idea!

p.s. Clearly I am in need of the above mentioned software as I now spend my procrastination time writing nonsensical blogs!

Do Brains Need Reclaiming?

I am a total film nut and this can’t help but influence my posts here. So I am going to start this one with an anecdote from the Toronto Film Festival. I saw a German film during the fest called Reclaim Your Brain (the German title is Free Rainer) directed by Hans Weingartner (who directed a brilliant film from a few years ago called The Edjukators). The film is about an ex-schlock TV exec who gathers a group of misfits to hack into the ratings system and boost the ratings of intelligent shows and deflate the ratings of stupid TV, thus creating a shift in German thinking and encouraging the mass audiences to watch intelligent television and actually think about the world.

The film had some troubling ideas for me (that there should be some kind of vanguard group deciding what is appropriately intelligent culture) despite for the most part agreeing with its message. But it is the Question and Answer session afterwards that I really want to talk about. The director was understandably very bitter about the state of cultural industries around the world, saying that there is a general dumbing down of all types of media. He explained that his film would never get a theatrical release in Canada and may never even make it to DVD. He argued that distribution companies only want films with short scenes, lots of action and violence and avoid thought provoking films like the proverbial plague. As well Weingartner explained, filmmakers like himself are also being hurt by downloading. He says he is losing his audience because those who are interested in foreign film often don’t buy dvds or go to the theatre and those who do buy dvds or go to the theatre all the time, don’t watch independent German films anyway. Obviously the director knows of what he speaks, he’s out there trying to make a go of it with politically aware (if somewhat obvious and preachy) film and being shut down by the Hollywood machine.

So here’s where the Information Studies part of my brain clicked in: what is our role as Information Professionals in promoting culture? If we become librarians what is our role in promoting “culture”? Do we have a responsibility to promote a certain kind of culture? And if we do promote it, how can we get people to listen? And if society is less interested in thinking, where do we stand? We deal with issues like this all the time. We deal with issues relating to what kinds of works to store in a collection (balancing popular titles with challenging ones). But as Information Professionals we also deal with this general laziness in culture. Just as Weingartner complains that mass audiences don’t want to do the work of unpacking the meaning of a political film, some people argue that the majority of the population now just turn to Google and Wikipedia and that is where their research ends. So are we, especially those who work in libraries, being made redundant by this? To answer that we have to ask a few more questions: Is Weingartner right? Is culture declining? And if so what kind of culture should be promoted instead? Who decides? Who decides whether television is socially relevant and intelligent enough?

I am a big supporter of non-mainstream music, movies and writing but on the other hand, I am always bothered when people start talking about how things have gotten so bad and about the brainlessness of popular culture. Those kind of statements always seem so elitist to me. Popular culture is popular because people like it, so obviously it speaks to them. Obviously less mainstream culture doesn’t speak to as many people, which is what makes it strong in my mind because it doesn’t pander to a wide majority. But there is something to be said for something that has mass appeal. However, it makes me very nervous when popular culture drowns out all other kind of culture. Weingartner’s concerns are interesting to me because similar to the issue of internet technology in Library Science, what he’s actually saying is that easier access to non-mainstream culture is in some ways hurting those industries of cultural production. The fact that people can easily download a film is good because they get to see something they might not have seen but bad because they give those weasel-y producers ammunition in rejecting intelligent, thought provoking scripts. The answer to that seems clear to me, that we need to rethink the distribution of works like film and music. Just as we need to rethink how libraries are organized, so too on a larger scale do we need to think about how we deal with such readily available information and culture. I believe this thinking must include how we will protect vulnerable industries like independent film.

I don’t really have any answers here, just lots of rambling questions. Maybe there aren’t any answers, but I think we all need to keep discussing the questions.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my little blog. This will be a forum for me to express myself as I acclimatize myself to the Information Studies universe. I'm pretty new to Info Studies and also libraries! It is all a bit new for me, but that makes it all the more exciting... and a bit scary.

Not being a "digital native" I still have much of the language and customs to learn. Hopefully this blog will be a good start on my road to digital citizenship.