I am...ahem...a bit older than a few of you folks out there riding the aether....How old? Well, let's put it this way...the first time I had ever met Richie Haven's, sitting in his hotel room, we pulled out out=r Sinclair computers, tape decks and cables to attach to the tv screen, and typed in our basic code onto the cassette, ran it so we could...save our data to the cassette tape! OOOHHHHH! High tech...weren't we???
I'm no expert, to be sure, in fact I can get lost in it all, but I do have to say...I LOVE gadgets and any way they can make my life, personal or professional...easier...is fine with me.
So, here we are almost 30 years later, and I am typing this on my battery powered wireless folding keyboard onto my pda that I can beam to another pda, which is wireless, reading the lastest wiki's and blogs, searching the net, reading and responding to emails, as they occur, and still able to hook it all to my phone watch movies, listen to any number of 120,000 songs and still search the web...all on a small handful of gadgets, taking up less space than a happy meal box!
Yes, times have changed. But, times are the same...somehow...It gives me great pleasure to open my 1911 Britannica and smell the knowledge as it wafts from the pages, taking me into the marbled halls of the Alexandrian Library, to read an article on the 'new' science of physics written by a young Albert Einstein...knowledge is timeless, and while technology opens the portals to worlds beyond our imaginations...it is the ABILITY to retrieve and share that knowledge that makes me love my work. You see, it's not a job....A job is something you HAVE to do, your work is what you WANT to do...and I am fortunate to have my work be something I love to do.
So, don't get too bogged down on technology, its a great tool, but don't forget...paper is where it is at...sometimes!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree Track, technology is pretty sweet but I would not willingly give up all paper. I don't think even the best gadget will replace the book you can hold in your hands. That tactile connection to the particular book with its colorful cover and folded pages cannot be replaced by the impersonal screen that can display any number of random images.
Hey - watch that "older" comment there!! I do agree that technology is fun but I love books and being able to hold it and read. By lantern light in post-hurricane darkness, my books were still available - computer - not so much!
Ahh, you've chiseled something primo here, good buddy. Not only is work what one wants to do, it's what resonates in one's being, reverberates through the aether, and touches a chord in the person whom one is privileged to assist. That creates a shared wavelength more powerful than any mechanical or digital feat.And that's why technology should never circumscribe enlightenment or service--and libraries ought attend to the latter 2 over the former 1.
Post a Comment