In a nutshell 09/04/2009

Hello, I am JC. Although I may refer to myself as John. This is not my first blog. I had one on Yahoo's Geocities. It seems however, that Yahoo will be discontinuing that site and therefore I have created this account based on other blogs I have seen on this site and from what I have heard from others. Since I am most likely writing to myself I will remind myself that I may not post in this everyday, every week, or every month. Yet, this is a nifty piece of online technology that I feel compelled to take part in.

For this entry I want to talk about a class I am in. Last night was the first class meeting of a course I am taking for my Masters of Library Science called "Access to Information." It was a pretty amazing class in a nutshell, but I'd like to share some of the interesting things that were presented and discussed. First of all the professor, Dr. Roland, talked about himself and what he is interested in as far as librarianship is concerned. He said, "How does society know what it knows?" He gave an example along the lines of, "Years and years ago, white men in the United States knew that black men could not be trusted to vote. Today, all men in the United States have put their trust in a black man to be President." Essentially Dr. Roland's interest is in the way societies knowledge changes.

I found this to be an extrodinary interest. Personally, I have interest in society's personal history and philosophy. Many author's, philosophers, and other historical figures have published work and in some cases private collections houseing letters, journals, personal artifacts. What makes these people so special? Yes, many have accomplished great things worthy of being forever etched in time. But I wonder if the greatest minds, the most beautiful and profound thoughts belong to a person that no book, no journal, no social networking site, blog, etc knows about. People have stories, remarkable stories that should be documented for future generations but they are not. Some may called this public history, others may called it Oral History or perhaps there are other names and ideas. It is however, something that I am interested in and for now, I will leave it at that. See www.living-library.org for something like this already in place.

Right, trying to keep this short. We also discussed technology and where libraries will be in 10 years last night. We listened to a man named Kevin Kelly on a video from Ted.com (I think). He discussed how the internet and web has grown in the last ten years. He gave examples of satiliette imagery, real estate, social networking, etc. He said ten years ago we did not believe that this was possible and today we do not find it all that noteworthy. He then wondered what will the web be like ten years from now. He went on to describe cloud computing and AI and said we "Have to get better at believing the impossible."

After listening to Kevin Kelly talk I felt and it seemed like the class also had a sense of fear or at least uneasiness from the technology Kevin described. It was scary! If computers are going to be able tell a person who searches for me where I live and in what house, where I went to school and what I studied, my GPS will tell me when I am approaching stores or restaurants I may enjoy. A search for information will just about tell a person everything they will want to know, perhaps more. Information will be very detailed and personalized. Kevin's vision of our current technology was intimadating because it makes me wonder who or what will be in control. Kevin believes people will be codependant of computers.

The tone of the class changed however, when asked by the professor what will librarians have to do as technology grows. One student simply replied that librarians must educate, themselves and those who come to librarians. This is true. As technology continues to develop we must educate ourselves about the developments so we may not be intimidated and make better use of the great things technology will have to offer.

I decided to become a librarian because I love to do research and I love being and working in libraries. I am slowly learning more about myself as I learn more about libraries and librarians and I realize more and more how smart of a decision it was to become a librarian. I must alway challenge my mind to learn and be active. Librarians must "be ahead of the curve" as new technologies become available. This one thing of many things I believe I will learn about myself.

End

By the way, this blog may not always be as intellectual and polite as this.