Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Information Overload


While the rate of information and its dissemination are expanding exponentially, my branch has just taken delivery of two (not one but one more than one) newspaper stands. Yes, newspapers.


Coincidentally, proving that it is more than a mere coincidence, I've received a missive stating that there are 540,000 words in the English language which is, assertedly, three times as many as during the Shakespearean era. Note how I worked that in! Those words are constantly in use and being transmitted in one form or another.


This same missive advised that the Japanese are working on fiber optic cable capable of transmitting 260 cell phones at once, assertedly a total of 40 terabytes (which has, I'm told, nothing to do with turtles) of information. Less when people hunt and peck during texting. Where does all that information go? What do people do with it?


Libraries should provide information in all formats to its users, whichever they prefer. While the internet is fast and amazing, can it compare with the New York Times Op-Ed page? Or the New York Post's "composition" not to mention the London papers and their "inserts"? If you read comics online, how can you clip one to paste on the refrigerator? Sure, some people like their fish and chips wrapped in LCD monitors but for the rest of us traditionalists ...


Information is only valuable when it's competently disseminated so that people can act upon it. We, libraries, make it available; we don't guarantee results. This same missive stated that in 2011, a computer will be constructed that exceeds human computational abilities. Based upon my random viewing of folks, we may have already done that. It is said that by 2049, common computers will have abilities far outstripping human computational abilities. While I personally won't care, again it seems like overkill.


Newspapers, internet, CD, DVD, inplanted chips, whatever. Libraries will be there to provide access to information and, hopefully, folks will be able to ascertain what it is and use it.

2 comments:

  1. You are alleged in your own mind. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you been kissing that Blarney stone again, Juan?(I'd insert an eyeroll hyperlink here if I knew how to.)

    ReplyDelete