Library News, by Andrea Lhotka for David Keeber
Red Rock News
Date: June 27, 2008
"The computers are winning." I saw these simple words scrawled on cardboard in permanent ink hanging in the window of an abandoned building in Tucson, AZ. If you've seen the movie "The Terminator" then images of Arnold Schwarzenegger, cyborg metal endoskeletons, and total world annihilation are appearing before your eyes. I say "disregard" all that. Prophesy is certainly not our business at the Sedona Public Library. We deal in books and information at a smoking bargain. What I'm talking about is the conflict between digital and analog resources or more expressly the tension amongst their respective users.
The opening was intended to catch your attention, but in a matter of speaking the computers have attained great success in this endeavor, though not in any dystopic futuristic sense. The evidence is pervasive: spellbound coffee shop inhabitants clacking away at their laptops and cell phone users willfully rewriting the codes of social interaction. The inexorable march into the future is without pity, but for some the beat is a bit muffled.
This is in fact an alarming topic for many librarians: the digital divide which is essentially an obstacle to accessing information from a lack in training or deficit in resources. Since the World Wide Web was created in the early 90's and its subsequent proliferation, information has been repositioned and now inhabits a seemingly inexplicable, shadowy electronic environment. Frequently the information and services that we need once available in hardcover, on a microfiche reel, by telephone, and so on are now only obtainable with a computer and an Internet connection.
For many, gaining the requisite knowledge to operate a computer is a terrifying concept, and this phenomenon most acutely impacts those who attended schools before the explosion of computer labs, computer instruction and the Internet. It is this audience specifically that I address, in hopes that a feeling of comfort with information technologies can be realized.
As a librarian working with the public and information technology on a daily basis, my suggestion is that before you chastise yourself and make a payment in the service of self-doubt, identify the cause of your fear. In this regard I submit that uncertainty, and lack of experience and training are the major reasons. Humans do not achieve new proficiencies by virtue of charisma or magic without the advantage of training, study and hard-work. They do so out of personal curiosity or necessity. Gaining new skills can start out ever so slowly. Be patient with yourself. Talk to people. Sign up for a class. By all means, ask your local librarian. We love to help!
The advantages of electronic media are difficult to dispute, and the flaws cannot be left out. Contrasting Wikipedia with twenty substantial and burdensome volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica is like comparing a walk down the street with a ride on an $8,000 road bike. For those that do not know, Wikipedia is an online multi-lingual encyclopedia updated continuously by volunteers like you and me. It is a highly successful, collaborative website providing an infinite supply of irritation and admiration to librarians and educators everywhere. Though it is given to vandalism, disorganization, and poor citation from time to time, it is free of charge and unconstrained by the practicalities of time and space on the scale of its physical predecessors. Of course the Encyclopedia Britannica set the standard for authoritative research, and has a reputation constructed on two hundred years of experience.
But it depends which librarian you ask. Ask one of my senior and fabulous colleagues a reference question and you may find yourself in the reference or nonfiction section, and this is a fine place to be! My experience and training do not lend themselves to the reference section as much as they do to databases and online resources. I am merely a product of my generation and I have some catching up to do. Don't we all.
