Let's Get Digital 1 2 3

So much is going digital, including TV broadcasts and textbooks. Much of this development presents a boon for researchers and anyone interested in exchanging ideas. (That's a digital image of Amazon's Kindle DX, above -- just released. It can hold up to 3500 books sans pictures).

Almost twenty years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a class at UNC's School of Information and Library Science with Fred Kilgour (1914-2006), a visionary librarian and founder of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center, originally known as Ohio College Library Center). In his class, we students examined how researchers utilized information stored in library books and journals, and in our sample study, found that researches cited only two or three pages from each text.

Kilgour maintained that what the world needed was an ever-expanding digital library made available via internet and computers. Providing this service would be a much more efficient way of distributing information on demand. (In other words, you wouldn't need the phsyical book, just the information stored in it, conveyed electronically). He was right. Google and other institutions have picked up the ball and are now providing just such services. From this librarian's point of view, digital technology has been a wonderful tool for people of all stripes.

Digital technology should revolutionize schools, and is beginning to do so. South Korea has a digital project well underway.

One can also look at California's planned innovations. See for example, Juliet Williams, "Schwarzenegger Seeks Online Revolution in Schools," (Associated Press, June 10, 2009): "In the state that gave the world Facebook, Google and the iPod, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says forcing California's students to rely on printed textbooks is so yesterday . . ." This initiative should save a lot of money for both students and non-student tax payers. Not to mention eliminating the waste of heavy, quickly outdated textbooks subsequently ploughed into landfills. (Phone books should go the same way -- entirely online).


Just in my twenty-two or so years of working in libraries, I've seen the transformation from old card catalogues (this one was at UNC's Wilson Library, state of the art in 1952) to the burgeoning online internet-linked catalogs of today.

It's so much better in so many ways. Can you imagine having to file Author, Subject, Title and cross-reference cards for each and every distinct book or title? That's how we still did it, even into the 1990s. Oh and, let's not forget microcards, microfilm and microfiche: all of it replaceable by digital format. Even the weight relief was astonishing -- a cabinet filled with microfiche was extremely heavy, indeed.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.