But I Need My Crutch

What's on at your local movie theater? Check the internet. What's the capital of Albania? Check the internet. What does it mean when my throat is sore and my tongue is coated with some bizarre green slime? Check the....well, you get the picture. We no longer consult reference books to answer the myriad questions that arise every day because everything we need to know is a mouse click away. Unfortunately those reference books used to have an authority that was implied by their very publication, and that implied authority seems to have transferred now to anything we see on the screen after completing our "Google" inquiry. The Information Scientist says we need him to tell us if the words we see on our screen are to be trusted, but who's asking? Certainly not the millions who ask and click every day, happily evaluating the results themselves for good or ill.

Let's Mix It Up!

Some people believe that the digital age has released an entirely new world of “mash up” possibilities; the mixing and blending of different genres to create new art and literature. For example, the musical group “Gangstagrass” has experimented successfully with mixing traditional bluegrass music with hip-hop rap, and the popularity of books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies shows us the possibilities of blending classic literature with pop culture themes. But these mash-ups are nothing new. I particularly like this science fiction/western comic book that represents a mash-up from the 1940s, which of course True Archives has mashed-up again to assist in our never ending battle against the evils of Information Science.

Oh! What You Do To Me!

Does the internet really make you stupid by lessening your powers of memorization, or is it a helpful tool that allows one to memorize that which is important over that which is trivial? I don't know, and neither do you as you sit staring at this screen. All I know is that everyone at True Archives believes we are facing a generation of dummies, much as writer Mark Bauerlein has suggested. Even if you don't believe that, there is little arguing the impact of the internet on the library profession as it moves quickly to make obsolete traditional librarian skills. Still, the Biblioposer tries to make a place for him/herself in this brave new digital world and insists on a role as a mediator between the user and the information the user scans with increasingly brief comprehension. At the same time, the Biblioposer waxes eloquent about how much he loves books and reading, even while promoting the very tools that erode the practice.

Just Kidding, Really!

How many times have you heard someone preface a racial, ethnic, or profession based joke with the phrase “Some of my best friends are_______________.” I am as guilty of this weaseling equivocation as anyone here in the True Archives world, especially when it comes to my colleagues in the library world. For the most part I have been reluctant to use the word “librarian” when I denounce the reasons for the rapid decline of books and reading, choosing instead to beat up on my straw man the Information Scientist and his sidekick, the Biblioposer. However, librarians keep walking into my trap, either by rejecting the name of “librarian” for their profession or expanding their definition of it to include such inanities as gardening and "read-to-a-dog" days. As silly as these sideshows seem, it is librarian’s embrace of the internet to the exclusion of all else that really marks them as willing participants in the mad race to total digital dependency. In my past twenty years at this institution I have seen the reference section of books dwindle down to a few pathetic shelves, and rarely do I see my colleagues consult them when fielding the infrequent reference inquiry at the desk. A quick “Google” or other database scan and the questioner is sent on his way, no wiser for the elucidation that came so effortlessly.

The Archivist as Western Hero

Like most children born in the 1950s, I grew up on a steady diet of television and movie westerns. There is something so compelling about the myth of the frontiersman, a law unto himself, taming a rugged landscape filled with human and animal peril. What has interested me in the western in recent years is the universality of its appeal, and even though millennials no longer sit through a tale of dusty streets and showdowns, the formula of the western is played out again and again in other genres such as science fiction and police dramas. I feel the Information Scientist would be the perfect villain for a western: cold, ruthless, and powerful. What better role for the archivist than that of the western hero? Chivalrous, quiet, competent, and possessed with a deadly six-gun accuracy, the archivist could face the threat with real (reel) panache!

Out With the Old, In With the New

For decades librarians and archivists have been microfilming newspapers and then discarding the originals. This practice seems to have been universally accepted in the past because under the right storage conditions microfilm can last over 300 years, while a newspaper will become brittle within months. Again, writer Nicholas Carr was one of the first to decry the practice of discarding newspapers, and if I recall correctly he even proposed starting a private archive to store stacks and stacks of old issues from various publishers. If true, this practice seems even more quaint when we consider the modern practice of scanning the microfilm for digital image storage, a format that allows free text searching and all kinds of research possibilities. But wait before you go softly into that good night. Paper has something a digital image will never have; a demonstrable authenticity as to the information available to the planet at a certain time and place. Take that, Mr. Information Scientist!!!!!

Use It, or Lose It

There are those who believe that the millennials are so mesmerized by their electronic toys that they no longer can compose, or comprehend, an English sentence. Abbreviations, phonetic spelling, and anacronyms abound in their personal communications, so much so that a block of text properly spelled and punctuated presents an almost Byzantine puzzle that defies their feeble efforts at decoding. Of course none of this has been proven, or even suggested, by scientific researchers, but that is no obstacle here. In the world of True Archives, we can take our anecdotal sampling of reading-challenged youngsters and extrapolate a future devoid of literate humans. Like the Eloi in "The Time Machine," those who come after us will be more akin to lotus eaters than ravenous scholars. What can be done about this abandonment of deep reading?

The Devil is in the Details

I love comparing the Information Scientist to the Devil. So much evil all wrapped up in one nice little straw man. What could be more nasty than someone who destroys books? The image of brown shirted storm troopers gleefully torching piles of books is one of the more enduring symbols of evil in the twentieth century, but the image of the Prince of Darkness is even more broad when one wishes to illustrate an ongoing effort to make the world miserable. Oh, don't worry, I will get around to depicting the Information Scientist as a Nazi in due time, but meanwhile here are a few hellish interpretations for your enjoyment.

Attention Spans, or Lack Thereof

As I understand it there is little solid research to demonstrate the alleged shortened attention span of millennials due to their increasing reliance on electronic devices. Writers such as Nicholas Carr have presented compelling arguments to advance the theory, but it seems the scientific community is far from agreeing on the subject. Indeed, I have seen some studies that suggest more of a subject's brain is engaged while playing a video game than when doing deep text reading. However, in my world of True Archives I don't have to cite factual studies. It is my opinion that the digital age is making us stupid, and that Information Scientists revel in the growing dependency on their Frankenstein monsters.

The Plot Against the Book

In addition to inventing the generic villain "Information Scientist," it has been necessary to concoct a global conspiracy against print to warn people about. In all truth, I don't see how the accelerating pace of print obsolescence we are observing in American higher education could be done any more efficiently if there actually was such a plot. As libraries continue to weed collections to gain floor space for more computers, and as millennials continue to foster reading habits that prefer bite (byte) sized chunks of text, the future for the codex looks dark indeed. So dark that one can almost imagine a world where a cabal of information scientists meet secretly to plan the destruction of the last printing press on earth.

The Archivist and Accessioning

Aside from my tiresome rant against the rising tide of print disposal and the shortened attention span of the millennials, my covers sometimes display aspects of daily life for old school archivists like myself. In my twenty-seven years in the profession I have found a growing trend among those who hold collections of manuscripts and books to overvalue their worth. This is odd, since all the signs around us are pointing to a world where print has no value at all, and where books donated to libraries are simply put directly into book sales or chucked into recycling bins. Perhaps the misconception of donors regarding the value of their materials is due to the influence of high profile auctions, or television programs like Antiques Roadshow, where astronomical prices are set on rarities. This puts pressure on archivists like myself to tread a careful line between convincing the donor their material has worth for research, but little value on the open market. Negotiating can be a very tricky business, and so I present . . .

Biblioposers vs. Archivists

I coined the term "biblioposer" to describe those information scientists who want it both ways. The biblioposer is an information scientist who never tires of presenting his profession as the arbiters of the internet while simultaneously gushing over his role as a custodian of books. To be fair, the two functions are not mutually exlusive, but there seems to me something hypocritical about working tirelessly to replace print while expressing one's love of its format. Biblioposers are great advocates of Kindles and their ilk, the electronic toys that are supposed to replace the codex for the dwindling masses who still find pleasure in deep reading. I suppose they take this stance because embracing hand held computers represents the middle ground between the excesses of the digital age and the slower pace of analog perusal. Make no mistake, though. The biblioposer is only pretending to love books, while working overtime to destroy them.

The Information Scientist as a Straw Man Villain

Who can we rage against when we find the weather or the tide does not suit us? Are these not natural occurrences that, outside of a religious explanation, have no source of responsibility? It is much the same with the "Information Age," a natural process set in motion by human innovation that has increased the access to ideas and images far beyond what Gutenberg or any of his contemporaries would have envisioned. There is no one person, or group of persons, to "blame" for the death of print, the increasing irrelevancy of the codex, or even the shortened attention spans of our younger planetary citizens. That is why I have invented the "Information Scientist" as the nebulous cause of all this change, and presented him/her as an evil entity focused on nothing less than the destruction of our collective heritage. In setting up this straw man I have been assisted by graduate schools of Library Science (of which I am an alum) who have jettisoned the word "library" from their institutional labels. (Contemporary librarians seem almost embarrassed of the title, and bemoan its branding connotations with dusty shelves of books and stern faced dowagers who shush the noisy.) Now that that the formerly named library schools are churning out information scientists rather than librarians, they seem obsessed with presenting their graduates as modern, a-go-go professionals whose internet savvy qualifies them to be the mediators in any person's search for relevant material online. The problem with this image is that contemporary internet users really see little need for the intervention of a third party to tell them if their Google hits are trustworthy or not. Indeed, the upcoming generation is rapidly becoming capable of finding anything on the internet that they want without instruction, and a growing number realize their search results are better vetted by those whose education is rooted in the discipline at hand. Thus the librarian, in his transformation into an information scientist who jumps between the user and the computer to claim authority as a judge of its quality, is doomed from the start. In other words...

Introductory

This blog will be a place where I can display, and interpret, all of the altered pulp magazine and comic book covers that I have created over the last few years.  I am a working, "old school" archivist who arranges and describes three-dimensional, information-bearing objects.  To put it another way, I analyze and interpret documents and photographs to create inventories that assist historians, genealogists, and other interested parties in finding them.  When I first started in the business in 1987, computers were just starting to take over the world and Al Gore had yet to invent the internet.  I learned a way to describe materials in large groups, called "series," and create finding aids that would point to relevant materials in the most general way, usually by listing folder titles found within individually numbered boxes.

But something happened over the last twenty-seven years, and I am not convinced it is a good thing.  Desktop computers, and the networking of the same through the internet, has turned my profession upside down.  No longer are people content to actually read a finding aid inventory, they now demand to see relevant documents on screen, just like the latest YouTube cat video or their friend's Facebook postings.  This has forced archivists like me from the previous generation to begin slowing down our traditional work to satisfy an endless stream of requests for individual images, and trying to meet these demands by the millennial generation is much like feeding peanuts to pigeons from a park bench; they will never be satisfied. 

To vent my frustration at this situation, and to whine endlessly about what I see as the demise of deep reading and literacy to be found among the millennials, I began altering magazine covers to reflect my angst.  This blog will allow those covers to be viewed by the same people I am mocking, and the irony of using the internet to complain about technology is certainly not lost on me.  So, without further ado, here is the first cover I ever created to point out the tensions between the traditional practice of my profession, and the unsavory developments that are altering it, and society, forever.