The Missing Chords of Memory

Can't find your car keys? Perhaps you are not having a senior moment but rather experiencing the greatest threat mankind has yet faced: the shortened attention span wrought by internet overuse. As more sophisticated hand-held toys (Two-Way Wrist Radios, Eye Phones, etc.) present their slavish owners with the illusion of universal knowledge, we see people slowly losing the ability to think, and more importantly, to remember. As the most simple tasks are turned over to machines, memorization powers are being reduced to knowing which button to push to answer questions as basic as "Where am I?" to the more complex "What am I?" Don't take our word for it. Once again Nicholas Carr at the Atlantic magazine sounds the alarm for anyone who has taken their ear buds out to hear it. You can only wake up and smell the coffee if you actually know how to make a cup (or drive through Starbucks while checking your email).

But the Information Scientists are not content with your addiction to picture wrist watches. They want to wipe out all alternatives. Just look at your local library and the shelves that seem to grow ever more empty even while unprecedented numbers of citizens are donating their codex collections to the same institutions. American libraries are becoming little more than free DVD rental stations who periodically recycle the printed heritage of a given community through monthly book sales. And this is also part of the great forgetting that Mr. Carr talks about, because people will eventually forget the purpose of a library, if they have not already. It won't be long until the books vanish entirely; those who have personal libraries will hoard them and seem like bizarre cat ladies to their neighbors, and on their passing those who clean up the place will simply roll up the dumpster rather than call the Public Information Center (yeah, we used to call it a library.) The time has come for frank talk about the codex and its future. That future is in the archives.

The Wizards of Odd

In perhaps one of the most memorable scenes in the most watched movie of all time, the Wizard of Oz is revealed by the little dog Toto to be nothing more than a concealed carnival huckster who projects a powerful image of omnipotence to Dorothy and her friends. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” he booms through his broadcasting apparatus, “The great Oz has spoken!” Often used as a metaphor for grandstanding charlatans, this scene is absolutely perfect for illustrating the relationship between the Biblioposers and the Information Scientists.

Once upon a time in libraries, people with a question approached a special desk where knowledgeable personnel would troll through a vast number of printed resources to answer the inquiry. In today’s world, most people simply type their question into “Google” and seem to be satisfied with whatever drivel is served up between the advertisements. If they do consult a human, it is more likely to ask directions to the bathroom than to verify the pablum they got on the television screen. And this happens in spite of the few remaining volumes of reference works behind the desk that give the atmosphere reminiscent of the profession of yore. The presence of these books behind the sage are, indeed, a powerful symbol of their incredible wisdom. Pity they are little more than the flames and smoke projected by the "Great and Powerful Oz."

Yet the Biblioposers cry out, “You need us, you ignorant louts! We are the arbiters of what is true, and what is not, on your little picture telephones! Approach us with awe for our vast knowledge of information!” But bring your little dog with you. Pull back the curtain and see what is really there. Nothing more than a cadre of computer jockeys who, drone-like, type endless streams of metadata for their front man to parrot. And those reference books? Before they are all tossed, why not send them to the archives where they will be preserved by people who really care about print media? Archives are the only true libraries left, and like Dorothy says, “there’s no place like home.”