Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: ositioned in 24K window seat to Prague via Dubai, any time of day, which turns anytime soon to night, can be spent touching the in-fl ight screen.A poke of the dropdown box gives eight pages of Essential Albums.A deft jab with the index fi nger will display enough movies to watch for several circumnavigations of the planet.A nudge with a knuckle gets the screen keeping constant updates on the fl ight, including camera shots of terra fi rma below and nimbus or cirrus or astra ahead.But interestingly, in all of this magical mystery tour of 2012 culture, not one text screen.Not one fi le of great Czech poems to inform the traveller of the Bohemian soul.Not one short essay by Vaclav Havel.Touching is changing how we access our listening, watching, and reading.It is changing how we access.Th e fl ight screen is an in-your-face reminder of the contemporary declaration that the fold is dead.Books fold, magazines crinkle, we dog-ear the page before taking a catnap.But the fl at screen is altering the habits of a lifetime, if not precisely replacing them.A child of fi ve knows which spot on the screen to touch next, quicker than I know how to fi nd the table of contents in my compendious monographic companion.Travelling at a ground speed of 581 miles per hour toward Prague I choose instead to sit back and enjoy through headphones the sensationally great opera that had its world premiere in that city in 1787, Mozart's 'Don Giovanni'.Rumours of the death of the fold are greatly exaggerated.Delegates at the Tenth Carmelite Librarians' Meeting (Decima Riunione Bibliotecari Carmelitani) know in advance that the information technology revolution has clarifi ed the role of librarians.In particular, it has shown us that books are not the main business of librarians.Our main business is the keeping of memory, the provision of reading, the selection of essential knowledge.By which I mean, reading in whatever form it may be presented, via whatever carrier the words are delivered.Th e codex, or fold, was not the fi rst mode of transmission left to the care of librarians, and it won't be the last.Nor do we hear laments from the rooftops for the loss of the fold, even if some of our borrowers ask inappropriate questions about whether librarianship is a thing of the past, now that 'everything' is online.Plainly our job is not to waste time explaining away their misconceptions, but to ask what it is they are looking for.Chances are we will have the answer, or know where to fi nd it for them.More than likely the answer will not be online, but in the lines of a folding item in the library.Th us the conference kicks off , delegates ever sensitive to what our users read and how they read.As the distance increases between writer and reader, reliant on robots as intermediaries, it is unsurprising that words have become text -undiff erentiated and perpetual text.Streaming of information creates an illusion that one set of words is of equal value with any other set of words, just as the stupendous availability of music online has created the illusion that all music is simply downloadable product, without distinction, notated wallpaper.Th e word 'robot' is a Czech contribution to English vocabulary.In his science fi ction play of 1920, Karel Capek introduces to the stage robots, who are mass-produced out of organic matter in a factory.Th ese are artifi cial humans who can do all the work for humans, which is helpful,
Source: ANZTLA EJournal
Author: Philip Harvey
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4247521067