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5 Myths About the ‘Information Age’

Catching up with what librarians already know:

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The Chronicle Review
April 17, 2011

5 Myths About the ‘Information Age’
By Robert Darnton

“Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It’s no one’s fault but everyone’s problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged. Taken together, they constitute a font of proverbial nonwisdom. Five stand out:

1. “The book is dead.”

2. “We have entered the information age.”

3. “All information is now available online.”

4. “Libraries are obsolete.”

5. “The future is digital.”

Read the full piece.

Stephen

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Posted on: July 7, 2011, 10:30 pm Category: Uncategorized

6 Responses

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  1. So true. Sadly many librarians have also bought into those myths. I have sat through far too many conversations about how we will survive the information age? What will we do in a few years when there are no books?

  2. Nicola Franklin said

    These 5 myths could make a powerful poster series to use to promote the value of librarians – anyone with better graphic design skills fancy having a go & sharing with everyone? Something cilip could do perhaps?

  3. Last time I used the law library was in first year. For over ten years have used electronic resources.

  4. admin said

    Raj: Good thing that librarians like me created those electronic resources and generations of librarians created the principles of indexing, headnoting, etc. Law is one of the most digital information sources. There are still content sources that are not digital in the law. Medicine is similar although there are cases (such as the Johns Hopkins case) where patients were killed due to over-reliance on digital sources only. It’s a good thing that lawyers who rely on digital only rarely kill their clients through poor research practices.
    SA

  5. These statements are true. But they don’t give the whole truth. I believe the reality will combine both ‘old-fashioned’ books and the digital readers/computers.
    If you take a look around, millions of people are still reading paper books – for various reasons. I believe things will change, but not dramatically.

  6. admin said

    Busy Teacher:
    I agree that a hybrid will be the norm. I also remember looking around as a kid and still seeing television aerials, milk and bread still being dleivered, horses on the streets, Iceboxes in kitchens. I don’t know if we can predict this stuff with any certainty. Movie theatres still go strong, radio didn’t go away, etc.
    SA