Intertwined Futures
“To a world or to a nation, an archduke more or less makes little difference”
This was the assessment of the Grand Forks Daily Herald on July 1st 1914 . It referred to the assassination a few days earlier of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists. As we now know, the reality of what seemed like a small event at the time, turned out to be much larger than anyone at the time could have imagined. The unseen connections, chains of events and interconnections, by the end of the month, would lead to the beginning of the First World War. What this oft quoted understatement illustrates is the shortsightedness of the present. Our perceptions of the future are bounded by the past we can remember and a future we can see based on an understanding of the present and the past that formed it. The shape of the future is hidden from us by the demands and exigencies of just getting through our daily lives. Small events like a new electronic format or a slight rise in temperature can have huge ramifications for our future that are often difficult to discern in the present . Like the so called Butterfly Hypothesis, in which a butterfly flapping its wings over Tokyo can eventually cause a thunderstorm over Fargo, we struggle to make decisions regarding how today’s minute changes will bring about tomorrows revolution. How do we know which way to go forward?
Libraries today are at a crossroads. For anyone who remembers the pre-digital age of librarianship, we truly live in amazing times. We can now access information in minutes or even seconds that once might have taken hours to locate. The present, with its myriad decisions about formats, platforms and technology, makes the old print dominated past look antiquated and simple. Until relatively recently, the dominance of the print book et. al., created a library that would probably be familiar in general form to Eratosthenes, as librarian of the ancient library at Alexandria Egypt around 230 B.C.E. Although venerable print still has a role to play, a new future is reverberating through libraries across the world.
Today, we may be at the beginnings of the greatest transformation of human knowledge since the first scribblings on papyrus, vellum or stone millennia ago. The library may become less of a physical place than an ethereal entity, existing in the cloud and unbounded by physical constraints. Information and knowledge could become so ubiquitous that we may one day be part of the network ourselves. I think most of us can see an amazing future that even trumps many of the dour stereotypes in science fiction depictions of librarians.
Still, the changing climate of the library to a new model, offers many challenges. As formats and platforms change with the vagaries of the seasons, and the whims of a sometimes Orwellian marketplace, it is increasingly difficult to decide “which horse to back” as we try to spend scarce resources sustainably, with an eye on what tomorrow will demand.
I would like to initiate a conversation about how we should move toward this new future. A conversation that will help us to build on our collective knowledge to discern the best way forward, in what could be the earliest stages of the greatest information and knowledge revolution in human history.
Yet, before we get too excited about entering a transcendent utopian future, we also need to consider the link between the changing climate of our library future and the changing climate of our world. I believe the two are linked inextricably to the detriment of the future envisioned above.
One promises to increasingly connect us with information and knowledge in ways we as yet can only dimly imagine. The other threatens to break the connections of our complex global civilization by creating instabilities in every aspect of life as we know it. What are the consequences of climate change on the networked digital future that we see before us? This question is the frightening handmaiden in our quest to discern the way forward. Unfortunately, no library future can separate itself from the turbulent vagaries of climate change.
Several weeks ago, we were without internet access at the library for two days. This was also the case for many others across North Dakota. What fifteen years ago would have been an annoyance, has now become increasingly problematic . I joked later that we just “sat around and stared at each other “, because there was nothing else we could do. Many of our most essential resources are now only available online. Despite the ironic humor of a library unable to provide the very things it is designed to provide, a future without access to information in our communities, hospitals, schools and institutions is not a laughing matter. Many of our most necessary resources, exist on networks and on servers that may be across the country or around the world. The key problem we need to solve is how to create resiliency in these networks locally, nationally and globally, so that the storm and stress of an increasingly troublesome climate doesn't leave us without information when we need it most.
Most of us accept that climate change is happening. Despite this, we still need to get up, go to work and face the daily challenges of life. Life goes on and can be a hard run thing even in a world where climate is stable. We may recycle, try to conserve resources, yet, essentially, most of us are trapped by a future that seems foreordained. Like passengers on a train headed into a long dark tunnel. We cannot get off the train and are filled with trepidation as to what the future might hold. The only thing we have is hope that at the other side of the tunnel there will be light.
We may lament that our political leaders fail to give us the leadership necessary to prepare for the future that scientists say is very likely coming. Unfortunately, they, like us, are chained to an economic system that demands growth and production fueled largely by processes that are propelling climate change. As Americans, we already have a dissproportionate climactic impact on the world. While many of us endeavor, often unsuccessfully, to shrink our climate footprint, roughly 2/5ths of the worlds population living in India and China are moving slowly toward lifestyles that include all the modern climate change inducing amenities that we take for granted. What does this portend for the future? We can point fingers of recrimination at one another to no avail. As Jesus quoted in the book of John invoked “Whomever is without sin can cast the first stone”. Unfortunately we are all sinners.
Concomitant with envisioning the future of the library and library services is a need to strategize how a changing climate may impact us and change our society in ways that are difficult to predict. New ideas of flexible resilience and capacities to heal and recover quickly from multitudinous impacts need to be developed. We may balk at the seeming impossibility of planning for the unforseeable. Yet that is just what President John F Kennedy proposed when he spoke to Congress in May of 1961: "...I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." The challenges of placing a man on the moon, while impossible to fathom in 1961, were surmounted by the focused efforts of many of our nation's best minds. Can we apply the same energy to the challenges of climate changes? Earlier in the same speech, Kenennedy spoke words that when applied to our current context ring as relevant today as then: "These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength as well as our convictions have imposed upon this nation the role of leader..No role in history could be more difficult or more important..."
The wildly popular dystopian novel the Hunger Games depicts a future filled with many of the stereotypes of an upside down world: an omniscient repressive leadership, jack booted--gun toting soldiers, the faceless masses that unthinkingly follow and the triumph of individualism over mindless conformity. Similar themes have echoed in literature all the way back to the early 20th century and possibly farther. They presage the subterranean fears within each of us that stability cannot last. We cannot be lulled into the inevitability of a fatalistic determinism that dooms us to an ineluctable negative future. A proactive approach to facing the possibly disturbing realities of the future will ensure that they are not so.
We are the only species on the planet that can envision and plan for a future we cannot see, because we alone can imagine scenarios and develop plans to avert the worst. The future may not be easy. It never is. But we have the power through collective thought and action to ensure that our future isn’t a caricature of the dim view of humanity projected by some of our favorite authors.
This was the assessment of the Grand Forks Daily Herald on July 1st 1914 . It referred to the assassination a few days earlier of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists. As we now know, the reality of what seemed like a small event at the time, turned out to be much larger than anyone at the time could have imagined. The unseen connections, chains of events and interconnections, by the end of the month, would lead to the beginning of the First World War. What this oft quoted understatement illustrates is the shortsightedness of the present. Our perceptions of the future are bounded by the past we can remember and a future we can see based on an understanding of the present and the past that formed it. The shape of the future is hidden from us by the demands and exigencies of just getting through our daily lives. Small events like a new electronic format or a slight rise in temperature can have huge ramifications for our future that are often difficult to discern in the present . Like the so called Butterfly Hypothesis, in which a butterfly flapping its wings over Tokyo can eventually cause a thunderstorm over Fargo, we struggle to make decisions regarding how today’s minute changes will bring about tomorrows revolution. How do we know which way to go forward?
Libraries today are at a crossroads. For anyone who remembers the pre-digital age of librarianship, we truly live in amazing times. We can now access information in minutes or even seconds that once might have taken hours to locate. The present, with its myriad decisions about formats, platforms and technology, makes the old print dominated past look antiquated and simple. Until relatively recently, the dominance of the print book et. al., created a library that would probably be familiar in general form to Eratosthenes, as librarian of the ancient library at Alexandria Egypt around 230 B.C.E. Although venerable print still has a role to play, a new future is reverberating through libraries across the world.
Today, we may be at the beginnings of the greatest transformation of human knowledge since the first scribblings on papyrus, vellum or stone millennia ago. The library may become less of a physical place than an ethereal entity, existing in the cloud and unbounded by physical constraints. Information and knowledge could become so ubiquitous that we may one day be part of the network ourselves. I think most of us can see an amazing future that even trumps many of the dour stereotypes in science fiction depictions of librarians.
Still, the changing climate of the library to a new model, offers many challenges. As formats and platforms change with the vagaries of the seasons, and the whims of a sometimes Orwellian marketplace, it is increasingly difficult to decide “which horse to back” as we try to spend scarce resources sustainably, with an eye on what tomorrow will demand.
I would like to initiate a conversation about how we should move toward this new future. A conversation that will help us to build on our collective knowledge to discern the best way forward, in what could be the earliest stages of the greatest information and knowledge revolution in human history.
Yet, before we get too excited about entering a transcendent utopian future, we also need to consider the link between the changing climate of our library future and the changing climate of our world. I believe the two are linked inextricably to the detriment of the future envisioned above.
One promises to increasingly connect us with information and knowledge in ways we as yet can only dimly imagine. The other threatens to break the connections of our complex global civilization by creating instabilities in every aspect of life as we know it. What are the consequences of climate change on the networked digital future that we see before us? This question is the frightening handmaiden in our quest to discern the way forward. Unfortunately, no library future can separate itself from the turbulent vagaries of climate change.
Several weeks ago, we were without internet access at the library for two days. This was also the case for many others across North Dakota. What fifteen years ago would have been an annoyance, has now become increasingly problematic . I joked later that we just “sat around and stared at each other “, because there was nothing else we could do. Many of our most essential resources are now only available online. Despite the ironic humor of a library unable to provide the very things it is designed to provide, a future without access to information in our communities, hospitals, schools and institutions is not a laughing matter. Many of our most necessary resources, exist on networks and on servers that may be across the country or around the world. The key problem we need to solve is how to create resiliency in these networks locally, nationally and globally, so that the storm and stress of an increasingly troublesome climate doesn't leave us without information when we need it most.
Most of us accept that climate change is happening. Despite this, we still need to get up, go to work and face the daily challenges of life. Life goes on and can be a hard run thing even in a world where climate is stable. We may recycle, try to conserve resources, yet, essentially, most of us are trapped by a future that seems foreordained. Like passengers on a train headed into a long dark tunnel. We cannot get off the train and are filled with trepidation as to what the future might hold. The only thing we have is hope that at the other side of the tunnel there will be light.
We may lament that our political leaders fail to give us the leadership necessary to prepare for the future that scientists say is very likely coming. Unfortunately, they, like us, are chained to an economic system that demands growth and production fueled largely by processes that are propelling climate change. As Americans, we already have a dissproportionate climactic impact on the world. While many of us endeavor, often unsuccessfully, to shrink our climate footprint, roughly 2/5ths of the worlds population living in India and China are moving slowly toward lifestyles that include all the modern climate change inducing amenities that we take for granted. What does this portend for the future? We can point fingers of recrimination at one another to no avail. As Jesus quoted in the book of John invoked “Whomever is without sin can cast the first stone”. Unfortunately we are all sinners.
Concomitant with envisioning the future of the library and library services is a need to strategize how a changing climate may impact us and change our society in ways that are difficult to predict. New ideas of flexible resilience and capacities to heal and recover quickly from multitudinous impacts need to be developed. We may balk at the seeming impossibility of planning for the unforseeable. Yet that is just what President John F Kennedy proposed when he spoke to Congress in May of 1961: "...I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." The challenges of placing a man on the moon, while impossible to fathom in 1961, were surmounted by the focused efforts of many of our nation's best minds. Can we apply the same energy to the challenges of climate changes? Earlier in the same speech, Kenennedy spoke words that when applied to our current context ring as relevant today as then: "These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength as well as our convictions have imposed upon this nation the role of leader..No role in history could be more difficult or more important..."
The wildly popular dystopian novel the Hunger Games depicts a future filled with many of the stereotypes of an upside down world: an omniscient repressive leadership, jack booted--gun toting soldiers, the faceless masses that unthinkingly follow and the triumph of individualism over mindless conformity. Similar themes have echoed in literature all the way back to the early 20th century and possibly farther. They presage the subterranean fears within each of us that stability cannot last. We cannot be lulled into the inevitability of a fatalistic determinism that dooms us to an ineluctable negative future. A proactive approach to facing the possibly disturbing realities of the future will ensure that they are not so.
We are the only species on the planet that can envision and plan for a future we cannot see, because we alone can imagine scenarios and develop plans to avert the worst. The future may not be easy. It never is. But we have the power through collective thought and action to ensure that our future isn’t a caricature of the dim view of humanity projected by some of our favorite authors.
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