I'm old enough to remember one of the more embarrassing catch-phrases of the early Internet era: the information super-highway. When I stand on shift at a public desk, and see someone sprawled in a chair, watching YouTube videos by the hour, a different phrase comes to mind: the information soup-kitchen. (Younger readers, and Millennials, unfamiliar with this concept can see here.)
The film-maker David Cronenberg made some prophetic movies in the 1970s and 80s, and his greatest film Videodrome (1983) contains many uncanny premonitions of the Internet age. One scene shows a character called Brian O'Blivion, who helps homeless men - or so he believes - by giving them access to television for hours on end. Television, he says "patches them back into the mixing-board of Life". When I see the idle YouTube watchers whose main purpose in life is to trigger the Library's people counters every day, I am reminded of Brian O'Blivion.
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I actually gave a presentation about the "information super-highway" how it can help librarians and not take over libraries like everyone thought was going to happen...how times have changed!!
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