Living In The Library

Time was when all the information and knowledge was spoken. Word of mouth spread events, occasions, wars, and wisdom with a certain degree of exaggeration and personal prejudice.

As languages grew and writing replaced the spoken word, only a few had the skill to translate these old stories into manuscripts. Again personal and religious beliefs changed the spoken word to a more acceptable writing document.

With a few that could write and read these documents, they were cherished and kept under lock and key.

As the masses became educated enough to read and printing sped up the process of recording and duplicating the written word, the demand for these books required some form of distribution.

The public library was formed. A large building full of shelves and a special staff arranged books in categories by a special code. The common person of the street, browse hundreds of 3x5 cards looking for titles or authors or subjects of interest. The card was presented to a librarian who would retrieve the book.

Slowly the process became more familiar with the public who could find their own books and even take them out of the building for a short period of time.

Still some volumes were kept in cages under lock and key due to their age and value and only visited by a rare few.

Then the computer, with its speed and volume of storage, was developed and began to house this information.  The tedious task of punch cards to typing to text recognition again sped the process of recording words and pictures, but there was no way to search all the data because these “libraries” were not linked.

And as mankind has always done, when seeing a problem, created a solution.

This one was called the Internet.

So today, we live in a library. The library is available to us every minute of every day. Every possible idea or subject or even thought can be searched with millions of words and pictures and movies and sounds at our fingertips.

But (there is always a but) how much of what we have access to is true?

Just like in the word-of-mouth stories told around the fire, the teller reacted to the listener perhaps straying from the truth or embellishing the facts. Books on the other hand were trusted because the person who wrote it was an “author” and authors were held in a certain reverence. Anyone who had the knowledge of language and grammar, anyone who would spend hours researching and documenting events in proper order or even writes about fictional stories that could thrill or scare or keep up spellbound in wonder was viewed as an esteem occupation.

And the authors of today may be anyone. Everyone can post on the Internet whether they are knowledgeable of the subject or not. Facts, opinions, thoughts, comments and even false statements can and are posted every minute for the reader or viewer to decide if it is relevant or believable.

So while surfing through all the news sites, entertainment, music, posting photos and commenting to friends you don’t know, think of how difficult is was to get information before the Internet and how we are overwhelmed now with what maybe fact or maybe fiction because we cannot always trust the author.