In 1996, in an attic in San Francisco, Brewster Kahle started the Internet Archive, an organization whose mission is, quite literally, to archive the Internet. Kahle often likens the goal of IA to that of the Library of Alexandria, to provide “universal access to all knowledge” (Internet Archive, 2015). The traditional role of the archive in preserving cultural heritage and aiding in (or dictating) the construction of identity and social memory is well documented. However, I believe that twenty-first century technologies have not only changed conceptions of archives and access, but will also completely transform the process of meaning-making as it relates to understandings of the self. I believe systems like the Internet Archive will play a significant role in this change, allowing users to challenge historical understandings of power dynamics, hegemonic narratives, and accessibility through unrestricted access to enormous quantities of archived information.

“Archives — as records— wield power over the shape and direction of historical scholarship, collective memory, and national identity, over how we know ourselves as individuals, groups, and societies”, state Joan Schwartz and Terry Cook, from their 2002 article Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory. As Schwartz and Cook argue, the powerful typically control the hegemonic historical narrative that is constructed through archives by dictating what is preserved and what is sacrificed. The histories of select socioeconomically and culturally favored groups are retained, while the stories of marginalized groups are dismissed. It is important to note, I think, that “marginalized” does not necessarily mean statistically insignificant, merely socially and economically disadvantaged due to complex socio-historical factors. The ways in which these marginalized groups are able to engage with archives, as well as the ways that a lack of representation effects identity construction for these underrepresented groups, are extremely complicated. Questions of selection, retention, organization, and access quickly come to the forefront when considering archives. As Schwartz and Cook assert, “Records are also about power. They are about imposing control and order on transactions, events, people, and societies through the legal, symbolic, structural, and operational power of recorded communication” (Schwartz & Cook, 2002). I believe that digital technology has played a large role in alleviating issues of access, though I argue that issues of power dynamics, hegemonic representation, and material organization are still as prevalent as they were in the pre-digital era. This is especially true when considering monolithic cultural and educational institutions that have merely digitized their existing collections, effectively providing wider access to the same socio-historically problematic materials and presentation. I do, however, believe that the Internet Archive represents an exciting new realm of archiving, one that aspires to adhere to tenets of egalitarianism, non-discrimination, and universal access.

One of the most powerful aspects of digital archives is the ability of users to engage with material on a much deeper level than traditional archives allowed, often providing space for expansive reinterpretations of community and of self. In Marija Dalbello’s paper on digital cultural heritage, she includes a quote from Springer et al., who raise an important point when they ask “Does releasing public content with no known restrictions create a sense of democratic access or increase the sense of public ownership and shared stewardship for public cultural heritage resources” (Springer et al., 2008, 15). I argue that this is in fact the case. A sense of ownership in relation to cultural heritage enables users to see themselves and their communities as being present in the complex historical narratives that are told by archives. I believe that the Internet Archive provides space for people to participate in these kinds of reinterpretations of culture (and, by extension, identity construction) through open access to an exhaustive, and largely uncensored, quantity of material.

I think the potential for underrepresented (or entirely disregarded) groups, as well as individuals, to radically transform their processes of identity formation is present with an “unregulated “ (or at the very least lightly curated) archival system like the Internet Archive. Whether or not this will prove true remains to be seen. Identity formation and understandings of the self are complicated and greatly nuanced, and, since the advent of recorded history, have been deeply impacted by the hegemonic narratives of official archives. I believe the Internet Archive will serve as a sort of case study for the future of information retention, presentation, and access and the way that marginalized groups engage with these materials. I personally am incredibly excited at the prospect of a future of archival systems that seek to represent all, rather than the narrative of the privileged few.

References

Dalbello, Marija. “Digital Cultural Heritage: Concepts, Projects, and Emerging Constructions of Heritage.” Proceedings of the Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) conference, 25-30 May, 2009.

Internet Archive. https://archive.org. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Lepore, Jill. “The Cobweb: Can the Internet be Archived?” The New Yorker. Condé Nast, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Schwartz, Joan, and Terry Cook. “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory.” Archival Science 2.1-19 (2002): 2-13. Print.

 

[1. http://www.tofugu.com/2012/03/22/japanese-textbook-controversy/ ]

I’ll never forget when I was teaching third grade, the week before Columbus Day rolled around. Another teacher approached me – noticing my lack of cheesy bulletin boards, no doubt – and said, “I can’t believe you’re not doing a lesson on Columbus!” She wasn’t referring to a lesson on what Columbus really did. Teaching such to a group of 8 year olds would probably cause nightmares and result in angry phone calls from parents (trust me on this one). She was referring to the typical elementary lesson that says, “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue! What a swell guy!”

Altering history through education has become commonplace. Why? Textbooks. Okay, okay, textbooks aren’t solely to blame. Definitely not. But they are a factor. We’ve seen it in the whitewashing in Texas textbooks that fail to mention Jim Crow laws or the Ku Klux Klan, and in science textbooks from South Korea that exclude any mention of evolution. However, one of the most alarming cases of altering history can be found in Japanese textbooks.

But first – a brief history refresher:

Over the course of six weeks in late 1937 and early 1938, there was a mass killing of Chinese citizens at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. The Japanese Imperial Army, commanded by General Matsui Iwane, seized Nanjing, China (Nanking) on December 13^th, 1937. What followed was nothing short of horrendous. Between 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese were murdered, [1. http://www.britannica.com/event/Nanjing-Massacre] and tens of thousands were raped (some sources estimate the number of rapes to be between 20,000 and 80,000).[2. http://www.history.com/topics/nanjing-massacre]  Following the end of World War II, Matsui and his lieutenant Tani Hisao were convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal and were executed.

Since the events that took place in Nanking, controversy has erupted. There has been denial about the tragic event ever taking place. In 2012 Japanese mayor of Nagoya, Takashi Kawamura, said “It is true that a considerable number of people died in the course of battle. However such a thing as so-called Nanjing Massacre is unlikely to have taken place.” He insisted that there were only acts of combat that occurred, not mass murders or rapes. [3. http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/23/world/asia/china-nanjing-row/index.html]

This denial has made its way into Japanese textbooks. In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) authorizes any and all textbooks used through a rigid screening process. As early as 1955, the Ministry of Education (simply known as MOE at this time, the name changed later to MEXT) in Japan banned one third of the current textbooks. [4. http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/133p04papers/JChapelNanjing046.htm] The Sino-Japanese War was entirely removed from its textbooks. In the 1970s, two out of the six textbooks mentioned the Nanking massacre, but had the number of those killed down to only 42,000. [5. http://www.criced.tsukuba.ac.jp/keiei/kyozai_ppe_f2_64.html] However, by 1978 the Ministry of Education removed the number of those killed out of all textbooks. The textbooks have been revised over and over again to further downplay their involvement in Nanking.

In the mid/late 1950’s, the Ministry of Education stated in regards to a textbook that did not put Japan in the best lighting:

“It is not good only to see Japan’s past war(s) as imperialist war(s). It is inadequate to say that Japan ruled China and made it miserable.

[The textbook] says, ‘Our country inflicted immeasurable suffering and damage on various Asian nations, especially during the Pacific War.’ . . . Eliminate this description, since a view even exists that [Japan] provided various Asian nations the chance for independence [from their Western colonizers] through the Pacific War.

[The textbook], in its treatment of the war, describes it as if Japan were unilaterally bad; it is not grounded in understanding of world history such as the international situation of the time.” [6. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/3173/article.html ]

While the Japanese government doesn’t supervise the writing of the textbooks, they still have a major say in what gets published, and what doesn’t, through MEXT. Approved texts often require revisions until deemed satisfactory. This approval process and the textbooks authorized as a result has consequently led to several controversies and court cases. There have been three major attacks on Japanese textbooks since the implementation of the textbook screening process in the late 1940s. The major attacks occurred in 1955, in the early 80’s, and mid 90’s.

Additionally, scholar and textbook editor Saburo Ienaga sued the Ministry of Education three times in 1965, 1966, and 1982. The 1982 lawsuit was settled in 1997 in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ienaga, declaring that the Ministry of Education’s censoring of certain events, including the sexual assaults in Nanking, were unconstitutional. This ruling was a huge step forward for textbooks including a full, uncensored history. After the ruling, seven major textbooks were published in 1997. All seven mentioned the massacre, and five reported the death toll of Nanking at 300,000 (the other two had the number at 200,000 – a big improvement from the earlier 42,000 statistic). [7. http://www.phdn.org/negation/gravediggers/gom-2002-the_nanking_massacre.html ]

This is an ongoing battle. In 2001, more textbooks were published that were met with much criticism. One text in particular, the Tsukurukai history textbook, sparked even greater outrage than the rest. This text “questions the actuality of the Massacre of Nanjing, and erases from its records any mention of the Japanese military sexual slavery system, which was one of the largest war violence in the 20th century”. [8. http://www.wscfap.org/resources/solidarityspace/2001/2001-japan_textbook.html] The Chinese and Korean governments demanded changes be made to the text, and a two day conference was held, called “The Asian Solidarity Conference on Textbook Issues in Japan—No! To the Distorted History Textbook”. [9. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2001/06/06/national/war-victims-to-speak-out-against-contentious-history-text/#.Vi1i9jZdGP9]

The influence of textbooks is not unlike the power of archives. Archivists hold immense power (and according to Uncle Ben in Spiderman, or Voltaire or Churchill depending on your sources, with great power comes great responsibility). They get to pick and choose what’s worthy of archiving, and what goes out with the garbage. Archivists have a huge hand in what gets remembered, and what becomes a part of our history. Textbooks have a similar control. They offer a particular narrative of history that may or may not be entirely accurate. But textbooks aren’t like a Wikipedia article that the general public knows not to trust entirely. Textbooks offer a sense of authority to its readers. Textbooks, from a reader’s perspective, don’t need to be questioned. It is assumed they are unbiased and factual – regardless of if they actually are.

There seems to be an impossible balance between reporting history as it actually occurred, and reporting history as those “in charge” would like it to be remembered. Textbooks influence identity – As you read through the history books of your country, you construct an identity of the country, and of yourself as a citizen of that country. The impact of a textbook on our histories cannot be underestimated.

Ray Bradbury, the sci fi author hailed as a major influence in the gaming community, is often quoted as having said, “Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don’t do that.” Of course, Bradbury also cursed cars, computers, the Internet, ATMs, and plenty of other commonplace technologies (Hibberd, 2001). While his point of view represents an ongoing debate concerning video games as time bandits, the effective use of interactive, digital games as revolutionary educational tools stands as one form of proof that they are important artifacts that express our culture, education, and play. It is problematic that appreciation for these artifacts is just beginning, as several generations of games have already been lost, and we still do not even have an elementary system of preservation in place. As Rosenzweig describes, “’preservation through neglect’ [may have been a system that worked in the past, but]…this ‘system’ will not work in the digital era because preservation cannot begin twenty-five years after the fact” (2003). If we wish to preserve this vast history, we have no time left to waste, and so, in exploration of the possibility of video game preservation, I have outlined some basic challenges associated with the effort:

1. Bit Rot

By far, bit rot is the most pressing issue when it comes to video game preservation. Video game storage mediums deteriorate over time; this is true for all of the familiar computer hardware (like CD, DVD, SDD, HDD, etc.), as well as cartridges. Remember blowing into old cartridges, to clear dust from connectors? Yeah, probably not the best preservation method.

Beyond hardware, software also decays. As Jason Scott, archivist and historian at The Internet Archive, says, “Software halflife is ridiculous…having a few months between the release of a game and EA going, ‘What game?’ is insane. But that’s where we’re heading now. The average multiplayer, network game is now nearing 18 months of total life before they turn the servers off… so you have a year and a half to understand if it’s even useful, and then it’s gone.” (Hall, 2015). This example expresses our current timeframe; Retrospective preservation is even more challenging. For example, many older PC games now require emulators (such as DOSBox) to operate on modern machines (due to changes in the technological environment, bugs emerged from unused code, etc), and emulation in itself is a bag of worms.

2. Emulation

Right now, efforts to preserve games, for the most part, are not based in the conservation of hardware like consoles and cartridges, but in software emulation for compatibility with modern hardware. Currently, computers are able to satisfactorily emulate an NES experience, for example, but as games become more technically complicated, necessary advancements in technology, and hardware, will struggle to keep up. At best, emulated games are inauthentic, but relatively intact, and playable. At worst, integral pieces of experience are lost, new bugs and glitches are created, and the game is unplayable. Additionally, sometimes, the format is simply essential. As Cloonan puts it, “A key issue in libraries and archives today is whether we need to preserve just the information in a document or the physical object itself. When is the object part of the information?” (2001). If you play Duck Hunt on a keyboard, are you extracting the same sensory information as someone who has access to the classic, orange gun? I doubt it. Thus, video games are often perfect examples of objects in which “form and substance are indistinguishable” (Cloonan, 2001).

Furthermore, most of the current emulation efforts are not led by archivists, but by avid fans, which reveals a wealth of legal issues.

3. Legality

If a game is legally owned by anyone other than those attempting preservation, keeping the game functional poses many problems in regards to copyright law, especially when it comes to emulation. Each, individual game has a slew of copyrightable elements, including design, underlying code, artwork, and sound, just to name a few. For many institutions, this means that preservation is not possible. As Rosenzweig says, “…if libraries don’t own digital content, how can they preserve it?” (2003). Jason Scott responds to this issue in suggesting that “Workplace theft is the future of gaming history” (Hall, 2015). While this may sound like a joke, and certainly is not a realistic option for libraries, it represents a significant realization in the world of preservation; much of what must be to done to create a physical history of the gaming community will entail serious risk assessment.

4. Metadata Schemas

If we begin to preserve, and collect, video games, we must also begin to accurately describe the collections. As Cloonan says, “If new technologies present preservation riddles, cataloging issues are no less perplexing” (2001). In the case of video games, it is difficult to decide authorship, bibliographic relationships, ownership of intellectual property, and so on. Currently, records of video games come from OCLC (as the Library of Congress does not record video game metadata), and the systems used by OCLC were never really intended for the medium. For example, when trying to make video games fit into existing systems, they are popularly tagged with phrases like “Imaginary Places” and “Imaginary Battles,” which are ultimately meaningless. While new schemas have been explored, they often focus on either the narrative of the game or, its gameplay, and for any system to be useful, it must incorporate both. Also, at the most basic level, we lack a controlled vocabulary for these descriptions, and even though efforts are being made, the rapid changes in video game development make it difficult for cataloguers to catch up.



Video game preservation is a race against time, and time got a big head start. Preservation efforts need to accelerate now, if any of the history is to be saved. A good starting point may be the rigorous development of an effective controlled vocabulary; No need to conquer legal battles in order to properly describe the objects. However, long term, legality will be a major focus; some possible solutions related to copyright may be reformation (but technology develops much faster than copyright law, so even a reformation could be obsolete before ever being relevant), a lean toward open source options by game developers (unlikely in a culture where code is treated like hidden treasure) or, possibly the most realistic option: game developers could begin taking larger strides toward their own, in-house preservation efforts. Finally, if we are going to continue with emulation as our primary solution, it is important to consider how emulation hardware must stay up-to-pace with the changes in gaming hardware or, a whole lot more energy will have to be put toward the exploration of options far beyond emulation.

References

Cloonan, M. V. (2001). W(h)ither preservation?. The Library Quarterly, 71(2), 231-242. Retrieved from https://lms.pratt.edu/pluginfile.php/514929/mod_resource/content/1/Cloonan%20-%20W%28h%29ither%20Preservation.pdf

Hall, C. (2015). The future of games history is workplace theft. Polygon. Retrieved from http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/6/8158649/games-history-workplace-theft-internet-archive

Heick, T. (2012). A brief history of video games in education. te@chthought. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/video-games-2/a-brief-history-of-video-games-in-education/

Hibberd, J. (2001). Ray Bradbury is on fire!. Salon. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2001/08/29/bradbury_2/

Rosenzweig, R. (2003). Scarcity or abundance? Preserving the past in a digital era. The American Historical Review, 108(3), 735-762. Retrieved from https://lms.pratt.edu/pluginfile.php/514928/mod_resource/content/1/rosenzweig-Scarcity%20or%20Abundance-preserving%20the%20past%20in%20the%20digital%20era.pdf

The Othmer Library and Archives of the Brooklyn Historical Society are home to a comprehensive collection spanning 400 years of the borough’s history: over 33,000 books, 1,600 archival collections, 1,200 oral history interviews, 50,000 photographs, 8,000 artifacts, 300 paintings, and 2,000 maps. Such a diverse collection calls out for varied and creative preservation and presentation solutions. I recently visited the Library and saw first hand that it is equal to the task, having undertaken a variety of activities to maintain these collections and encourage community engagement with local Brooklyn history.

The Society’s Brooklyn Heights home opened in 1881.

The Library’s reading room, housed on the second floor of a beautiful landmark building in Brooklyn Heights, is open to the public during the Society’s regular hours. Many materials, such as historical maps, are readily available to patrons without an appointment. The practices in the main reading room demonstrate the Library’s efforts to strike a balance between unrestricted access and the protection of archival materials. When possible, even very old materials are publicly accessible, and where necessary patrons will be instructed in proper handling of delicate items or provided with tools like cradles or special weights. All of these materials are well protected – for example a collection of fire insurance maps, dating from 1846 to 1932, have been flattened, placed in protective sleeves, and organized in bound volumes for researchers to peruse as they wish.

Many materials, in particular those which are too delicate to remain in the open public stacks, are stored in the archives on the second level of the reading room and may be visited by appointment. The Library’s collection of directories, dating from 1736 to 1938, are one of the extraordinary resources stored upstairs, and contain a wealth of information on the local residents and commerce of their day. These materials are frequently used by patrons researching genealogy or property histories – as I learned, these are the most frequent public uses of the Library – finding connections to local history with the help of archival materials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delicate newspapers in an upstairs conservation corner (l); closed stacks books (r)

The Library is also digitizing its collection of photographs, and to date has digitized approximately 33,000 from its collection. 4,000 of these are accessible online and the remaining can be viewed on-site. These photographs include images of Brooklyn, dating back to the 1870s, and family portraits and candid photographs of Brooklyn residents. In their pre-digital states these images run the gamut of photographic formats such as daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, glass negatives and slides, stereographic prints, and negatives. This digitization process is ongoing, and additional images are regularly digitized, including by patron request.

The Library also plans to digitize oral history recordings currently stored on tape. The oral history collection includes over 1,200 individual interviews in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin. When available, researchers can access the audio and video of interviews in addition to the transcript, adding additional layers of understanding that may not be gleaned from simply reading words on a page. So long as interviewees have given permission for their oral histories to be shared, these records are available in the Library without an appointment. Librarians can also send transcripts to patrons who wish to access oral history information remotely.

In addition to providing public access through on-site and online research, the Library participates in educational initiatives with local schools. For example, beginning in 2011, the Society partnered with colleges like Long Island University, City Tech, and Saint Francis College in the Students and Faculty in the Archives (“SAFA”) program to teach students through primary archival materials. Professors set aside selected materials and students learn to properly handle them, demystifying what could otherwise be an intimidating and unfamiliar setting. Making archival materials available to students and to the general public – not just professional scholars – promotes community engagement, connection, and dialogue. Students learn that the Library contains their history, and they are empowered to use Library resources to create their own projects.

Brooklyn is a large and diverse urban center, and developing a collection that adequately reflects Brooklyn is, and will always be, a work in progress. From its founding in 1863 until 1985 the Society was called the Long Island Historical Society, and its collections spanned beyond Brooklyn to general United States history. Such materials were deaccessioned in the mid-twentieth century in an effort to narrow the Society’s focus. Today, the Library’s Collections Committee evaluates all proposed donations to ensure that they fit with this concentration, and will decline donations that would be better suited to a different home. Also, there are shelves of unprocessed Library materials stored in the closed stacks, which will steadily be incorporated into the collection or deaccessioned. Curating the collection and ensuring that new materials fit the Society’s mission, as well as creating meaningful finding guides, is a large task that cannot be accomplished overnight. Librarians have prioritized quality end results over rushed completion of processing.

Equally impressive are the Library’s efforts to maintain collections that reflect Brooklyn’s diversity. One major oral history project, for example, is called “Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations” and reflects experiences of growing up with a mixed heritage. Another interesting collection, stored in the archives and available by appointment, are the slavery pamphlets – eighteenth and nineteenth century copies of speeches, sermons, and reports from anti-slavery or colonization societies – primary sources from an important era in Brooklyn history. In a similar vein, a current exhibit in the Society’s museum – which draws heavily from the Library and Archive collections – is entitled “In Pursuit of Freedom” and explores Brooklyn’s abolitionist movement. Another exhibit examines the Disability Rights Movement in New York City, with audio versions of the exhibit and braille copies of exhibit labels made available. Clearly, the collections are not limited to the history of any single Brooklyn population.

My visit to the Brooklyn Historical Society Library demonstrated the complexities of maintaining an archive and supporting a cultural heritage institution in today’s digital world.  It is not enough just to preserve collections through paper enclosures or mylar sleeves and organize them for scholars. Archives must also also ensure public access through digitization and education programs, and grow collections to reflect the diversity of the local population. If archive development and digitization are said to create and foster cultural heritage and social memory, then the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Library collections are building an inclusive and dynamic Brooklyn heritage.  The Society’s commitment to community engagement is admirable and a model for modern archives.

References:

Brooklyn Historical Society, The Othmer Library. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/about.html.

Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://cbbg.brooklynhistory.org/.

Dalbello, M. (2009). “Digital cultural heritage: concepts, projects, and emerging constructions of heritage,” Proceedings of the Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) Conference, 25–30 May, 2009.

Teach Archives. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.teacharchives.org/.

 

Homeless patrons are an important topic that many in the library professions, if not all, discuss. Even so, it seems that not much has been done. It is a difficult subject to approach because of the all the varying variables. Librarians are trained as librarians not social workers. That doesn’t mean that librarians can’t help. Libraries provide a crucial service to both homeless and other patrons. Libraries are full of resources that the homeless can utilize to improve their overall state of life.

Unfortunately, there is a limit to how much service can be provided. Libraries as of today are not equipped to handle to the complete needs of the homeless patrons. However, there are some libraries that are going the extra mile to ensure that they provide different services to their homeless patrons. As I mentioned in class, one such is the San Francisco Library, who hired a social worker. In an interview with Leah Esquerra, the social worker, she described her role in the library and how she reaches out to homeless patrons to discuss different options they can take. Another library offered showers to their homeless patrons. As a result, their job opportunities grew because they could appear somewhat cleaner to potential employers.

While these libraries have put forth great ideas to help the homeless people of their communities, these ideas aren’t feasible for all communities. Not all libraries can afford or accommodate those changes into their space. For example, the overwhelming population of homeless in New York would make it increasingly difficult for libraries if that population used those resources. Unless the library focused an unreasonable amount of their resources on this situation, the situation won’t be resolved. Does that mean that these libraries should them? Of course not! There are limitations to all actions, but there are actions that can be taken. Like I mentioned before libraries can offer the services they do provide to them.

Even with all these advances there are a lot of difficulties when approaching homeless patrons. The mentally ill homeless patrons are a clear example. In some cases, they can become violent. In these cases, there isn’t anything anyone not trained to handle the situation can do. These situations can alienate the other patrons libraries serve. When the conflict arises where a library has to choose between serving all customers and most customers; the easiest solution is to choose the majority. You can’t please everyone. But you can try and please as many people as possible. That then leaves the homeless and other “undesirable” patrons behind. That begs the question; do libraries have a moral obligation to serve homeless patron if there is a possibility that they can alienate other patrons.

Personally, I would like to believe that everyone, on a moral level, feels the need to help those in need. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. Those inclined to do so, can ignore the struggles of another in favor of assisting someone else. One person was Blaise Cronin. In his statement in the Library Journal, Cronin stated:

A library is not a community masturbation center. A library is not a porn parlor. A library is not a refuge for the homeless. A library is not a place in which to defecate, fornicate, or micturate. A library is not a bathing facility. A library is not a dumping ground for latch-key children. Many librarians can follow his ideas and choose to alienate themselves from that part of the community.

For those that think differently, there are a ton of resources libraries and librarians have to help themselves understand and eventually help those in need. There are guidelines outlined by the American Library Association that other libraries can incorporate into their own policies. In the ALA “Library Services to the Poor” policy, outlines different objectives to ensure that the homeless or poor are thoroughly considered in the library’s overall view.  Libraries can reach out to organizations within their communities that are better equipped to handle serious situations. Social workers can offer tips and advice for how to communicate with homeless patrons who may have mental disabilities or be victims of serious crimes.

In one example, the Madison Public Library, there are spaces designated for non-profit organizations to assist the homeless and poor patrons. The spaces have been redesigned to accommodate all patrons as best as possible. I feel like this a great response to the conversation in class. Many expressed that there are services already available to the homeless but because they are underfunded, they don’t can’t always help. The idea was that there should be a greater focus on helping those organizations so that they can focus on the people they are meant to help. By partnering with these organizations, libraries are providing support to those organizations. The community then sees that both the library and the other organizations are providing for everyone, which can have a great impact on how people approach this topic.

One a larger scale, museums face the same situation. How can all educational informational institutions assist homeless patrons when they haven’t been trained to do so? Should museums enforce strict polices to limit what kind of patrons enter their space in order to protect their artifacts and priceless collections? Why does the state of one’s clothing matter when a person is trying to enrich their knowledge and overall state of life? Can museums and libraries be faces of change when it comes to how the public addresses homelessness and the homeless?

I believe so. I believe that every institution can demonstrate to the rest of their communities that the homeless should not be excluded, ostracized or demeaned because of their state of dress, smell, or mental state. They are humans like every other human on this planet. They have the same rights even if they are not mentally aware of them. Through small acts such as providing them with information guides, books, locations to help, museum and library staff can demonstrate to the rest of the world that they value the homeless patrons as much as the other patrons.

I think there needs to be a large initiative by all museums and libraries to address these issues to ensure that the homeless patrons have voices in their own communities.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/library-social-worker-helps-homeless-seeking-quiet-refuge/

http://www.ala.org/offices/extending-our-reach-reducing-homelessness-through-library-engagement-7

A Home to the Homeless

http://www.soic.indiana.edu/news/story.html?story=Library-Journal-Commentary-Dean-List-What-Library-Is-Not

 

There are those who see our reverent notions of progress as problematic, as it has us progressing into a future without humanness, not only through ominous disruptions of the marketplace and various time-honored traditions, but also through the lack of general and specific skills gained through raw & direct experience; the subtle nuances revealed in the doing; the joi ne se qua of acting & bumbling throughout life. We have progressed to the point where all aspects of being alive is now mediated through machines of some sort.

In an article from the New York Review of Books “How Robots & Algorithms are Taking Over,” they glumly review Nicolas Carr’s book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which highlights some of his poignant statements, for example, he says “as we grow more reliant on applications and algorithms, we become less capable of acting without their aid… that makes the software more indispensable… [thus] automation breeds automation.” So much for free-will!

There is no denying machines have infiltrated every aspect of our lives and continues to do so at an exponential rate, as the derogatory term ‘drone’ illustrates, automation’s ubiquity has permeated our values and societal norms. The ‘drones’ see the world through a lens of handed-down rationalizations, believing efficiency is the most cost-effective way of living, therefore walking & talking as if mass produced on an assembly line; an existence of herding about in chain stores and speaking in platitudes. And yet, isn’t there something natural in all of this? To adapt and subtly embody whomever or whatever you spend your days with is unavoidable; to develop idiosyncrasies that reveal your daily doings and musings is only natural; similar to, let’s say, a dog that starts looking and acting like its owner. So then, are we merely wearing techno-collars leashed to progress? In the end won’t we be fed & happy like our adorable canine counterpart? Nicolas Carr doesn’t think so, he believes that we are undergoing a massive “deskilling” of the population, “as more authority is handed over to machines,” making us into “mindless sloths” who rely on the internet for every fact & figure. The result is a loss of expertise that comes with experience, which of course is never gained as we no longer have direct unmediated experiences, moreover, we no longer have unmediated knowledge. Carr sees our individuality and humanness dwindling as we adapt to the grinding uniformity and banality of machinery.

we are undergoing a massive “deskilling” of the population, “as more authority is handed over to machines,” making us into “mindless sloths” who rely on the internet for every fact & figure. The result is a loss of expertise

Yet every coin has a flip side. Can machines, specifically artificial intelligence, be a social endeavor? Something to enrich humanity in our pursuit of happiness? Phoebe Sengers believes so, in an essay “Practices for a Machine Culture,” Sengers calls for a merger between cultural theory and artificial technology research, dubbing this merger “cultural informatics.” After all, the people of the 21^st century are “the inheritors of industrialism, the progenitors of the information age.”  Senger also affirms that machines are part of our daily lives as we interface with it and imbibe its logic. However, Senger believes cultural informatics can develop a “poetic technology”  that strives for human enrichment over the cold quantifiable efficiency. She hopes “that rather than forcing humans to interface with machines, those machine may learn to interface with us, to present themselves in such a way that they do not drain us of our humanity, but instead themselves become humanized.”  It is a kumbaya notion that nicely balances Carr’s doomsday opinion.

cultural informatics can develop a “poetic technology” that strives for human enrichment over the cold quantifiable efficiency.  Hoping “that rather than forcing humans to interface with machines, those machine may learn to interface with us, to present themselves in such a way that they do not drain us of our humanity, but instead themselves become humanized.

Sengers essay also mentions the Winograd & Flores approach to A.I., which is through an existential Heideggerian lens, that is, people maneuver through the world with an inexplicable complex subjectivity, therefore, since A.I.’s cannot possess this human background of complexity, they will always be limited to formal problems of logic. This may be a comforting position as it renders A.I. research as unrealizable, however, it also alludes to the dangers of a machine without a human backbone.

Despite being nominated for the Pulitzer, Nicholas Carr lacks a certain amount of clout to sway our technophilic ways, and we can easily dismiss him as another ‘calamity prophet,’ but the NYRB article also mentions Stephen Hawking speaking in the same vein; forewarning us that if machines evolve faster than people, they will certainly overtake us. Hawking signed an open letter titled “Future of Life,” which is signed by plenty of clout touting characters (such as Tesla’s Elon Musk and various Silicon Valley gurus), and it essentially calls for a responsible artificial intelligence development that maximizes societal benefits while minimizing drawbacks: the resounding credo is “ A.I. systems must do what we want them to do,” and this “research is by necessity interdisciplinary because it involves both society and A.I.” (cultural informatics). The signatory list is long and the letter is short, plainly saying that A.I. is here and we must insure our safety, nay, our survival, against their emergence. Quite alarming, especially when you assume that some of these signatories know something that the rest of us don’t, and their knowledge spurred a letter for the future of life.

The NYRB article critiques the letter for prioritizing money over people, and questioning whose values will these machines inherit, as values “are not universal but, rather, culturally and socially constructed, subjective, and inherently biased.” The article ends on a bleak apocalyptic note: “We, the people, are on our own here–though if the AI developers have their way, not for long.”

My concern regards the library’s foundational essence eroding within this burgeoning world of quantity and algorithms; its quiet esoteric qualities discarded for our Vaudevillian moneymaking culture. Even the very word “library/librarian” is fading and morphing into “information science/scientist.” Moving into an era where libraries are merely store houses of data, and librarians become mere data crunchers supervising their machines. The palace of wisdom, memory, and imagination is mutating into a granary of simple facts efficiently managed and distributed for quantifiable purposes. Under the crushing weight of ever increasing data, the notion of what a library is, and always has been, is endangered.

And yet, despite all this gloom & doom stoking my inner misanthrope and pessimist, I can’t help in having hope… wait, better still: I can’t help in simply knowing there will be some folks who will keep the torch burning for humanity; random agents of chaos always crop-up regardless of the circumstance, and especially when they are needed most; and people are simply too weird and tenacious for automation to conquer the human spirit (see Modern Times). Therefore, technocratic uniformity can only go so far, “deskilling” has limits and unintended consequences that will spark reskilling, and if A.I. is realized, hopefully it will be made in our image, hence, just as weird and random as us, except they will have an off button.

 

 

1) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/apr/02/how-robots-algorithms-are-taking-over/

2) Sengers, “Practices for a machine culture: a case study of integrating cultural theory and artificial intelligence“

3) http://futureoflife.org/AI/open letter

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What does it mean to be free? The definition changes as society changes. Generally, “freedom” is a buzzword touted by political candidates, right-wingers, the figures of wartime. It is a term that is only used when the situation calls for its defense— when certain “freedoms” might be attacked. There is a “freedom” in carrying a weapon wherever you feel like it; there is a “freedom” in being able to marry the person you love. However, there are also the less-obvious freedoms that are willingly sacrificed every day, increasingly so as every person creates content and supplies data via tiny computers that are perpetually tracking their everyday whereabouts. Are we free if we are being mined for data without compensation or, necessarily, awareness? Our search engines, our social media, our texts, phone calls, emails, bank statements, all are being monitored (as blatantly evidenced in targeted advertising: “hmmm, we see that you’ve been browsing your Facebook friend’s wedding photos… want to browse some wedding dresses?”).

Tom McClean reveals just how deeply entwined economy and information truly are in the United States, in his article “Who Pays the Piper? The political economy of freedom of information.”[1] It is in the interest of corporations that we have freedom of information, for several reasons, not the least of which being that they can become more effective by knowing government policy and intended changes in policy in order to protect themselves when it comes to utilizing information. We are all closely observed, in various carefully-executed, and legal, circumstances.

There is the inevitable omission of privacy in our contemporary technological society; thus, our conceptions of freedom must absorb the notion that we can no longer be truly alone in the world (save for drastic, perhaps eremitical measures). We no longer have a means of escape from government surveillance, or from accidental interconnectivity with our fellow citizens via things like location-based apps or targeted advertising influenced by our perceived relationships with others on the Internet. As long as a person is using the Internet there is, generally, a trail of observation close behind them.

While it doesn’t sound particularly Utopian to accept that we will be forever (and closely) monitored, this reality usually does not affect the life of the individual. Most people are walking around uninhibited by the knowledge that their faces are being scanned by security cameras, their spending habits are being tracked by credit card companies, or that their phone calls might be routinely scanned for various buzzwords. Again, the question of freedom usually only enters the conversation once something goes noticeably wrong.

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There are innumerable horrors to be inflicted on the Internet; Internet bullying has become a real issue in school-age children across the world, identity theft is on the rise, and swatting is a thing. These are the ugly parts of a democratic landscape, where the middleman screen sits between the tormentor and the victim.

However, you can’t have one without the other— the argument is that the freedom of speech does not apply only to kindly worded or informative content. Ann Coulter has the right to bring words like “retarded” and “faggot” into political discussion just as much as the New York Times has the right to publish articles on whatever content they choose, without fear that their voices will be suppressed. This is the freedom of expression, which exists because of the first amendment of the United States constitution, and a pretty well-acknowledged truth that in this country you can say what you like (this is obviously not the case in other Internet cultures).

However, can we really say what we like on the Internet? Can we conduct research safely, securely, without being persecuted? Well, no. Not really.

There are a few ways that this unfortunate fact manifests itself— for example, and most recognizably, on Facebook. In Facebook’s data policy, they write: “We may access, preserve and share [the user’s] information in response to a legal request (like a search warrant, court order or subpoena) if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so.” [2]

This is a tricky situation. Most people treat Facebook as an extension of their reality, which means that the rights and freedoms exercised outside the computer (read: the general ability to do/say most of the things you’d like without persecution, as long as you are not physically harming or harassing someone near you) are believed to exist within the context of this social media platform where our communication is intended for our friends, family, and colleagues.

However: what about stupid remarks made on Facebook regarding guns, death threats, etc., often in the context of a joke? In an instance like this, is freedom of speech being compromised? It’s true that it is also unlawful to threaten death, to cause harm or to harass those around us. But is the freedom of expression and the law that says you can’t threaten to kill the President (even as a joke) mutually exclusive? While it’s not exactly the most inviting example, it does get to the heart of what we can and cannot express on the Internet. It is, after all, common knowledge that the police regularly use Facebook to implicate citizens.

How do we try to navigate this landscape of policed “free” expression? The user is responsible for himself, but institutions might be able to assist the individual. For example, the public library in Lebanon, New Hampshire is making an attempt as one of the last bastions of the right to privacy. It was the first public library in the country to install Tor exit relays on its public terminals, thus protecting the identity of users in terms of finding out just who searched for what, or what activities were performed by which user. Homeland Security, of course, quickly objected, and shut the operation down.[3]

Perhaps the answer to freedom lies then in complete transparency, on both sides? Perhaps the governing institution should make it clear to the user just what and when information is being collected. A great example of this is UC Berkeley, which is the first university in the United States to publish transparency reports to the public, detailing government requests for information.[4]

If we cannot be allowed our curtain of privacy, why not enforce the laws that require the government to pull back theirs? As McClean writes, “access to official files arguably contributes to the “predictability” of government.”[5] If we know what they’re looking for, we know how to protect ourselves— this has become the conversation of present-day freedoms.

 

 

1. Mclean, Tom. “Who pays the piper? The political economy of freedom of information,” 2010. Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
2. Facebook’s Data Policy. Accessed 30 September 2015.<https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/>
3. Koehler, Jason. “A Dozen Libraries Want to Host Tor Nodes to Protest Government Fearmongering.” VICE: Motherboard. 17 September 2015. Web. Accessed 27 September 2015. <http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-dozen-libraries-want-to-host-tor-nodes-to-protest-government-fearmongering>
4. Glaser, April. “Every College Should Issue a Transparency Report About Government Requests for Student Data.” Slate. 18 September 2015. Web. Accessed 20 September 2015. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/09/18/uc_berkeley_issues_the_first_ever_university_transparency_report_others.html>
5. Mclean, Tom. “Who pays the piper?…”