Hello again
A little while ago — not that long ago, I tend to think, but I suppose that’s subjective — there was an online network for baby librarians. Not librarians who were also babies, or librarians who catalogue babies, but newly-qualified librarians who wanted a bit of a leg up in the heady world of libraries et cetera. It was based in the United Kingdom but I doubt they would have kicked you out if you were working somewhere else.
This network was called LISNPN, which stands for Library and Information Sector New Professionals Network. Fittingly for our theme, which I will elucidate shortly, LISNPN does not seem to be online any longer, though you can still see a dormant blog and an apparently automated Twitter account.
Anyway, in 2011, LISNPN announced a competition. The goal of the competition was to “create some library advocacy materials and package them up in such a way that they reach beyond the usual audience for library-related materials.” I entered the competition by starting a Tumblr called That’s Not Online! and as a reward I got to go to a major annual library conference entirely free. You have to take my word for all of this, because it was announced on a now-defunct blog hosted on spruz.com, which does still exist, though it looks a bit sketchy (sorry spruz).
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The inspiration behind That’s Not Online! was (and is) annoyance at a lazy assumption, encountered more often than I would have liked (I would have liked never), that everything, like everything, all information, would soon be available online, and for free, no less. I knew how costly and time-consuming digitization was, and that many, many collections would never make it to the digital world. I also knew that looking at a scan or an image of something online is not the same as holding it in your hands (this is not an original insight, but I was really feeling it at the time). I began chronicling “[l]ibrary collections, archives and other information that aren’t accessible online, and how to find them.” I kept going for about two years before running out of steam.
Three things have prompted me to start the project up again. The first is that I like writing and don’t get to do it very often now. The second is the notion of touching grass. I like to think that Generation Z, who were learning to read when I started this project, having grown up in a world that has always been a little bit virtual, understand inherently the need to get out of an e-bubble and experience the world in a more direct way. I don’t think many people now believe that all information will soon be available for free online, forever. We’re all too jaded to believe that. But most believe that the internet is unavoidable; and I mean, it is unavoidable, but not all the time. Sometimes you can avoid it. Sometimes you can go stand in front of a sculpture or handle a vintage comic or navigate around a city with your own brain. Some experiences can’t be had any other way.
That is a positive version of not-online-ness. A rather more negative one, and my third reason for going on about all this again, is the fact that there is a lot of information that could and should be widely available, that isn’t. Information that might as well be online; that would be the same on a printed sheet; that would be useful, even, but that is a mystery to us, or to all but a selected few. This reason is informed by my six years of experience working in Open Research (also known as Open Science), a movement that seeks to open up the whole of the research process including publication, to increase dissemination and increase reproducibility. But, you know, I’ll make it sound fun!
So that’s it! A lengthier re-introduction than I was expecting, but I welcome you to join me as I cast a side eye at walled-off information, while writhing in the grass like a puppy in springtime. It’s no mean feat and would be more fun if someone was watching.
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