Books and the internet: BFF's

"The web will illuminate rather than eliminate books." Kudos to Anthony Grafton for a line that is all at once simple and movingly expressive. Of all the readings last week, this one stood out for me because it really made me think. As someone who sometimes struggles to reconcile her immense love of books with her pro-digital opinions, I was impressed and encouraged by this article because it didn't approach the two as though they are automatically engaged in a gladiator fight to the death. In addition to being a really well crafted and well written piece, I thought it presented a balanced, realistic and positive opinion regarding the latest in Google-gate scandals. Perhaps I enjoyed it so much because like me, the author LOVES books, but I think what really struck me was that he was able to support the digitization of books without any kind of traitorous escape from Camp Book.

I'll admit, my first reaction to the Google Library went something like an old school (think Adam West) comic book word bubble, "Zap! Egads! Ack!" So here goes.....My name is Natalie and I regret to inform you that I was not initially fond of the idea of Google scanning all the books in the world. My knee-jerk reaction was that of many, which was to fear for the loss of the book and therefore hate whatever suggests changing anything. My reaction speaks ironic volumes about both my belief in books and my trust of the internet.

I adore and respect books and often think the world would be a better place if everyone spent more time reading. There is something magic about interacting with a book, when words on a page are powerful enough to transport you to another world. There is an intimacy in being absorbed by a book, when the ideas of another person are capable of conjuring meaning for so many. There is also something about being able to possess a book because it is physically present. You can own a book and it can tell you a lifetime of stories, but you can't own the internet (unless maybe you're Google) and possess the information it provides as your own.

The ying to my fear yang was my suspicion that the internet would indeed eliminate physical books in many people's lives and that we'd end up with too many people who had never experienced reading an actual book, who would then lose touch with an essential part of humanity and we'd then lose a huge part of our cultural identity and civilization would be doomed. The Grafton article extracted me from this burning Orwellian train of thought and made me look at the whole thing from a really different perspective.

I have now stopped secretly wishing the Google Library gets taken down Enron-style by copyright red tape, only to have a spiteful book written about its demise. I just had to go beyond my already conditioned opinions and look at the whole thing objectively, realizing that in fact, I could be one of the first to throw pro-Google Library parties at Camp Book. So here I stand, reformed. Books and the internet aren't against each other and they aren't to be compared. One isn't better than the other, they're just inherently different and provide two distinct experiences with the written word. Ultimately, if it's a book or a computer screen, I should just be really happy that people are reading.

So the moral of this blogging is, enter the digital dimension with the idea of turning differences into strengths and try and understand the ways that books and the internet complement rather compete with one another. I had this really profound line about "illuminating, not eliminating" but then this Anthony Grafton character up and got to it first;)

Luddite

As I've been doing the readings for class this week, I can't help but smirk at the fact that it seems they've been written just for me. I'll admit, it has taken me much longer to get through the online readings than it would have if they were on good ol' fashioned paper. I'm having a hard time processing that my academic resources are entirely online and find myself in a place where I need to do a total overhaul of my reading and studying habits, which is freaking me out a little. Gone is my trusty pen or highlighter, which I have faithfully used to underline important points in readings and write my thoughts and comments in the margins. I'm so thrown off, in fact, that I'm not sure if I should be taking notes at all or if, like the usual material I read online, I'm just supposed to come away from it with whatever my mind chose to retain.

I am a true believer in the points made in the readings about historians needing to interpret new technology and be the connector between the past and the present audience. I also think it's hugely important for the survival of our discipline because the world won't stop becoming increasingly digitized, so if we fail to hop on that train, our knowledge could be confined to a minority of people, when it has the potential to reach mass audiences. That is exactly why I chose this program and why I think it has an edge over the rest. That said, I like books and I miss them.

It's challenging enough coming back to school after four years in the working world and away from this routine. It's even harder to arrive and find that all my previous student skills and experience seem to be in need of a serious update for which I received no auto-notification on my computer screen! I'm just learning that I can't be a history student the way I used to be. Things have changed that much and that fast. Difficult as the initial adjustment period might be, I think this only further illuminates the importance, or perhaps more accurately, the necessity for learning about digital history and what new media has to offer us as historians.

The Power of the Past: The message is more important than the means

After spending the last month or so living a nomadic lifestyle, what seemed like a state of eternal moving has come to an end and I finally got settled in my new apartment. After a few days, I was apparently lost without the thrill of living out of a suitcase and having no idea where many of my personal possessions were, so I got packed again and went back to Toronto for the weekend. The main reason was to go to the Virgin Music Festival, but I also worry that I've developed some sort of sadistic addiction to moving, as though I don't recognize myself unless my shins are covered in Ikea furniture-inflicted bruises.

While I was at home, I had the chance to catch up with the goings on at the film festival, particularly with regard to Passchendaele (which I am Matrix-level excited to see). After forcing myself to move on from my nostalgia for last year's festival (where thanks to a well-connected friend, I got to go to all the galas and parties and thus spent 13 days straight having more free food and drinks and less sleep than I ever thought possible), I turned my focus to looking further into the most expensive movie ever made in Canada (an unheard of 20 million bucks). The force of nature behind this film - Paul Gross - is an impressive guy and a great Canadian. I say this not only because he played a mountie and a soldier and isn't especially hard on the eyes, but because he single-handedly fought to have this film made and therein for Canadian history to have a voice in the public realm.

I got to thinking about the various stages that he went through in order to make this film and was pleased and impressed to find that there was an element of public history in all of them. His inspiration came from his grandfather and therefore having the experience of the Great War within living memory. History certainly resonates far more in the mind when its being told as a first-person account. This motivated him to learn more and most importantly, to respect and honour not only the soldiers who gave their lives in the war, but the value that event has to all Canadians as a part of our history and a defining moment in nationhood. I always say that as a human being, the most important part of history is not memorizing dates and facts, but to feel history, to connect emotionally with the events of the past, from which one can develop an understanding of human experience and why history matters. Not everyone can be (or wants to be) a historian in the academic sense, but I think everyone is capable of feeling history, because human emotions have remained pretty much the same throughout time - love is joy and death is sadness. It's for this reason that I see great value in film and television as a way to make people see and feel the power of the past. For all the criticism - much of it warranted - that pop history receives, it is arguably the most effective and accessible way to communicate historical information to the public. Because of this movie, many people will feel something and learn something about Canadian history that they may otherwise never have known. What they see might tweak their interest and inspire them to pursue further learning. I think this potential is incredible and something historians must acknowledge as a necessity in the field as the world becomes ever more digitized and impersonal.

I wanted to urge everyone to check out the website for Passchendaele as it is a brilliant example of both public history and digital history. Paul Gross has posted all his grandfather's letters from during the war, has a blog that he wrote throughout the filming of the movie and has interactive programs to give kids an incentive to learn about the war and how people felt during that time. There's the opportunity for kids to write their own letter from the front as they'd imagine it and vivid before and after pictures of the farmland/battlefields of WW1. In doing further research, I found out that in addition to doing it because it mattered very much to him to get the info out to people, the detail put into the website was a tool he used to raise the money needed to make the film. He met with Canada's richest people and as many people from the government as he could and used the website to show them why this movie needed to be made and thus why they should give him the money to make it. This is a whole other avenue of public history and one particularly relevant to this class. This film has come at a really good time for those of us in the program as it's a really good example of public history and digital history in practice as well as a great example of what passion and perseverance in history can accomplish.

So it begins...

Hello all. Well, after staring at a blank page for a while, it seems I have no choice but to beat the blinking cursor by dwelling for a moment, in my own irony; I generally can't shut up and yet, as I start this blog, I find myself oddly at a loss for words. My experience blogging has thus far been limited to killing time at work by going to random and anonymous internet sites (ok, fine...usmagazine.com may or may not have come up once or twice) and commenting on the latest escapades of some vapid celebrity, with the sole intention to invoke an extremely amusing grammatical disaster of a response from someone on "Team Aniston." Aside from there being no birth of twins or undergarment absenteeism to comment on, I think my current "bloggers block" is because I'm not entirely sure whether to go with a trusty stream of consciousness approach or attempt to present some deeply philosophical and profound statement about the relationship between history and new technologies. Truth be told, the latter option is a far more demanding task than I'm willing to entertain at present, so I guess I'll save that for later and just stick to the basics:

I'm really excited to take this class and learn about a whole new dimension to the study of history. I am also eager to improve my (admittedly) rudimentary tech skills, as I expect that advanced knowledge of ipod and blackberry operation doesn't qualify me for any IT positions outside the Best Buy sales team. As appealing as that 40% discount is, I think this is going to be a great class and I look forward to meeting everyone.

In closing, it seems I didn't end up having any trouble finding words after all, lol.