These are a handful of the photos I have floating around my house, and a snapshot of the CDs and books that I keep handy. I see them everyday. But are these the sort of things I should be keeping for my grandkids because such antiques like photographs and CDs make for a fantastic glimpse into the ‘good old days’?
Now have a read of this.
Point. Shoot. Kiss it Goodbye.
David Weinberger has obviously done a lot of thinking. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking too – about his thinking. I imagine that his thinking has been done while sitting in a room. Most probably his office. Considering the organisation he is writing for, most likely an office at home. He is probably sitting just to the left of a bookcase filled with reference books, encyclopedias, novels and magazines. On the bottom shelf of that bookcase may be a few photo albums containing fading copies of all those priceless family happy snaps, accompanied by a stack of CD with all the photos he’s taken in the last few years on his digital camera and doesn’t have room for on his hard drive. To his right may be an old cupboard, upon whose shelves may be a box with a few old records and maybe a few stray cassettes, remnants of a distant youth. In contrast, on top of the cupboard could be a rack sporting a sizable collection of CDs, most of which are just new copies of the old records in the cupboard. On his desk may sit yesterday’s paper, under which sits a dusty referdex and a few old train timetables.
David could just as easily be sitting in my study (if you add a couple of half drunk cups of tea, wallpaper samples on a pin board, a couple of fish bowls and my old graphics drafting board that I have stuck googly eyes all over).
This simple picture of the humble study highlights to me the basic conundrum with new media. It is a conundrum that is also touched upon by David in his blog.
Where does old media fit in the new media world?
All the reference books we have on our shelves, CDs we lovingly collect and photos we dutifully file in albums– the information can now quickly and easily be found on the web, we can subscribe to magazines and buy eBooks, we can buy our music through iTunes, store our photos on Flickr, look up whereis.com for our street directions and have the QR timetable streamed to our mobile.
So where does old media fit in the new media world?
What do we do with it? Where do we put it? Do we get rid of it? Do we use it at the expense of its new media counterparts? Do we attempt to convert it? Do we simply replace it? Can everything in our old media world be simply and comprehensively replaced by a computer and an Internet connection?
David uses the case of the Bettmann Archive in the Iron Mountain National Storage Facility. The archive is a collection of 11 million photographs, richly detailing small pieces of the tapestry of our world’s history. In 1995, the archive was sold to Corbis, a digital stock photography firm, who are now undertaking the arduous task of scanning all the negatives to make the photos available in digital form.
Corbis has taken the view that the intrinsic value of these photographs justifies the time and expense of conversion. In this case, there is also the advantage that the resources become more widely accessible and easier to search and access.
But is that always the case? Does the shift to the ‘new media way’ always equate to a better way of doing things?
Most of us seem to be caught in this awkward balance between our old media belongings and our new media habits. And working out whether to convert, replace or ignore is always a tricky question. Back in my study, you could pick up any number of books and find sticky tags with notes marking pages and leaving reminders. In my recipe books these reminders are globs of melted chocolate and light oil stains from melted butter that remind me that, yes, these brownies are delicious. In my textbooks, my little stars and arrows remind me of what is important and what I found interesting. Unlike my referdex, the directions I get from whereis.com forget to tell me when going to my friend’s place down the coast, it may be quicker to take exit 57, but if I take 58, I avoid the roadworks.
To my way of thinking there are some things that are simply lost when dealing in new media.
1 comment:
Firstly, thanks for the link to that article, it was really interesting and amazing that i just stumbled across your blog because i have been having the same thoughts as David, and yourself. My sister recently sold her stereo, her 5 disc changer high tech subwoofer and all stereo that she had to have 5 years ago. I asked her why she was selling something that wasn't broken, and since she wasn't buying a new stereo. She looked at me and said "ipod".
The old media, that only 5 years ago was state of the art, was being shunted. MP3 players were definetly around but nothing to the extent of today.
Similar to Lars Perkins, as mentioned in the Wired article i recently came back from 2 months in europe. I have so many photos, all of which appear on Facebook, tagged and ready, many are obsolete. I can't remember the last time i took FILM to be developed.
I was creating a photo collection for my dad's 50th. i was looking at the yellowing photos of my dad and his long haired, short shorted friends of the 1970's and i thought, what will my kids think when they look at my friends and i in our photos?
its a sad realisation that our children may not have anything but possibly a digitalised version of our photos. And who knows, photobucket, flickr, and even facebook (which is my photo storage area of choice) may be completely collapsed!
I think there needs to be a balance between the old and new media. Much of the new media is intangible, that is it cannot be touched, felt, smelt etc. It takes away the owners control. This is where the old faithful media such as reference books and cd's become important. As you pointed out about your recipe books, there are so many fundamental things about old media it would be unwise to rely completley on a the new media. I would feel lost without something to hold on, like a dog earred photo or a slightly scratched cd that skips at the exact same point everytime that you begin to think the song is just made that way.
that said, i would be completely lost without my friends tagging their photos on facebook!
how else would you keep up on the gossip!
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