January 31, 2025 • 58 mins
Discussing the article from 2001 entitled "Yahoo and the Abdication of Judgment".
First broadcast January 31 2025. Transcript at https://hdl.handle.net/1853/77044
Playlist here
"Imagine if DARE had the same philosophy!"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(00:00):
BBC PRESENTER [clipfrom Tomorrow's World]:
Imagine a world whereevery word ever written,
every picture ever painted,and every film ever
shot could be viewedinstantly in your home
via an informationsuperhighway, a high capacity
digital communications network.
It sounds pretty grand,but it all comes down
to computers communicating.
(00:20):
And in fact, that's alreadyhappening on something
called the internet.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:47):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta.
And this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
We are happening onthe internet, in part.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with everybody, Alex,
Marlee, Fred, Cody, myself.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme,
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:09):
Whichever you are herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:12):
Our show today is called "The Future in the Past."
ALEX MCGEE (01:16):
The future in the past
is a grammaticalconstruct that is
used to express theidea of something
that someone thought wouldhappen in the future,
speaking from the perspective ofsome point of time in the past.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:27):
What?
[LAUGHTER]
FRED RASCOE (01:28):
The present is the future of the past,
but if we were talkingabout this present moment
right now, a few minutes ago,at that time, it was the future.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:37):
What do you--
FRED RASCOE (01:38):
And now that moment has come
and happens in the present.
And now it's something thathas happened in the past,
but in the past,it was the future.
So if we talk about what wethought would happen now,
then it becomesfuture in the past.
Got it?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:54):
I thought I had it when we started,
and I thought that Iwould continue to have it,
but now I'm wondering ifI should have thought--
you know what, Fred?
Got it.
Carry on.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:05):
As a profession, librarians
are always looking tothe future and wondering
how our jobs might change.
And in the late '90s,early 2000s, a lot, I know,
was written about how this thingcalled the internet was going
to radically impact libraryresources, services,
and employees.
ALEX MCGEE (02:24):
So today, we'll be looking
at just one example of whatlibrarians 25 years ago thought
about the futureof our profession.
We're going to read anarticle together, people.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:33):
It's another reading club episode.
FRED RASCOE (02:35):
That's right.
Our songs today are about thefuture, also about the present,
also about the past.
Three different themes,three different perspectives
on the timeline, threeconcepts, each one of which
can't exist withoutthe other two.
To start our journey into thefuture, present from the past,
let's begin with thetrack 3 is a Magic Number
(02:57):
from Schoolhouse Rock, whichjust warms my Gen-X heart.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:02):
Fred, whatever you are on,
I would like some later.
FRED RASCOE (03:06):
Right here on Lost in the Stacks.
[SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK, "3IS A MAGIC NUMBER"]
(SINGING) 3 is a magic number
Yes, it is
It's a magic number
Somewhere--
(03:27):
That's a magic number
3 is a Magic Number from the Schoolhouse Rock
series of my youth.
A lot of us here--
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:41):
Just say the past, Fred.
FRED RASCOE (03:42):
The past, I'll say it.
Yeah, I'm starting to getnostalgic and reminiscing, but,
OK.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:47):
Starting.
FRED RASCOE (03:48):
Yeah, our show today is called "The Future
in the Past," andit's a reading club.
So we have decided to read anddiscuss a particular article
today, and that articleis called "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
It has a subtitle, "Are WeDigging Our Professional Graves
by Embracing Our Patrons'Approach to Internet Searching,"
(04:12):
by Laura Cohen, who is alibrarian at SUNY Albany.
And this was from AmericanLibraries Magazine,
published in January 2001.
So this is not acurrent reading club.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:22):
And that's the ALA Magazine.
FRED RASCOE (04:24):
That is.
The AmericanLibrary Association.
Yep.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:26):
Some people listening don't know that.
FRED RASCOE (04:28):
So, to get our readers up to speed,
I know that all of you did thehomework and read the article.
So I'm going toget our readers up
to speed just by reading thevery short first paragraph
to get a sense of whatthis article is all about.
"Imagine that a new encyclopediahas come onto the market.
(04:49):
A great deal of its contentconsists of items for sale.
In the foreword tothis set, the editors
state that most entries weresubmitted by the general public
and thereby comprisethe bulk of its content.
They expresslydisavow any claims
for reviewing their selections.
"Next, imagine that word ofmouth and vigorous name branding
(05:09):
work together to make thisthe most popular encyclopedia
in America.
In response to this popularity,most libraries acquire it.
Users flock to consult it.
Based on this prodigioususe, librarians
expend considerableeffort teaching it
as a valuable research tool.
'Impossible,' you say?
(05:31):
But this is exactly whatis happening with Yahoo."
You might have thought Iwas going to say Wikipedia.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:37):
Isn't it?
Yahoo!
MARLEE GIVENS: (VOCALIZING) Yahoo! (05:39):
undefined
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:41):
There you go.
I knew it would happen.
FRED RASCOE (05:44):
There's an exclamation point and a jingle
from the commercials.
Right.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:49):
OK.
So bring that outa little bit more.
You say we were expectingWikipedia at the end
there because all of thosesort of metaphorical--
well, all those analogies,all those metaphors.
FRED RASCOE (06:00):
The description of that kind of service,
that platform, that thisauthor was talking to--
ALEX MCGEE (06:04):
An encyclopedia, yeah.
FRED RASCOE (06:05):
Yeah, that's what Wikipedia became.
And it has dominated.
But she was talkingabout something
called Yahoo!, which if youweren't alive in 2001 or exist--
or even young in school--
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:20):
If you were blissfully ignorant
of the internet in2001, wouldn't that be?
Fred, you gave us a piece ofpaper here that has the Yahoo!
Homepage circa 2000, right?
Marlee, can yousay again the thing
you said when you saw this?
MARLEE GIVENS (06:38):
Yes.
So, around that same time, circa2000, I was working in a library
and two of my colleaguesleft that library
to go work for America Online tocreate something similar to what
we're all looking at on paperright now, which is really,
it's a directory of websites.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:59):
It's an internet libguide.
MARLEE GIVENS (07:00):
It's an internet lib-- it is.
Yeah, it's subjectcategories, and subcategories,
and curated websites that--
CHARLIE BENNETT (07:10):
Let me run through this real quick.
So there's a big box, Yahoo!
Shopping, where you canbuy apparel, bath & beauty,
computers, electronics, flowers,food and drink, music, video,
DVD, Sports Authority,Gap, Eddie Bauer,
Macy's, digitalcameras, Pokemon,
MP3 players, and DVD players.
But also there's a categoriesArts and Humanities, Business
and Economy, Computersand Internet, Education,
Entertainment,Government, Health, News
(07:32):
and Media, Recreation,Sports, Reference, Regional
Science, SocialScience, Society,
and Culture, whichI guess is not
any of those otherthings I just said.
And then a Newsbar and then more
stuff up top, includingAuctions, Messenger, Personals,
Stock Quotes, My Yahoo!, andall other kinds of things.
FRED RASCOE (07:53):
To interject here, if you remember, also
another tech giant that emergedaround this time, Google.
Their famous missionat the time was
to organize all theworld's information.
This is how Yahoo!
chose to tackle thatmission of organizing
the world's information.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:12):
Catalog it.
FRED RASCOE (08:13):
We're going to catalog it
as web links on our site.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:16):
And if I may be so bold,
even the languagewe're using right now
is a reminder that weall went crazy and said,
all the world'sinformation is what
we can find on the internet.
As opposed to allthe other stuff
that wasn't on the internet.
FRED RASCOE (08:33):
It's like--
it's one of those thingswhere librarians saw something
in the future coming andfretted about the job
displacement, the seismicshift in the job displacement
that they thought was coming.
Alex, what was the termthat you used that I--
ALEX MCGEE (08:53):
Oh, I said it was the boogeyman.
Everyone has a boogeymanin their profession, right?
FRED RASCOE (08:57):
Yahoo!
Was the boogeyman at the time.
I think one of several.
I think Google also was aboogeyman, at the time, in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Probably Napster, too. (09:05):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (09:07):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (09:08):
For sure.
ALEX MCGEE (09:09):
Livewire.
FRED RASCOE (09:10):
And not to call out the article, specifically.
This article goes on toreally denigrate Yahoo!
And not to call out, I shouldsay, the article author,
specifically--
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:23):
It denigrates Yahoo! as a research tool.
FRED RASCOE (09:25):
Yes.
They, the author,Laura Cohen, and she's
definitely representativeof a large contingent
of the librarianpopulation at the time.
So I'm not trying to callher out, specifically.
But a largecontingent at the time
really thought that, well,what's on the internet
should be recreational,and you should
(09:47):
do that in your sparetime, but if you really
need to serve yourinformation needs,
you should go to alibrary or a librarian.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:55):
And the teaching of Yahoo!
meant that we wereabdicating our judgment.
FRED RASCOE (10:00):
Certainly in the view of Laura Cohen.
ALEX MCGEE (10:03):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We'll be back with moreabout the future of libraries
in the past after a music set.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:09):
File this set under Z731.C78.
[FRANKIE AND THE WITCH FINGERS,"FUTUREPHOBIC"]
FRED RASCOE (10:19):
Song for a Future Generation by The B-52's.
And Future Phobia by Frankieand The Witch Fingers.
Those are songs about wonderingwhat the future holds.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS (10:37):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and today's show is areading club episode.
We're reading the2001 article "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
And I have to say, I gotstuck on the word, abdication.
FRED RASCOE (10:50):
That's a serious--
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:52):
That's very early on in the article
to get stuck.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:54):
I mean, she doesn't really
put it in this way, but Imean, abdication immediately
makes me think ofroyalty, and the fact
that we are giving upour crown by succumbing
to our users'desire to use Yahoo!
or something like that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:12):
And that is the point.
I mean, she does express thatwe have a responsibility,
and this is all in thepast, but that librarians
have a responsibility tomanage users' expectations
and behaviors ofinformation-seeking
technologies, and that by,as she says, "teaching Yahoo!
(11:32):
As a research tool," we areabdicating that responsibility,
instead of--
I'm thinking-- telling everyone,"this is bad, don't use it."
That seems to be the optionthat she's providing, right?
FRED RASCOE (11:48):
She does say in a little handy sidebar on this
article, if the three pages ofthis article were just too long
for you to read, she has alittle "too long, didn't read"
section at the side.
It says very clearly,"librarians shouldn't endorse
Yahoo! as a reference toolbecause," and gives some reasons
that basicallycome down to, yeah,
the library is important andthe librarian is important,
(12:11):
and handing that off tosome technological tool is
abdication.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:19):
Yeah, and if we let that in and say,
this is a useful tool, ifYahoo! is a useful tool,
then we are basicallysaying, we are not useful.
MARLEE GIVENS (12:29):
Right.
And I mean, I doodled quite abit in the margins of after--
first of all, I printed it out.
I did not read it online.
FRED RASCOE (12:39):
Gen-X. All right.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:40):
I printed it out, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (12:42):
And I mean, at some point, I wrote,
"why not both?"
ALEX MCGEE (12:45):
Yeah, that was my reaction was.
I was like, isn't the wayforward, or the happy medium,
is we teach folks how toquestion maybe these tools
and recognize the gaps, right?
But like, that's whatI think about when
we talk about Wikipediaand the archives.
It's like, oftentimes,I'll tell folks, like,
go look at the footnotesof a Wikipedia article.
(13:07):
That's what I think is valuableis go see what the sources are
that people are lookingat that let's you know
how deeply researched is it.
And then a lot of times, ifit's a good one, hopefully
they've linked to a nice textor an archival collection, who's
to say?
And then that's whereyou should go from there.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, Switzerland. (13:24):
undefined
Listen, neutrality iswhat got us in trouble.
No, I'm sorry.
I just wanted to tell that joke.
But isn't that alsopart of the article
is that compromise,or neutral, or nuanced
take is a problem, toour article writer,
and I have to assume morethan just the article writer.
(13:45):
That at the time,there were some people
who felt like this must beactively pushed against.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:52):
Yeah.
Sounds familiar.
Really.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, my way or the highway, orit's us or them, or zero sum.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:02):
I did feel reading this,
like, nothing has changed.
FRED RASCOE (14:06):
There are assumptions
that the author makes here aboutthat primacy of the librarian
role.
Like, we select databasesbecause they meet our standards.
And so we should encourageusers to use those.
Whereas I think now,24, 25 years later,
(14:27):
my understanding at least ofit is that there are tools
out there, some of themwhich the library buys,
some of them which we don'tbuy, and they're just available.
And it's, like youwere saying, Alex,
it's the librarian's job orthe archivist's job to say,
this is what that toolsearches and this is what
you can and can't find there.
Whether it's something public orwhether it's something that we
subscribe to, because even thethings that we subscribe to that
(14:49):
are "curated," quote, unquote,they're still products put
together bycommercial companies.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:57):
They are.
They are.
Yeah.
I mean, one of the commentsin the article was Yahoo!
Is a commercial property thatseeks to generate traffic.
I mean, don't scholarlysources also do that?
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:07):
Doesn't TV?
MARLEE GIVENS (15:08):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:09):
I feel like there's a very easy way
to make the joke abouthow the internet broke us.
The internet ruined everything.
And so I'm not making thatjoke so much when I say,
this feels likeanother one of the ways
that the internet completelyoverwhelmed people's
cognitive map of the world.
(15:31):
Just trying to say, imaginethere's an encyclopedia.
It's like, OK, first off,it's not an encyclopedia.
What was that thing?
It's not a dump truck thatyou put information on.
It's a series of tubes.
Like, this kind ofimpossibility of understanding,
even metaphorically,what it meant,
the speed of thetransmission of data
(15:53):
and replicabilityof data at the time.
FRED RASCOE (15:57):
And by choosing this article,
it's not my intentionto go, ha-ha,
look at these librarians thatwere writing back in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:03):
Not at all.
No, no.
FRED RASCOE (16:04):
That's not my intention.
It's really, I just wantedto provide the context
that that's theperspective, because I
think you put it very well.
It overwhelmed all cognitivesense of the information
landscape, the riseof the internet
and search tools likeYahoo! and Google.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, just imagine (16:23):
undefined
if someone were to try to say,don't teach the card catalog.
The way that that iscurated by people,
it's all based on personalexperience and data
pulled from other places.
Like, the metaphor startsto collapse in on itself,
because Yahoo!
(16:44):
was just the face ofthe revolution that took
the nation by storm, as I read.
I'm sorry, I knowwe're not supposed
to talk about theactual writing,
but revolutions thattake the world by storm.
It's like, whata mixed metaphor.
You could drinkthat as a cocktail.
MARLEE GIVENS (16:59):
Well, speaking of metaphors, a couple of years
after this articlecame out, I was
at some sort of one dayconference kind of thing.
There was some library thoughtleader who gave a presentation.
And she said, if you thinkabout, in the old days,
there was in a townthere would be a well
and everyone came to thewell to get their water.
(17:22):
And the library used tobe the well where people
came to get their information.
But then in othercases, there's a stream,
and people go at differentpoints in the stream
to get their water.
And now the library is just oneof those points in the stream.
And so, I mean, this was just--
I mean, yeah, a year or twoafter this article that seems
(17:45):
to be sort of afraidof the internet,
then we quickly had toembrace the internet
because the internet justbecame so much bigger than us.
We realized it was somethingwe couldn't control.
FRED RASCOE (17:55):
And shout out to the author.
I think, Charlie, you didsome digging and found out
that the author of this article,probably in subsequent years,
changed her tune a little bit.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:05):
Straight up.
I mean, anytime someonewrites something that says,
"this is a position that Ibelieve we all should take,"
you got to read stuffthat they write afterward.
Because Laura Cohenthen did write
about how we shouldlisten to users
and how we should try andfigure out what users want
and how they want touse the library, which
is, in opposition to,I will say, opposition
(18:26):
to one of her points, that thelibrarians' goal and purpose was
to modify and change behavior.
They were supposedto stand on the well
and say, "don't drinkfrom the stream.
This water is mineand it's better."
So gross.
[LAUGHTER]
FRED RASCOE (18:45):
All right, that's a good breaking point, I think.
You are listening toLost in the Stacks.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Did you break, Fred? (18:50):
undefined
FRED RASCOE (18:51):
We'll talk more about what
our profession thoughtabout the future
25 years ago on theleft side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) I know for sure
There ain't no cure
JOHN LINDAMAN (19:09):
Hi, I'm Jon Lindaman from the Watson Library
at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art
and the Museum ofObsolete Library Science.
And you're listening to Lostin the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.
More wattage in the cottage.
Tune it in andtear the knob off.
(SINGING) You betcha
Only rock n' roll
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:31):
Today's episode is called "The Future
in the Past."
And we're taking a look at onespecific article from almost 25
years ago that talks aboutthe future of librarianship.
That article is "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment,"which is a catchy title,
in more ways than one.
In the '90s and theearly 2000s, aw,
(19:54):
there were a lot of articleswritten about the internet
and the future of libraries.
Here are some of the real actualarticles written in the past
that we could have chosenfor our discussion today.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
From Reference and UserServices Quarterly in 2000,
"Has the Internet ChangedAnything in Reference?"
(20:15):
From the AmericanLibraries Magazine in 1999,
"A Choice of Futures--
Is It LibrariesVersus Information?"
From the journalScience in 1998,
"Assembling the World's BiggestLibrary on Your Desktop."
OK, and that onereally makes me crazy.
From the journal Searcher,also in 1998, "The Internet--
(20:36):
The Beginning or TheEnd of Information?"
[SHUDDERS]
From Information Outlookin 1997, "The Internet--
Threat or Asset?"
Shouldn't DARPA bewriting white papers?
OK, we could go on, andthere are so many more.
And I could makefun of all of them,
but I could also takethem all seriously.
And it's important to recognizethat you could take all of these
(20:58):
seriously.
These are real things thatpeople were thinking about.
We'll do an episode on maybeone of these in the future, when
now is the past in the future.
[SIGHS]
File this set presently underBQ9288.S57 in a punctual way.
[THE CALIPHS, "TODAY, TOMORROW"]
(21:23):
[SHANA FALANA, "RIGHT NOW IS ALLWE KNOW"] Right now is all we
know
MARLEE GIVENS (21:33):
And indeed, Right Now
is All We Know by Shana Falana.
And before that, we heard,Today, Tomorrow by The caliphs.
Songs about situating yourselfin the present moment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (21:47):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is called"The Future in the Past."
We read an articlecalled "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
And it was a reminder,Fred, as you pointed out,
that librarianpredictions of the future,
about that time when theinternet was becoming
(22:07):
a constant and accepted partof daily life and information
seeking, that thepredictions were often
either skepticalor technophilic.
There was not a lot of,let's talk about nuance.
There was not a lotof, hey, how can we
operate within this new world?
(22:30):
What has it changed abouthow information works?
It was much more, "oh, no,everyone get away," or "dive in.
There are so many opportunities.
Come on in, fellas.
The water is fine."
FRED RASCOE (22:44):
So this hits home for me
because I started libraryschool following year
after this articlewas published.
And that dichotomy,the technophobic
versus technophilic, Ireally saw that happening.
That was the time when thephrase "move fast and break
(23:06):
things" was widely promoted--
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:12):
Romanticized.
FRED RASCOE (23:13):
Romanticized.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:14):
Even fetishized for disrupting
certain industries in order to--
what is it called?
Release innovation.
FRED RASCOE (23:21):
And we heard that in the library environment
as well.
It trickled down into there.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:27):
I became a library person in this era.
And reflecting backon my own career
recently, because I'm comingup for a promotion soon,
I've had to accept that my younglibrarian self was basically
like, hey, nothing mattersanymore, let's just do stuff.
And that it came fromthis kind of attitude
(23:47):
because I was not goingto be a technophobe.
I was not going tobe a conservative.
I was going to join in theoptimistic, and disruptive,
and free side of the debate.
And so I was notreally a librarian.
I've made the joke many times.
I'm a bad librarian.
At the time, it was justbecause I was moving--
I was counter toall of the standards
(24:10):
at the time because ofthis argument, really.
I don't know that I would havebeen like that in the '90s.
FRED RASCOE (24:16):
You kind of reacted to this view that Laura Cohen.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:20):
Yeah, I was given permission
by the other side of theargument that Laura is making.
FRED RASCOE (24:25):
Right.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:26):
Because I--
this is so embarrassing, butI was more aligned with people
that we would call tech bros.
But at the time, because it waslike, oh yeah, we could-- yeah,
we can build a treehousein the library.
Oh yeah, we can makea Information Commons.
It's like, oh yeah, wecan do whatever we want.
Have you noticed the internetis here and nothing is the same?
(24:48):
That was kind of my naiveapproach to the profession.
FRED RASCOE (24:53):
So what do you-- oh, go ahead, Marlee.
MARLEE GIVENS (24:56):
No, go ahead.
FRED RASCOE (24:56):
What do you think about--
[LAUGHTER]
What do you think about Laura'sperception that librarians,
whether of their own accordor because of just the wave
of movement that's coming, thatlibrarians were being pushed
aside, kind of, by technology?
How true-- I know, Marlee,you were becoming a librarian
(25:20):
around that time.
How true did it feelto you then versus what
do you think it became?
MARLEE GIVENS (25:29):
Um--
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT: The only answer. (25:31):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (25:33):
Yeah, exactly.
FRED RASCOE (25:34):
I agree.
And, Alex, I know you cameup through library school
much later.
ALEX MCGEE (25:40):
I didn't go to library school.
FRED RASCOE (25:41):
Or into the library world.
Yes, as an archivist,there are many other paths
available to you, whichyou took advantage of.
But now that you're-- whenyou first got into the library
and archives world,was there a boogeyman,
as you eloquently put itin the previous segment?
ALEX MCGEE (26:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, for us,it was Wikipedia.
And I think that wasthe thing, especially
like-- so I did alot of stuff with,
would I be a history professor?
And that was the thingthat they were always,
like, students take theshortcut, they go to Wikipedia.
And I think kind ofwhat I was talking
about earlier, for me at least,where I was at in the world,
(26:21):
I saw it as an opportunityto talk about, OK, well,
what is Wikipedia looking at?
Let's talk aboutprimary sources.
Let's talk aboutarchival collections.
I still go pullbooks off the shelf,
and I like to go look at thefootnotes or the endnotes,
because that's--
I want to see what they werelooking at for their research.
And I think it's thinking abouthow do we use these tools,
(26:43):
because we know--
when I was in school, it was,students are going to use it.
Like, there's no stopping it.
So we need to lean into it.
We need to meet themwhere they're at.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:52):
Imagine if that was the argument that
DARE used about drugs.
ALEX MCGEE (26:55):
I know, right.
We know they're going to do it.
Meet them where they're at.
[LAUGHTER]
Yep, yep.
Although, you saythat, but I there
are clinics whereit's just like,
let's provide a safe placefor people to do drugs.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (27:08):
That's what libraries are now, a safe place
-
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:11):
- to do the internet.
ALEX MCGEE (27:11):
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:13):
Marlee, now that you've had some time
to digest it, do you have ananswer to Fred's earlier query
that ended with an "um" for you?
MARLEE GIVENS (27:20):
I mean, I--
I have to admit, like,when Fred was talking about
that, I was really distractedby the article itself,
about we feel threatened,if we give in,
we might as well just go home.
And, I mean, there arestill shades of that.
I think we're still--
I see a lot oflibrary/librarian behavior
(27:44):
that is still comingfrom a place of fear.
I mean, there are other thingsthat we're afraid of now,
I think.
But at least in the academiclibrary, the professors
that we're working withare still telling us,
our students don't knowhow to find good sources.
(28:07):
But when we tell them, well,we can help them with that,
they're like, no, I don'twant you in my classroom.
I just want them to--
and I mean, Iactually did hear--
I mean, it wasn't literally, "Idon't want you in my classroom,"
but like, I don'thave the time to let--
because, to be honest, ifyou let the librarian in,
we're going to want totake our time and really--
(28:30):
we don't want just 10 minutes.
We want the whole classperiod to really teach--
to really teach this--yeah, Exactly so that we
can teach themthings, like, hey,
you should be questioning, evenquestioning the library sources
that we're telling you about.
You should be thinkingcritically about these things.
And we can't just do that ina five minute orientation.
FRED RASCOE (28:50):
I think there was a time also
on the technophilicside of the argument
that librarians would be--
this internet wouldmake librarians
be integral to everythingthat academia was doing.
The research process,the grants that they get,
(29:10):
librarians are going to beintegrated with every faculty
member.
And this--
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:14):
Like a module on a website.
FRED RASCOE (29:16):
This internet is going to enable--
librarians are going to bemore relevant than ever.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:23):
The embedded librarian?
Yeah, I don't knowwhere that went.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:26):
I was one of those once.
Once.
FRED RASCOE (29:29):
Both of those paths kind of
did not lead where thearticulators of those thoughts
thought they were going.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:39):
You're allowed to say "fizzled."
That's not a bad word.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:42):
Well, this is Lost in the Stacks.
And today we've beendiscussing the article "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment,"published in American Libraries
Magazine in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And you can file (29:52):
undefined
this set, this bittersweetset, under HC79.I555G744.
[SATURDAY LOOKS GOOD TO ME,"UNDERWATER HEARTBEAT"]
[THE TUTS, "LET GO OF THE PAST"]
ALEX MCGEE (30:11):
That was Let Go of the Past by The Tuts,
and before that,Underwater Heartbeat
by Saturday Looks Good to Me.
Songs about dealingwith the past.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:28):
Today's show was called "The Future
in the Past."
And last week, Ireally enjoyed hearing
what everybody wasdoing back when I was
launching Lost in the Stacks.
So let's do thatagain this week.
Our reading clubarticle today was
from January 2001, which, asAlex pointed out, off air,
was when Wikipedia started.
What were you alldoing in January 2001?
(30:50):
I was getting my behind kickedin Boston in my brief foray
into the corporate world.
I came screaming backby the end of 2001.
How about you, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (31:02):
Oh, well, I was-- and by the way,
that sounds like a futureshow, we delve into that one.
CHARLIE BENNETT: No, it does not. (31:07):
undefined
FRED RASCOE (31:08):
Well, in January 2001, I was almost 27-years-old,
trying to figure out what Iwas going to do with the rest
of my life.
I was working doingmedical data entry,
also working as a book deliveryperson for the University
of Tennessee Library,playing in my band,
still getting used to theidea of getting married,
and wondering what I wasgoing to do with a college
degree in Creative Writing.
I started libraryschool the next year.
(31:31):
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (31:31):
Well, I was fresh out of library school
with a shiny new MLS.
M-L-S, not M-L-I-S. And I wasready for those gray-haired
librarians to start retiring.
Well, these days, I'm theone with the gray hair.
So how about Alexto make us feel old?
ALEX MCGEE (31:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was in sixth grade.
Fred said how old he was.
I guess I'll say how old I was.
I was 11 at the time.
And thinking backJanuary 2001, I
recall convincingmy mom to take me
to go see Save the LastDance, the Julia Stiles
feature, if you recall.
FRED RASCOE (32:11):
Wow.
ALEX MCGEE (32:12):
And that was very exciting for me.
And now, Cody, to make us allfeel really old, what about you?
CODY TURNER (32:20):
Well, January 2001, I was in third grade
and entering publicschool for the first time,
realizing that I was way aheadin math and really behind
in science and history.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:34):
And with that, let's roll the credits.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT: Lost in the Stacks (32:41):
undefined
is a long running oldperson's collaboration
between WREK Atlanta andthe Georgia Tech Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:53):
Legal counsel and a safe place
to use the internet are providedby the Burruss Intellectual
Property Law Groupin Atlanta, Georgia.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Thank you, Phillip. (32:59):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (33:00):
Special thanks to Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Alta
Vista, Lycos, Xcite,Infoseek, Even Gopher.
Am I forgetting any?
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:11):
Metacrawler.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:12):
And thanks, as always, to each and every one
of you for listening.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:16):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to the podcastfeed, and a web forum,
if you want to getin touch with us
and tell us what you weredoing in January of 2001.
ALEX MCGEE (33:29):
Next week, more from the intersection of the past,
present, and future when we do aguide book episode on retro tech
at the Georgia Tech Library.
FRED RASCOE (33:37):
So it's time for our last song today.
The future may not have ledall librarians to Yahoo!.
It came close to dominating allthings online, until it didn't.
So let's close witha song that shares
a name with this notquite dead legacy website
that we fondly remember.
This is Yahoo!-- and it evenhas the exclamation point--
(33:59):
by Erasure, right hereon Lost in the Stacks.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[ERASURE, "YAHOO!"]
(00:00):
BBC PRESENTER [clipfrom Tomorrow's World]:
Imagine a world whereevery word ever written,
every picture ever painted,and every film ever
shot could be viewedinstantly in your home
via an informationsuperhighway, a high capacity
digital communications network.
It sounds pretty grand,but it all comes down
to computers communicating.
(00:20):
And in fact, that's alreadyhappening on something
called the internet.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:47):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta.
And this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
We are happening onthe internet, in part.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with everybody, Alex,
Marlee, Fred, Cody, myself.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme,
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:09):
Whichever you are herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:12):
Our show today is called "The Future in the Past."
ALEX MCGEE (01:16):
The future in the past
is a grammaticalconstruct that is
used to express theidea of something
that someone thought wouldhappen in the future,
speaking from the perspective ofsome point of time in the past.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:27):
What?
[LAUGHTER]
FRED RASCOE (01:28):
The present is the future of the past,
but if we were talkingabout this present moment
right now, a few minutes ago,at that time, it was the future.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:37):
What do you--
FRED RASCOE (01:38):
And now that moment has come
and happens in the present.
And now it's something thathas happened in the past,
but in the past,it was the future.
So if we talk about what wethought would happen now,
then it becomesfuture in the past.
Got it?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:54):
I thought I had it when we started,
and I thought that Iwould continue to have it,
but now I'm wondering ifI should have thought--
you know what, Fred?
Got it.
Carry on.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:05):
As a profession, librarians
are always looking tothe future and wondering
how our jobs might change.
And in the late '90s,early 2000s, a lot, I know,
was written about how this thingcalled the internet was going
to radically impact libraryresources, services,
and employees.
ALEX MCGEE (02:24):
So today, we'll be looking
at just one example of whatlibrarians 25 years ago thought
about the futureof our profession.
We're going to read anarticle together, people.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:33):
It's another reading club episode.
FRED RASCOE (02:35):
That's right.
Our songs today are about thefuture, also about the present,
also about the past.
Three different themes,three different perspectives
on the timeline, threeconcepts, each one of which
can't exist withoutthe other two.
To start our journey into thefuture, present from the past,
let's begin with thetrack 3 is a Magic Number
(02:57):
from Schoolhouse Rock, whichjust warms my Gen-X heart.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:02):
Fred, whatever you are on,
I would like some later.
FRED RASCOE (03:06):
Right here on Lost in the Stacks.
[SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK, "3IS A MAGIC NUMBER"]
(SINGING) 3 is a magic number
Yes, it is
It's a magic number
Somewhere--
(03:27):
That's a magic number
3 is a Magic Number from the Schoolhouse Rock
series of my youth.
A lot of us here--
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:41):
Just say the past, Fred.
FRED RASCOE (03:42):
The past, I'll say it.
Yeah, I'm starting to getnostalgic and reminiscing, but,
OK.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:47):
Starting.
FRED RASCOE (03:48):
Yeah, our show today is called "The Future
in the Past," andit's a reading club.
So we have decided to read anddiscuss a particular article
today, and that articleis called "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
It has a subtitle, "Are WeDigging Our Professional Graves
by Embracing Our Patrons'Approach to Internet Searching,"
(04:12):
by Laura Cohen, who is alibrarian at SUNY Albany.
And this was from AmericanLibraries Magazine,
published in January 2001.
So this is not acurrent reading club.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:22):
And that's the ALA Magazine.
FRED RASCOE (04:24):
That is.
The AmericanLibrary Association.
Yep.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:26):
Some people listening don't know that.
FRED RASCOE (04:28):
So, to get our readers up to speed,
I know that all of you did thehomework and read the article.
So I'm going toget our readers up
to speed just by reading thevery short first paragraph
to get a sense of whatthis article is all about.
"Imagine that a new encyclopediahas come onto the market.
(04:49):
A great deal of its contentconsists of items for sale.
In the foreword tothis set, the editors
state that most entries weresubmitted by the general public
and thereby comprisethe bulk of its content.
They expresslydisavow any claims
for reviewing their selections.
"Next, imagine that word ofmouth and vigorous name branding
(05:09):
work together to make thisthe most popular encyclopedia
in America.
In response to this popularity,most libraries acquire it.
Users flock to consult it.
Based on this prodigioususe, librarians
expend considerableeffort teaching it
as a valuable research tool.
'Impossible,' you say?
(05:31):
But this is exactly whatis happening with Yahoo."
You might have thought Iwas going to say Wikipedia.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:37):
Isn't it?
Yahoo!
MARLEE GIVENS: (VOCALIZING) Yahoo! (05:39):
undefined
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:41):
There you go.
I knew it would happen.
FRED RASCOE (05:44):
There's an exclamation point and a jingle
from the commercials.
Right.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:49):
OK.
So bring that outa little bit more.
You say we were expectingWikipedia at the end
there because all of thosesort of metaphorical--
well, all those analogies,all those metaphors.
FRED RASCOE (06:00):
The description of that kind of service,
that platform, that thisauthor was talking to--
ALEX MCGEE (06:04):
An encyclopedia, yeah.
FRED RASCOE (06:05):
Yeah, that's what Wikipedia became.
And it has dominated.
But she was talkingabout something
called Yahoo!, which if youweren't alive in 2001 or exist--
or even young in school--
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:20):
If you were blissfully ignorant
of the internet in2001, wouldn't that be?
Fred, you gave us a piece ofpaper here that has the Yahoo!
Homepage circa 2000, right?
Marlee, can yousay again the thing
you said when you saw this?
MARLEE GIVENS (06:38):
Yes.
So, around that same time, circa2000, I was working in a library
and two of my colleaguesleft that library
to go work for America Online tocreate something similar to what
we're all looking at on paperright now, which is really,
it's a directory of websites.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:59):
It's an internet libguide.
MARLEE GIVENS (07:00):
It's an internet lib-- it is.
Yeah, it's subjectcategories, and subcategories,
and curated websites that--
CHARLIE BENNETT (07:10):
Let me run through this real quick.
So there's a big box, Yahoo!
Shopping, where you canbuy apparel, bath & beauty,
computers, electronics, flowers,food and drink, music, video,
DVD, Sports Authority,Gap, Eddie Bauer,
Macy's, digitalcameras, Pokemon,
MP3 players, and DVD players.
But also there's a categoriesArts and Humanities, Business
and Economy, Computersand Internet, Education,
Entertainment,Government, Health, News
(07:32):
and Media, Recreation,Sports, Reference, Regional
Science, SocialScience, Society,
and Culture, whichI guess is not
any of those otherthings I just said.
And then a Newsbar and then more
stuff up top, includingAuctions, Messenger, Personals,
Stock Quotes, My Yahoo!, andall other kinds of things.
FRED RASCOE (07:53):
To interject here, if you remember, also
another tech giant that emergedaround this time, Google.
Their famous missionat the time was
to organize all theworld's information.
This is how Yahoo!
chose to tackle thatmission of organizing
the world's information.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:12):
Catalog it.
FRED RASCOE (08:13):
We're going to catalog it
as web links on our site.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:16):
And if I may be so bold,
even the languagewe're using right now
is a reminder that weall went crazy and said,
all the world'sinformation is what
we can find on the internet.
As opposed to allthe other stuff
that wasn't on the internet.
FRED RASCOE (08:33):
It's like--
it's one of those thingswhere librarians saw something
in the future coming andfretted about the job
displacement, the seismicshift in the job displacement
that they thought was coming.
Alex, what was the termthat you used that I--
ALEX MCGEE (08:53):
Oh, I said it was the boogeyman.
Everyone has a boogeymanin their profession, right?
FRED RASCOE (08:57):
Yahoo!
Was the boogeyman at the time.
I think one of several.
I think Google also was aboogeyman, at the time, in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Probably Napster, too. (09:05):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (09:07):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (09:08):
For sure.
ALEX MCGEE (09:09):
Livewire.
FRED RASCOE (09:10):
And not to call out the article, specifically.
This article goes on toreally denigrate Yahoo!
And not to call out, I shouldsay, the article author,
specifically--
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:23):
It denigrates Yahoo! as a research tool.
FRED RASCOE (09:25):
Yes.
They, the author,Laura Cohen, and she's
definitely representativeof a large contingent
of the librarianpopulation at the time.
So I'm not trying to callher out, specifically.
But a largecontingent at the time
really thought that, well,what's on the internet
should be recreational,and you should
(09:47):
do that in your sparetime, but if you really
need to serve yourinformation needs,
you should go to alibrary or a librarian.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:55):
And the teaching of Yahoo!
meant that we wereabdicating our judgment.
FRED RASCOE (10:00):
Certainly in the view of Laura Cohen.
ALEX MCGEE (10:03):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We'll be back with moreabout the future of libraries
in the past after a music set.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:09):
File this set under Z731.C78.
[FRANKIE AND THE WITCH FINGERS,"FUTUREPHOBIC"]
FRED RASCOE (10:19):
Song for a Future Generation by The B-52's.
And Future Phobia by Frankieand The Witch Fingers.
Those are songs about wonderingwhat the future holds.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS (10:37):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and today's show is areading club episode.
We're reading the2001 article "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
And I have to say, I gotstuck on the word, abdication.
FRED RASCOE (10:50):
That's a serious--
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:52):
That's very early on in the article
to get stuck.
MARLEE GIVENS (10:54):
I mean, she doesn't really
put it in this way, but Imean, abdication immediately
makes me think ofroyalty, and the fact
that we are giving upour crown by succumbing
to our users'desire to use Yahoo!
or something like that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:12):
And that is the point.
I mean, she does express thatwe have a responsibility,
and this is all in thepast, but that librarians
have a responsibility tomanage users' expectations
and behaviors ofinformation-seeking
technologies, and that by,as she says, "teaching Yahoo!
(11:32):
As a research tool," we areabdicating that responsibility,
instead of--
I'm thinking-- telling everyone,"this is bad, don't use it."
That seems to be the optionthat she's providing, right?
FRED RASCOE (11:48):
She does say in a little handy sidebar on this
article, if the three pages ofthis article were just too long
for you to read, she has alittle "too long, didn't read"
section at the side.
It says very clearly,"librarians shouldn't endorse
Yahoo! as a reference toolbecause," and gives some reasons
that basicallycome down to, yeah,
the library is important andthe librarian is important,
(12:11):
and handing that off tosome technological tool is
abdication.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:19):
Yeah, and if we let that in and say,
this is a useful tool, ifYahoo! is a useful tool,
then we are basicallysaying, we are not useful.
MARLEE GIVENS (12:29):
Right.
And I mean, I doodled quite abit in the margins of after--
first of all, I printed it out.
I did not read it online.
FRED RASCOE (12:39):
Gen-X. All right.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:40):
I printed it out, too.
MARLEE GIVENS (12:42):
And I mean, at some point, I wrote,
"why not both?"
ALEX MCGEE (12:45):
Yeah, that was my reaction was.
I was like, isn't the wayforward, or the happy medium,
is we teach folks how toquestion maybe these tools
and recognize the gaps, right?
But like, that's whatI think about when
we talk about Wikipediaand the archives.
It's like, oftentimes,I'll tell folks, like,
go look at the footnotesof a Wikipedia article.
(13:07):
That's what I think is valuableis go see what the sources are
that people are lookingat that let's you know
how deeply researched is it.
And then a lot of times, ifit's a good one, hopefully
they've linked to a nice textor an archival collection, who's
to say?
And then that's whereyou should go from there.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, Switzerland. (13:24):
undefined
Listen, neutrality iswhat got us in trouble.
No, I'm sorry.
I just wanted to tell that joke.
But isn't that alsopart of the article
is that compromise,or neutral, or nuanced
take is a problem, toour article writer,
and I have to assume morethan just the article writer.
(13:45):
That at the time,there were some people
who felt like this must beactively pushed against.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:52):
Yeah.
Sounds familiar.
Really.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, my way or the highway, orit's us or them, or zero sum.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:02):
I did feel reading this,
like, nothing has changed.
FRED RASCOE (14:06):
There are assumptions
that the author makes here aboutthat primacy of the librarian
role.
Like, we select databasesbecause they meet our standards.
And so we should encourageusers to use those.
Whereas I think now,24, 25 years later,
(14:27):
my understanding at least ofit is that there are tools
out there, some of themwhich the library buys,
some of them which we don'tbuy, and they're just available.
And it's, like youwere saying, Alex,
it's the librarian's job orthe archivist's job to say,
this is what that toolsearches and this is what
you can and can't find there.
Whether it's something public orwhether it's something that we
subscribe to, because even thethings that we subscribe to that
(14:49):
are "curated," quote, unquote,they're still products put
together bycommercial companies.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:57):
They are.
They are.
Yeah.
I mean, one of the commentsin the article was Yahoo!
Is a commercial property thatseeks to generate traffic.
I mean, don't scholarlysources also do that?
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:07):
Doesn't TV?
MARLEE GIVENS (15:08):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:09):
I feel like there's a very easy way
to make the joke abouthow the internet broke us.
The internet ruined everything.
And so I'm not making thatjoke so much when I say,
this feels likeanother one of the ways
that the internet completelyoverwhelmed people's
cognitive map of the world.
(15:31):
Just trying to say, imaginethere's an encyclopedia.
It's like, OK, first off,it's not an encyclopedia.
What was that thing?
It's not a dump truck thatyou put information on.
It's a series of tubes.
Like, this kind ofimpossibility of understanding,
even metaphorically,what it meant,
the speed of thetransmission of data
(15:53):
and replicabilityof data at the time.
FRED RASCOE (15:57):
And by choosing this article,
it's not my intentionto go, ha-ha,
look at these librarians thatwere writing back in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:03):
Not at all.
No, no.
FRED RASCOE (16:04):
That's not my intention.
It's really, I just wantedto provide the context
that that's theperspective, because I
think you put it very well.
It overwhelmed all cognitivesense of the information
landscape, the riseof the internet
and search tools likeYahoo! and Google.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, just imagine (16:23):
undefined
if someone were to try to say,don't teach the card catalog.
The way that that iscurated by people,
it's all based on personalexperience and data
pulled from other places.
Like, the metaphor startsto collapse in on itself,
because Yahoo!
(16:44):
was just the face ofthe revolution that took
the nation by storm, as I read.
I'm sorry, I knowwe're not supposed
to talk about theactual writing,
but revolutions thattake the world by storm.
It's like, whata mixed metaphor.
You could drinkthat as a cocktail.
MARLEE GIVENS (16:59):
Well, speaking of metaphors, a couple of years
after this articlecame out, I was
at some sort of one dayconference kind of thing.
There was some library thoughtleader who gave a presentation.
And she said, if you thinkabout, in the old days,
there was in a townthere would be a well
and everyone came to thewell to get their water.
(17:22):
And the library used tobe the well where people
came to get their information.
But then in othercases, there's a stream,
and people go at differentpoints in the stream
to get their water.
And now the library is just oneof those points in the stream.
And so, I mean, this was just--
I mean, yeah, a year or twoafter this article that seems
(17:45):
to be sort of afraidof the internet,
then we quickly had toembrace the internet
because the internet justbecame so much bigger than us.
We realized it was somethingwe couldn't control.
FRED RASCOE (17:55):
And shout out to the author.
I think, Charlie, you didsome digging and found out
that the author of this article,probably in subsequent years,
changed her tune a little bit.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:05):
Straight up.
I mean, anytime someonewrites something that says,
"this is a position that Ibelieve we all should take,"
you got to read stuffthat they write afterward.
Because Laura Cohenthen did write
about how we shouldlisten to users
and how we should try andfigure out what users want
and how they want touse the library, which
is, in opposition to,I will say, opposition
(18:26):
to one of her points, that thelibrarians' goal and purpose was
to modify and change behavior.
They were supposedto stand on the well
and say, "don't drinkfrom the stream.
This water is mineand it's better."
So gross.
[LAUGHTER]
FRED RASCOE (18:45):
All right, that's a good breaking point, I think.
You are listening toLost in the Stacks.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Did you break, Fred? (18:50):
undefined
FRED RASCOE (18:51):
We'll talk more about what
our profession thoughtabout the future
25 years ago on theleft side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) I know for sure
There ain't no cure
JOHN LINDAMAN (19:09):
Hi, I'm Jon Lindaman from the Watson Library
at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art
and the Museum ofObsolete Library Science.
And you're listening to Lostin the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.
More wattage in the cottage.
Tune it in andtear the knob off.
(SINGING) You betcha
Only rock n' roll
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:31):
Today's episode is called "The Future
in the Past."
And we're taking a look at onespecific article from almost 25
years ago that talks aboutthe future of librarianship.
That article is "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment,"which is a catchy title,
in more ways than one.
In the '90s and theearly 2000s, aw,
(19:54):
there were a lot of articleswritten about the internet
and the future of libraries.
Here are some of the real actualarticles written in the past
that we could have chosenfor our discussion today.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
From Reference and UserServices Quarterly in 2000,
"Has the Internet ChangedAnything in Reference?"
(20:15):
From the AmericanLibraries Magazine in 1999,
"A Choice of Futures--
Is It LibrariesVersus Information?"
From the journalScience in 1998,
"Assembling the World's BiggestLibrary on Your Desktop."
OK, and that onereally makes me crazy.
From the journal Searcher,also in 1998, "The Internet--
(20:36):
The Beginning or TheEnd of Information?"
[SHUDDERS]
From Information Outlookin 1997, "The Internet--
Threat or Asset?"
Shouldn't DARPA bewriting white papers?
OK, we could go on, andthere are so many more.
And I could makefun of all of them,
but I could also takethem all seriously.
And it's important to recognizethat you could take all of these
(20:58):
seriously.
These are real things thatpeople were thinking about.
We'll do an episode on maybeone of these in the future, when
now is the past in the future.
[SIGHS]
File this set presently underBQ9288.S57 in a punctual way.
[THE CALIPHS, "TODAY, TOMORROW"]
(21:23):
[SHANA FALANA, "RIGHT NOW IS ALLWE KNOW"] Right now is all we
know
MARLEE GIVENS (21:33):
And indeed, Right Now
is All We Know by Shana Falana.
And before that, we heard,Today, Tomorrow by The caliphs.
Songs about situating yourselfin the present moment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (21:47):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is called"The Future in the Past."
We read an articlecalled "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment."
And it was a reminder,Fred, as you pointed out,
that librarianpredictions of the future,
about that time when theinternet was becoming
(22:07):
a constant and accepted partof daily life and information
seeking, that thepredictions were often
either skepticalor technophilic.
There was not a lot of,let's talk about nuance.
There was not a lotof, hey, how can we
operate within this new world?
(22:30):
What has it changed abouthow information works?
It was much more, "oh, no,everyone get away," or "dive in.
There are so many opportunities.
Come on in, fellas.
The water is fine."
FRED RASCOE (22:44):
So this hits home for me
because I started libraryschool following year
after this articlewas published.
And that dichotomy,the technophobic
versus technophilic, Ireally saw that happening.
That was the time when thephrase "move fast and break
(23:06):
things" was widely promoted--
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:12):
Romanticized.
FRED RASCOE (23:13):
Romanticized.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:14):
Even fetishized for disrupting
certain industries in order to--
what is it called?
Release innovation.
FRED RASCOE (23:21):
And we heard that in the library environment
as well.
It trickled down into there.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:27):
I became a library person in this era.
And reflecting backon my own career
recently, because I'm comingup for a promotion soon,
I've had to accept that my younglibrarian self was basically
like, hey, nothing mattersanymore, let's just do stuff.
And that it came fromthis kind of attitude
(23:47):
because I was not goingto be a technophobe.
I was not going tobe a conservative.
I was going to join in theoptimistic, and disruptive,
and free side of the debate.
And so I was notreally a librarian.
I've made the joke many times.
I'm a bad librarian.
At the time, it was justbecause I was moving--
I was counter toall of the standards
(24:10):
at the time because ofthis argument, really.
I don't know that I would havebeen like that in the '90s.
FRED RASCOE (24:16):
You kind of reacted to this view that Laura Cohen.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:20):
Yeah, I was given permission
by the other side of theargument that Laura is making.
FRED RASCOE (24:25):
Right.
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:26):
Because I--
this is so embarrassing, butI was more aligned with people
that we would call tech bros.
But at the time, because it waslike, oh yeah, we could-- yeah,
we can build a treehousein the library.
Oh yeah, we can makea Information Commons.
It's like, oh yeah, wecan do whatever we want.
Have you noticed the internetis here and nothing is the same?
(24:48):
That was kind of my naiveapproach to the profession.
FRED RASCOE (24:53):
So what do you-- oh, go ahead, Marlee.
MARLEE GIVENS (24:56):
No, go ahead.
FRED RASCOE (24:56):
What do you think about--
[LAUGHTER]
What do you think about Laura'sperception that librarians,
whether of their own accordor because of just the wave
of movement that's coming, thatlibrarians were being pushed
aside, kind of, by technology?
How true-- I know, Marlee,you were becoming a librarian
(25:20):
around that time.
How true did it feelto you then versus what
do you think it became?
MARLEE GIVENS (25:29):
Um--
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT: The only answer. (25:31):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (25:33):
Yeah, exactly.
FRED RASCOE (25:34):
I agree.
And, Alex, I know you cameup through library school
much later.
ALEX MCGEE (25:40):
I didn't go to library school.
FRED RASCOE (25:41):
Or into the library world.
Yes, as an archivist,there are many other paths
available to you, whichyou took advantage of.
But now that you're-- whenyou first got into the library
and archives world,was there a boogeyman,
as you eloquently put itin the previous segment?
ALEX MCGEE (26:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, for us,it was Wikipedia.
And I think that wasthe thing, especially
like-- so I did alot of stuff with,
would I be a history professor?
And that was the thingthat they were always,
like, students take theshortcut, they go to Wikipedia.
And I think kind ofwhat I was talking
about earlier, for me at least,where I was at in the world,
(26:21):
I saw it as an opportunityto talk about, OK, well,
what is Wikipedia looking at?
Let's talk aboutprimary sources.
Let's talk aboutarchival collections.
I still go pullbooks off the shelf,
and I like to go look at thefootnotes or the endnotes,
because that's--
I want to see what they werelooking at for their research.
And I think it's thinking abouthow do we use these tools,
(26:43):
because we know--
when I was in school, it was,students are going to use it.
Like, there's no stopping it.
So we need to lean into it.
We need to meet themwhere they're at.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:52):
Imagine if that was the argument that
DARE used about drugs.
ALEX MCGEE (26:55):
I know, right.
We know they're going to do it.
Meet them where they're at.
[LAUGHTER]
Yep, yep.
Although, you saythat, but I there
are clinics whereit's just like,
let's provide a safe placefor people to do drugs.
Yeah.
FRED RASCOE (27:08):
That's what libraries are now, a safe place
-
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:11):
- to do the internet.
ALEX MCGEE (27:11):
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:13):
Marlee, now that you've had some time
to digest it, do you have ananswer to Fred's earlier query
that ended with an "um" for you?
MARLEE GIVENS (27:20):
I mean, I--
I have to admit, like,when Fred was talking about
that, I was really distractedby the article itself,
about we feel threatened,if we give in,
we might as well just go home.
And, I mean, there arestill shades of that.
I think we're still--
I see a lot oflibrary/librarian behavior
(27:44):
that is still comingfrom a place of fear.
I mean, there are other thingsthat we're afraid of now,
I think.
But at least in the academiclibrary, the professors
that we're working withare still telling us,
our students don't knowhow to find good sources.
(28:07):
But when we tell them, well,we can help them with that,
they're like, no, I don'twant you in my classroom.
I just want them to--
and I mean, Iactually did hear--
I mean, it wasn't literally, "Idon't want you in my classroom,"
but like, I don'thave the time to let--
because, to be honest, ifyou let the librarian in,
we're going to want totake our time and really--
(28:30):
we don't want just 10 minutes.
We want the whole classperiod to really teach--
to really teach this--yeah, Exactly so that we
can teach themthings, like, hey,
you should be questioning, evenquestioning the library sources
that we're telling you about.
You should be thinkingcritically about these things.
And we can't just do that ina five minute orientation.
FRED RASCOE (28:50):
I think there was a time also
on the technophilicside of the argument
that librarians would be--
this internet wouldmake librarians
be integral to everythingthat academia was doing.
The research process,the grants that they get,
(29:10):
librarians are going to beintegrated with every faculty
member.
And this--
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:14):
Like a module on a website.
FRED RASCOE (29:16):
This internet is going to enable--
librarians are going to bemore relevant than ever.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:23):
The embedded librarian?
Yeah, I don't knowwhere that went.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:26):
I was one of those once.
Once.
FRED RASCOE (29:29):
Both of those paths kind of
did not lead where thearticulators of those thoughts
thought they were going.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:39):
You're allowed to say "fizzled."
That's not a bad word.
MARLEE GIVENS (29:42):
Well, this is Lost in the Stacks.
And today we've beendiscussing the article "Yahoo!
and the Abdication of Judgment,"published in American Libraries
Magazine in 2001.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And you can file (29:52):
undefined
this set, this bittersweetset, under HC79.I555G744.
[SATURDAY LOOKS GOOD TO ME,"UNDERWATER HEARTBEAT"]
[THE TUTS, "LET GO OF THE PAST"]
ALEX MCGEE (30:11):
That was Let Go of the Past by The Tuts,
and before that,Underwater Heartbeat
by Saturday Looks Good to Me.
Songs about dealingwith the past.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:28):
Today's show was called "The Future
in the Past."
And last week, Ireally enjoyed hearing
what everybody wasdoing back when I was
launching Lost in the Stacks.
So let's do thatagain this week.
Our reading clubarticle today was
from January 2001, which, asAlex pointed out, off air,
was when Wikipedia started.
What were you alldoing in January 2001?
(30:50):
I was getting my behind kickedin Boston in my brief foray
into the corporate world.
I came screaming backby the end of 2001.
How about you, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (31:02):
Oh, well, I was-- and by the way,
that sounds like a futureshow, we delve into that one.
CHARLIE BENNETT: No, it does not. (31:07):
undefined
FRED RASCOE (31:08):
Well, in January 2001, I was almost 27-years-old,
trying to figure out what Iwas going to do with the rest
of my life.
I was working doingmedical data entry,
also working as a book deliveryperson for the University
of Tennessee Library,playing in my band,
still getting used to theidea of getting married,
and wondering what I wasgoing to do with a college
degree in Creative Writing.
I started libraryschool the next year.
(31:31):
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (31:31):
Well, I was fresh out of library school
with a shiny new MLS.
M-L-S, not M-L-I-S. And I wasready for those gray-haired
librarians to start retiring.
Well, these days, I'm theone with the gray hair.
So how about Alexto make us feel old?
ALEX MCGEE (31:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was in sixth grade.
Fred said how old he was.
I guess I'll say how old I was.
I was 11 at the time.
And thinking backJanuary 2001, I
recall convincingmy mom to take me
to go see Save the LastDance, the Julia Stiles
feature, if you recall.
FRED RASCOE (32:11):
Wow.
ALEX MCGEE (32:12):
And that was very exciting for me.
And now, Cody, to make us allfeel really old, what about you?
CODY TURNER (32:20):
Well, January 2001, I was in third grade
and entering publicschool for the first time,
realizing that I was way aheadin math and really behind
in science and history.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:34):
And with that, let's roll the credits.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT: Lost in the Stacks (32:41):
undefined
is a long running oldperson's collaboration
between WREK Atlanta andthe Georgia Tech Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:53):
Legal counsel and a safe place
to use the internet are providedby the Burruss Intellectual
Property Law Groupin Atlanta, Georgia.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Thank you, Phillip. (32:59):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS (33:00):
Special thanks to Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Alta
Vista, Lycos, Xcite,Infoseek, Even Gopher.
Am I forgetting any?
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:11):
Metacrawler.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:12):
And thanks, as always, to each and every one
of you for listening.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:16):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to the podcastfeed, and a web forum,
if you want to getin touch with us
and tell us what you weredoing in January of 2001.
ALEX MCGEE (33:29):
Next week, more from the intersection of the past,
present, and future when we do aguide book episode on retro tech
at the Georgia Tech Library.
FRED RASCOE (33:37):
So it's time for our last song today.
The future may not have ledall librarians to Yahoo!.
It came close to dominating allthings online, until it didn't.
So let's close witha song that shares
a name with this notquite dead legacy website
that we fondly remember.
This is Yahoo!-- and it evenhas the exclamation point--
(33:59):
by Erasure, right hereon Lost in the Stacks.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[ERASURE, "YAHOO!"]
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.