Wright Article

There was a lot of heavy and abstract information in this article but I think I understand the arguments. It was probably difficult to wrap my head around because I take the structure of the web for granted “as just the way it is.” Of course, this fits perfectly into Ted Nelson’s claims about the “polite conspiracy” that maintains computer technology is somehow antithetical to individual ease of usability and the things that I care about like scholarship in the humanities. One analogy from my personal life that helped me work through this article was comparison between Microsoft and Apple operating systems. At the risk of sounding like a fangirl, Apple’s systems are so intuitive and thus easier to use than Microsoft’s. Wright discusses people who want/wanted to bring that same kind of freedom of use to systems of information access.

So, what does this have to do with libraries? The first thing I thought of was that maybe the web like the public library is not an ideal system that will someday have to undergo enormous changes. Also, libraries that are facing this change in information services because of the Web have the opportunity to transform themselves in such a way that takes these alternative ideas about information systems and spearhead an information revolution starting with their own institutions.

The comparison between Otlet and Bush was interesting especially considering the information that Wright included about Bush that went beyond “As We May Think.” What I really liked the discussion of the more contemporary figures.