Speculating on the long-range possibilities of the Web can be a truly heady experience. The myriad implications of digital technology in its various forms- which are all converging- are truly mind-boggling. It amazes me how accurate many of William Gibson's predictions of the technological future appear to be (if you haven't read Neuromancer, do it- after all, it was Gibson who coined the term "cyberspace"). We have yet to see the full cultural effects of all this, the ramifications of digital communities (as epitomized by the blogosphere, wikis, online forums, etc.) for actual world culture, since as the planet appears to get smaller in the digital realm, the distance between nations and cultures in the physical world- and even between individuals- just seems to get bigger.
The history of human evolution is puncuated by the successive development of new tools, which from an anthropological perspective consist quite literally of more and more refined physical extensions of the human body. Tools allow us to do things that we could not do given just our natural bodies (although the development of tools itself would seem to be a natural occurrence in the animal world). Prior to the digital age, however, the tools of humanity consisted of physical extensions; the computer represented the formation of a tool designed to extend mental faculties and operations utilizing purely physical means (we will not get into the ongoing "nature of the mind" debate here). And while the physical aspects of computing simultaneously shrink in size and expand in power- to the point of incorporating the weirdness of quantum physics- the verbal and conceptual plane of computing (as eptomized by the Web) is evolving. Being based on words and images brings the internet inevitably into the library domain (since libraries are about information, which is expressed in words and images). Words and images, of course, are the very tools of human mental life.
There is something very interesting going on with the Web, though, and this phenomenon has been given the name Web 2.0. The internet had previously been something of a one-way conversation, with people looking at the web as though it were TV or something. Then the commercial side starting gathering info on the surfing (and searching) habits of people in order to determine what they wanted, and the result was, of course, Stuff to Buy and Sex- which is what the internet has a lot of. In this sense, the internet was already forming itself into a reflection of the human mind, but the people using it still had an essentially passive, almost unconscious, relationship to it. The phenomenon of Web 2.0, which was bound to happen, can be seen as the dawn of self-consciousness of Web users, finally realizing that the internet is a tool to be used, an extension of their own minds- thus we see Web 2.0 characterized by things like mashups, blogs and other web tools, because it is essentially a feedback loop between the internet and its users.
Where this loop might lead is wildly intriguing, because the Web-User feedback loop is almost like the loop that exists in the individual human, between experience and mind- we call it learning. Can the internet be a pathway to a planetary mind? Can it "learn"? As digital media converge, will the internet extend into the physical realm? How? Will we all be connected to it? As Gibson predicted, will we have "brain jacks" to plug into a vast neural net? What implications does this have for human economic, social, cultural and political life? How about our relationship with the planet itself and other species? And, closer to the here and now, what does all this mean for libraries?
I think Wendy Schultz, in the article To a Temporary Place in Time, has the right kind of idea. I think ultimately the library will become as much a virtual space as a brick-and-mortar location. What bothers me, however, is how much the non-commercial, independent library will have to be sacrificed on the way to that goal. The purpose of public libraries has been to provide for an freely informed citizenry, because knowledgable citizens can make free choices at the polls, which is good for democracy (which, unfortunately, we no longer have...but I digress); Jefferson felt that the cost of these institutions should be subsumed by the government and not by private interests, since only in this way can unbiased info be provided to all. But now, since government is essentially run by private interests, I wonder how long free library services will be around. And with the cuts in state money, libraries are now forced to compete with other organizations for corporate donations, and corporate money is rarely given without strings. But technology is pricey, and we must make tough decisions as to how we use the money we get- technology is a tool for humans, after all, and we have to be careful that we do not sacrifice the human element for the technological one. As the Cluetrain Manifesto says, transactions are conversations, and you can't have a conversation with a machine...yet.
You know, I could go on for days about this, but I'm gonna shut up now.
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