Man Versus Machine

Of all the many articles, blog posts and general rants I've read lately about the impact of technology on libraries (and on publishing, and on reading in general) the most interesting was the piece recently posted on the USF SLIS blog ... a piece that was written in 1938. The excerpt from  "Technics or Humanization in Librarianship" demonstrates something we all need to keep in mind as we surf through Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Kindles, Nooks, iPads and whatever the Next New Thing is going to be -- that as long as we're around, humans and our humanity are an important part of this equation and that no technology is going to replace human experience, emotion and ability to figure out what another human is trying to find/read/do. I'm not saying we should get rid of computers in libraries or throw all the Kindles on the scrap heap. Reacting as a Luddite and resisting new technologies as some terrible (new) development in human history is pointless and dumb -- computers in general and the Internet in particular offer huge advantages in communication and ability to store and retrieve information. I think I'm saying we should remember that computers are our tools, and we should deploy them as they best serve us -- and not either 1) try to replace all of human experience and expertise with terminals or 2) resist all use on the grounds that we will wind up in some kind of Space Odyssey situation.