I just finished reading Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, and yes, there’s no way to make that sound like I’m not making a joke. But I was thinking about reading conference reports for events that I haven’t attended.

It’s too tempting to take quick conference blog posts (or worse, Twitter posts) at face value, and assume that

• what was reported is actually what was said;
• the person who said it belives it; and
• the person who reported it appoves of the sentiment.

None of that is necessarily true. So it’s tempting to decide simply not to comment at all. I know that Walt Crawford tries to do that.

But thinking about the ideas in Bayard’s book, I realize that I need not be so circumspect. In the context of of a discussion of Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, Bayard sums up Wilde’ point this way:

Criticism is the record of a soul, and that soul is its deep object, not the transitory literary works that serve as supports for that quest. (176)

As with criticism, so too, I would argue, with the blog post, or the presentation.

So let’s talk about the “Dead Technology” session at Computers in Libraries earlier this week. I’m not entirely sure who presented. I don’t really know what they said. But the mere existence of such a panel prompted people to create their own lists of dead tech and have their own arguments online, and it also prompted people to second-guess the technologies that were reported by eyewitnesses. You can sample the #deadtech hashtag on Twitter, or read a fairly interesting FriendFeed thread kicked off by Meredith asking “Help! Need clever/funny examples of dead tech for Marshall Breeding. Anyone?”

But just as you don’t need to have seen this panel to say something about it, the technology doesn’t have to be “dead” for you to bring it up at this panel, and neither does the “deadness” of the technology ensure that it is interesting or appropriate to talk about.

Velcro as seen through a scanning electron microscope.

In that FriendFeed thread, people really picked up on Meg vs. Meg’s suggestion of “velcro.” It seemed to drive people nuts that they use velcro every day, but that someone would have the temerity to suggest that it is a dead technology. I’d say that Meg was exactly right. Velcro’s ubiquity proves that it is dead. When every kid has a yard of velcro on his shoes, backpack, and jacket, is that still a “technology?” Is it something that you have to maintain? Is it a feature that sells a product? Are we waiting to buy this velcro product because we hear that there will be better velcro released next month? It’s no longer technology; it is lint.

Of course, if you wanted to take something that was undeniably dead and talk about it, you’d have to go a different direction. How about microcard? I doubt there are many librarians who would argue that microcard still has much life left in it. So it’s boring to talk about unless you can show why we should care that it is dead. You could talk about how in 1944, Fremont Rider devoted an entire book, The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library: A Problem and Its Solution, to a passionate case for microcards. You could talk about where that solution took us and how it informs what we think today. Lastly, you could talk about how a current-day technology that looks very much alive is actually rotting from the inside, and likely to take us the way of the microcard. I wonder if that’s what the speaker was getting at who said the iPad was dead tech.

Anyone can pick a technology out of the hat and say that it is “dead.” What is interesting is what happens after that–can they make you care why it is dead? Can they make you mourn that dead technology, or swear to avenge it? That’s what the dead tech panel is about.

Addendum

If the whole idea of “dead technology” is interesting to you, let me recommend two books, one of which I have read and one of which I haven’t (I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which is which.)

Carolyn Marvin’s 1988 book, When Old Technologies Were New is a fascinating look at how people reacted to an assimilated new technologies in the late 1800s. It examines issues of class, art, work, and public discourse in the age when the electric light, telephone, phonograph and even the idea of an “electrician” were new and untamed.

A great companion to Marvin’s book is Klaus Musmann’s Technological Innovations in Libraries, 1860-1960: An Anecdotal History. He covers some of the same ground as Marvin, in looking at technologies like the electric light and the telephone, but in this case how they specifically were seen to relate to libraries and library work. His book documents a world where librarians are not technological innovators, but are restlessly reactive, forever adopting and adapting technologies.