Upon reading Kelly’s New York Times article “Scan This Book!” (2006), I find myself drawn to the endless opportunities that new technologies offer in the way of moving beyond mere static storage of important information. I would also like to speak to two aspects of this proposed new storage and management methods that appear not to have been addressed by Kelly in his article.

One: The democratization of digital information.
Kelly attempts to draw a parallel between the great library at Alexandria and what he refers to as the “universal library.” They are similar in their attempt to create a store of all extant literary works known to mankind. Kelly’s enthusiasm seems well-founded, for if successful, this will be a landmark moment for the human race. However, I think he erroneously assumes that this undertaking will necessarily generate a body of knowledge that will be available to all. Kelly mentions that “unlike the libraries of old, which were restricted to the elite, this library would be truly democratic, offering every book to every person” (2006).

This is a very pleasing prospect. However, for the democratic goal which he had in mind to be properly fulfilled, every person who wished to have access to that information would also be provided with some form of device that would allow them to access the digital material. If those who are to benefit from this process of coding, cataloguing and storing information, are those who live in inaccessible and remote places, then there are obstacles such finance, logistics, bureaucracy and (even) language that first need to be attended to. An individual in rural South Africa is unlikely to have either the training (digital education) or access to the technology needed to benefit from the products of this system.

Two: Integrity of information and user-awareness
One of the interesting proposals that Kelly makes, involves a “tagging method” by which users of digital media cross-reference information both that they may have posted and that others have posted before them. This method of cross-referencing is already in use by those who enjoy social media platforms such as Instagram. The idea behind this cross-referencing method is simply that, in time, these tags will have generated a system of popular reference that will enable anyone to access a virtually unlimited store of related information by simply following (or requesting) the tag corresponding to the body of information in which they are interested. This sounds wonderful in theory and certainly has its place. However, ait raises some questions.

One question concerns the integrity of the link between the subject matter that is tagged and its designation i.e. authenticity. It also concerns the ethics of a system that serves an important public function (such as the collection, storage and management of data). Kelly talks about a cross-referencing system, whereby “you may think you are just browsing, causally inspecting this paragraph or that page, but in fact you are anonymously marking up the Web with bread crumbs of attention” (2006). The fact that this is done anonymously does not detract from that fact that it may be harmful to the scientific process. Individuals who are casually browsing and marking up passages and texts may not be doing so with the view to their annotations being used to strengthen a database. Would they have read and annotated differently had they been aware that their markings and annotations would be used to generate a store of information used to catalogue and manage data on the Web? I should imagine so!

Three: the commercial or economic implications of the new cross-referencing methods.
Another concern raised by this new form of storing and managing data concerns the possible commercial ends to which it functions. Kelly tells us that “once snippets, articles and pages of books become ubiquitous, shuffle-able and transferable, users will earn prestige and perhaps income for curating an excellent collection”(2006). While this system (open to the general public, it seems) does make provision for “an excellent collection”, there seems to be little indication that the quality of the work done can be guaranteed. For instance, who will evaluate the integrity of this body of work? What are their credentials and what goal do they have in mind when they review this curatorial work?

In addition, individuals who are looking to turn a quick profit from this process will find themselves faced with a wonderful opportunity to do so. What concerns me is that there may be very little expertise or vetting involved in the choice of candidates to carry out this work, with the result that once runs the risk of an inaccurate and perhaps unusable store of data and information, particularly if this information is to serve a scientific end. Without guarantees such as the ones I outlined above, this process could be more harmful and advantageous. Perhaps these are all issues that future generations will attend to in time.

Sources

Kelly, K. (2006). Scan This Book!I. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html