I am Patricia McLean, a student in MET with an interest (and after just a few readings) an increasing interest in text and technology.
For the past 10+ years I have been a litigation lawyer in Toronto. I have now mostly retired, but alas, when I told my clients I was leaving two years ago, two asked me to stay on to see their files to completion. (It’s hard when you have worked for a few years on a file, and hundreds of boxes of information are my head, to not agree to continue on).
The bag I picked for this exercise is my knapsack. It was my go-to bag when I went out to the office (the past tense – you all know what that means). It was the bag I would take downtown to attend meetings at the office.
Looking at the contents of my knapsack, many of the contents related to text and links to text through technology. The contents include: (i) a computer (with the requisite add-ons); (ii) a phone (again with all the requisite accessories, note the multiple type of headphones); (iii) pens, pencils and tabs, and an about one inch thick legal document that is the key reference documents in one of my files (note the multiple sticky notes – so many that I have resorted to tabbing on three sides); (iv) electronic cards being: credit cards, ATM cars and a Presto card (the transit card in Toronto (I am not sure when that card will be used again); (v) snacks – some nut free granola bars and a thermos for tea; (vi) some odds and ends: wipes, a multipurpose tool with instructions and some cash); and (vii) finally the ever practical hat and gloves.
The computer and the phone are really just depositories for “text”, in a new and more practical way to access same. Those two items probably hold, if measured in pages, thousands and thousands of pages of written text related to my work. I would note that the text for work is usually, just an electronic copy of the older style paper legal documents. The actually text is not changed in any way, but simply reproduced electronically.
The phone also does something more. I love to read and the phone, through the Libby app, the Kindle app and the Apple book app, provide me with access to an infinite number of books (and audiobooks). The larger iphone is an excellent reading tool and hidden on it is everything from my course textbooks to fiction.
The credit card and ATM cards are also interesting “text”. They are digital links to communicate almost all of my financial dealings.
Interestingly, I still have a large written document that I was dragging around related to my legal work. I still like having in particular a reference document in print form and you can see how dog-eared and well used that written tome is. (And I note as I call that document a tome, the reference I have ascribed to it is not quite canonical, but close (Scholes, 1992)).
Some of the items are also explicitly or implicitly bi-lingual. The text on the granola bars is in English and French. The accounts linked to my digital cards all have a French option on those websites.
This bag would have looked very different 20 years ago. It would not have been a knapsack; it was a beautiful leather briefcase. The contents would have also been different. Many more paper documents, a computer that held text and data, but provided more limited linkages and the phone would have been a phone, not a “smart phone” (which is really just a mini computer). The digital cards were also so much more limited in their capabilities. Twenty years ago ATM cards were just that, something you used at the ATM machine. Now, the ATM card is a link to my entire financial world with multiple links to a number of accounts with the ability to authorize a number of transactions.
An archeologist looking at the contents of the bag might well be able to understand exactly what temporal period it came from and who had owned the bag. The key indicators could be: the age and type of computer and phone, the type of digital cards and the inclusion of some, but not a lot of paper (speaking to the age of the bag owner).
In my opinion, the bag is a pretty good narrative of who I think I am. The knapsack indicating that I am beyond the pretension of the expensive briefcase even when I am on Bay Street. The contents indicating that I have embraced technology but still want to use paper documents from time to time. The personal items indicating that I will wear a hat when necessary, and am self sufficient enough to know that when I would like tea it is always easiest just to have it with me.
Reference
Scholes, R (1992). Canonicity and Textuality. In J. Gibaldi (Ed.), Introduction to Scholarship I Modern Languages and Literatures, 2nd Ed. (pp. 135-158) New York: Modern Languages Association of America.