A Filer is an amazingly intelligent robot and there aren't very many being
manufactured. You will find them only in the greatest libraries, dealing
with only the largest and most complex collections. To call them simply
librarians is to demean all librarians and to call their work simple. Of
course very little intelligence is required to shelf (sic) books or stamp
cards, but this sort of work has long been handled by robots that are
little more than wheeled IBM machines. The cataloging of human information
has always been an incredibly complex task. The Filer robots were the ones
who finally inherited this job. It rested easier on their metallic
shoulders than it ever had on the rounded ones of human librarians.
Harry Harrison, "The Robot Who wanted to Know", (1958)
--On 22 July 2004 12:54 +0100 "Carol Thompson (LR)"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Be very afraid ...
>>
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3897583.stm
>>
>>
> --------------------------------
> Carol Thompson
> Library Systems and Management Support
> University Library and Learning Services
> Northumbria University
> Ellison Place
> Newcastle upon Tyne
> NE1 8ST
> Tel: 0191 2273072 Fax: 0191 2274563
> Email: [log in to unmask]
--------------------------------
Andy Sawyer
Science Fiction Librarian
Special Collections and Archives
University of Liverpool Library
PO Box 123, Liverpool L69 3DA, UK.
Course Director, MA in Science Fiction Studies.
Reviews Editor: Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction
[log in to unmask]
The Science Fiction Foundation Collection webpage:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~asawyer/sffchome.html
The Science Fiction Foundation: http://www.sf-foundation.org/
CFP: A Commonwealth of Science Fiction, Liverpool Foresight Centre
Liverpool, UK. (Thursday 5 to Sunday 8 August 2004)
Details: http://homepages.enterprise.net/ambutler/acosf/
"... there is no higher life form than a librarian."
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD: Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen,
and Ian Stewart, p. 10.
|