Until 22 November 2014
From the Stone Age to the digital age, information has a history: languages, networks, transmission, and technologies have intertwined over the centuries. In this exhibit, the research of over 50 History students reveals diverse and fascinating stories from the past, and highlights the Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections.
Where: Exhibition Space, Level 2, Fisher Library
Cost: FREE and open daily to the public
Times: Opening times vary, please check the website
Further information
T 9036 6465
E jacqueline.grainger@sydney.edu.au
Image: John Gerard’s Herball (1597). The Barnacle Tree
The only difference between “then” and now is that we now begin to use “fleeting memories”. Before, things were painted on cave walls, then engraved in stone or metal, then written down on papyrus, animal skin or paper, now we put information onto magnetic storage that lasts years not centuries and becomes unreadable from one generation to the next. If we do not establish a “tradition” inn the true sense of the word where one digitized generation hands down the information to the next via a defined transcription process (from tape to disk to CD, to DVD, to BluRay etc. – whatever the future may hold), unlike with written material where we can still read the Veda and the Edda, future generations will find bits and bytes that have become illegible. We are now year by year burning a few Alexandrian libraries and don’t even notice.