[CivicAccess-discuss] Closing of NRCan Libraries

[Karl Dubost]

Le 6 mai 2013 à 09:02, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
> The Mines and Minerals section for instance, contains our Canadian heritage in terms of mineral exploration in Canada, from 1842 onward when the Geological Survey of Canada began.

Administrative data of the past becoming a treasure for historians, poets, dreamers, reference points for the present. And as you said there is a gigantic quantity of them. 1842… 171 years ago. The industrial systems to produce information were reduced to fewer countries in fewer languages with a lower volumes. 

> yet the information about it is becoming less and less accessible to us.

Even if we were/are digitizing everything from the past (time to do it/low cost of storage/etc.), it is a flow, a stream of continuous increase, and as you said:

> Open data is mere technocracy if context associated with the data disappear.


That said. Not only, it really depends on the contextS. The same topics have many possible interpretation. The data themselves indeed are already an interpretation of the past now and with research work, we attempt to recreate one of these contexts for specific needs usually. But the immense volume of the past is dwarfed by the current volume of now, often created with not that much recorded contexts.


> The libraries hold that context

Libraries hold part of these contexts. 
And now librarians, researchers and even simple people are not enough to even process the now and the past. So we select, we forget, we destroy contexts to be able to move, to create new contexts. And it is good to forget too. It creates a flexibility for imagination. Finding the right balance is challenging (between giving the context and forgetting it). 

> and it is librarians who are the key to unraveling it.

and the poets… the poets ;)


-- 
Karl Dubost
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/