A Sea of Information

Oceans are vast bodies of water surrounding continents and are critical to the survival of humankind. Water sustains us and the very origin of life is found in it. What would you think if I said the same about Libraries?

We immerse ourselves in oceans every day, from the deep seas of the internet to the tides and chapters of books, the ebb and flow of social media and the sweep and pull of news and television. Gone are the days of dusty tomes, inks, and quills in Libraries. In our digital world Librarians take a central role in helping navigate the torrent of information.
In the same way as water, these seas of digital information sustain and record human life. They have become vessels where human memory and experiences are documented and can exist eternally (providing no one pulls the off switch!).
In a billion years will Twitter be the bedrock in which we sift for the fossils or traces of humanity? Are the complex digital systems we have surrounded our lives with really all that different from the cave paintings of our ancestors?
Ok, let me stop there… these are huge questions and the little boat I am adrift on is nowhere near big enough to answer them, but they are certainly ideas to paddle over.

Hello! Let me introduce myself, I’m Alex. The human body is made of water, a trace of our oceanic past, so here are a couple of insights into my own sea, the very information that makes up me:
– I am currently studying Library Science MSc part-time at City University.
– I also work in a Learning Resource Centre at West Kent College supporting students with a whole range of library related services.
– Fine Art is my academic discipline and I hope to use this subject knowledge to one day work as a Subject Librarian in the arts.
– I am left handed. Interestingly there was some obscure research carried out to prove that left-handed people adjust to sight underwater better than their right-handed kin (I am sure a scientist will tell you that is hocus pocus though).

So speaking of Science, I have always thought of Science and Mathematics as my personal Loch Ness monster, a subject full of intrigue but slightly mythical and out of my comprehending. So here I am, an artist on a Science Masters! Naturally, this feels like quite the big dive, but I have an open mind and very much look forward to seeing where the tides of science, information, and art meet.
Swimming down the river of the Masters course, I hope to pursue research on developing an information literacy programme for art and design students in academic libraries, as well as research into image collections and the boundaries of art as a document.

Here is to hoping I can stay adrift, reach an island and answer some big Library related questions along the way!