Article,
Hippies and Geeks
American Libraries, 38 (8): 96 (September 2007)PD: Illustration.
Abstract
The writer compares the impact that hippies and geeks of the 1960s had on the future. He argues that it was geeks' development of the computer rather than hippies' pacifism or altruism that led to real changes in the world.; TXT: AUTHOR: Will Manley TITLE: Hippies and Geeks SOURCE: American Libraries 38 no8 96 S 2007 COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.ala.org/ Of all the decades of the 20th century, the decade of the '60s is the most famous. The lasting image of the '60s for me is the famous photograph of the hippie putting a flower into the barrel of a soldier's rifle at the Pentagon, the epicenter of our military-industrial complex. That image compellingly captures our national mythology that the '60s changed the moral fabric of America forever. The children of peace and goodness clashed with the armies of the night and emerged victorious. It was the beginning of a kinder and gentler America. Or so we thought. Those of us who went to high school and college in the '60s fervently want to believe the folklore that we made a difference in the world. In the summer of 1969, I accompanied a group of college classmates on a summer crusade to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. We were filled with the idealism of youth. Our job was to drill water wells in the mountain villages. Recently I read a news report that providing clean water to the people is still that country's biggest problem. What's the moral here? Perhaps we changed ourselves, but we certainly did not change the world. The planet is still filled with heartbreaking poverty and destructive wars. This doesn't mean that the decade of the '60s didn't have a big impact on the future. It most certainly did, but the change agents werent the flower children. The real change agents were the geeks, those brainy kids in our high schools who wore pencil protectors m then' shirt pockets and slide rules on their belts. What a surprise! We don't normally associate computers with the '60s. In fact, weren't the '60s those tumultuous years when we rebelled against regimentation and headed off to the countryside to raise organic vegetables? Surely the decade was more about communes than computers. Geek chic The facts tell a different story. Most historians trace the modern computer to ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), which was invented at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946. It was followed by the creation of UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) in 1951. These first-generation computers, which used thousands of vacuum tubes, were supplanted by the transistorized computers of the early 1960s, but the real breakthrough in digital technology came in the middle of the decade with the development of integrated -- circuit technology. If you are looking for the dividing line between traditional and modern librarianship, the June 1967 ALA Bulletin (precursor to American Libraries) is a good place to start. It is almost entirely devoted to the "new technology." Prior to 1967 there was scant mention of the word "computer" in our library literature. The lead article, "Library Automation: Tomorrow Becomes Today," starts out with the following observation: "The long strips of tape, the punched cards, the flashing lights and myriad buttons of the computer all symbolize for many of us the Age of Automation in which--suddenly, it seems--we find ourselves." It goes on to say that the "mechanization of the library is no longer an academic question. It will not occur in the library of some comfortably far-off future. It's what happening." ALA's response to the new technology was classic solution of forming a committee. ALA Council voted to establish the Association's 14th division, the Information Science and Automation Division. The Association and its magazine would never be the same. ADDED MATERIAL WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on the library profession for over 25 years. He is the author of nine books on the lighter side of library science. "Streamers of index cards" pour from a computer at the Tompkins-McCaw Library of the Medical College of Virginia (ALA Bulletin, June 1962, p. 6335-636).
