The Australian Library Journal

Editorial

John Levett
We seem to be seized with the notion that the 'millennium' shift occurs at the end of this year and that the nature of the world will change at midnight on 31December; we will enter upon a new phase of human existence, riding on the back of the electronic tiger. Changes. Changes. 'Plus ça change, c'est la meme chose...' The current semi-worship of change, or its justification as the race, or at least western society - goes through another shake, rattle and roll of the economic dice which results for some in a favourable redistribution of whatever happen to be seen as the current desirables - has not left us, professionally and individually, untouched. There has been the inevitable change of bus on the internet highway as many of us boarded the Microsoft or Macintosh express, leaving behind us as 'not wanted on voyage' our well-worn and long-serving bibliographical luggage; we change our names and throw away our passports as we cross the border from a paper-based profession to one wedded to the electron.

On the other side, some things are different: especially the language, syntax and impedimentia of what is now called 'knowledge management', but which is in reality, that culture and its manifestations of which we have always seen ourselves as the collectors, keepers, guardians and gatekeepers. 'Culture' needs, perhaps, qualification here: keywords have always been subject to appropriation and misappropriation by various collocations of interest in our society, and at no time more fiercely as at the present, as cyber-squatters fan out across the landscape of language, claiming and registering every placename, phenomenon and catchword in what was once the public domain as their private preserve in the hope of at some future date selling it on to individuals and entities who see some temporary commercial advantage in obtaining it for themselves.

Culture has become commodified, and like much else, has been infected by the linguistic viruses of those who regard price as the dominant mechanism by which all human goods, physical and psychic are to be energised, transferred, or enjoyed. If you are very wealthy, you may enjoy that highly elaborated version of the pub-yard pantomime, opera; you may indulge in the frequency of flight at the pointed end of the aeroplane; you may be convinced that some other virtue than the simple acquisition of wealth entitles you to a richer experience of life than your fellows and that brushing against the skirts of an opera star is a legitimate part of this.

This is not the culture of which I speak, and of which we have been the principal custodians for so long: I refer here to those understandings and explorations of the human condition which used to be recorded in books, those slow and painful accretions and translations of the phenomenon of being which we spent so many years acquiring, housing and providing access to. That culture of experience, of individual and collective history, of ideas, is fragmenting, and evanescence is now the dominant quality of the current version of culture, not the careful and considered constructions and explorations of life which we were wont to use and to turn to in the pursuit of meaning. Why it should be so is not within my power to comprehend, but one of my grandmothers used to tap the side of her nose and say to me long, long before I grasped what she was about 'John, John, my boy: in confusion there is profit'. And in the current phase of confusion, change and instability, there is clearly, profit to be had. By some. The recent welter which passed for a debate on the merits of a republican or monarchical model of government certainly transferred a great deal of money, said to be $170 million, from your pocket and mine - to those manufacturers and counterfeiters of culture, the admen and the demagogues. Those of us who had not totally switched off were deluged in the fine golden threads of artfully spun rhetoric as the web of implication was woven around and through what is essentially a simple and basic political choice.

Once upon a time, we as a profession might have played some part in the debate as individuals sought to come to terms with the dimensions of that choice by looking to see what other societies had done when confronted with a similar issue, and more importantly, what the outcomes of the process might have been. I do not recall that the name of Plato was mentioned by any of the combatants in the recent melee, but there is no idea, no shading of the issue that was not addressed and considered by him two and a half millennia ago, and he might once have been a primary and accessible source in this debate. No doubt there is a website where the text of his Republic might have been consulted, but I do not seem to have heard of it. Once it [the book] would have been on the shelves of every reasonable library: now I doubt if it resides anywhere but in the academies, and perhaps, given the recent assaults on the classics departments, not even there. Thus, perhaps, great ideas perish or are submerged, and the race goes back to the beginning once more.

We might once have claimed to be the curators and collectors of ideas, but we have not lately boasted of this function: when we cross the wholly imaginary border into the 'new millennium' it might be salutary to cast a glance backwards at this particular piece of our professional luggage, and to decide whether or not it might just be worth carrying over with us.

In this issue the usual eclectic mix of articles. The distinguished Professor Otto Kinne, editor of the Marine Ecology Progress Series discusses the challenges of electronic publishing in the sciences; Dr Russell Cope gives us a splendid review article on a new history of the British Library; Brian Dibble paints a portrait of the sometimes irascible, always engaging Leonard Jolley; Athol Yates takes us to Siberia in search of hard-edged information and Mitchell Parkes offers a considered review of the literature on the preservation of digital information. There is also some excellent poetry from Nicola Scholes, an original cartoon from 'Pippa' and the usual customary and provocative [see the letter to the editor this issue] reviews fielded by that reliable ruckman, Dr Gary Gorman.

The Journal is also coming to the end of another year; it is pleasing to note that good copy is continuing to flow in from across the various spectra that make up the professional profile, including most happily from first-time writers. Part of our task is to encourage contributions from colleagues who may not previously have considered that they had anything to say to us. My thanks to all of those who shared their ideas and contributions for the year: long may it continue. I continue to be grateful to the staff of the ALIA National Office, most immediately to Emma Davis-Bell who has the considerable responsibility of organising sprawling edited text into typographical elegance. Also to Ivan Trundle who has been an engaging and friendly correspondent on many aspects of this journal and its interests. I also congratulate the incoming executive director, Jennefer Nicholson, admire her fortitude and look forward to a continuing the amiable and productive relationship which the journal enjoyed with her predecessor. I send best wishes to my fellow-editors in the field, particularly Drs Peter Clayton and Alan Bundy who have shared their considerable experience generously and constructively, and whose own editorial standards are illuminating and inspiring. Dr Gary Gorman has been tireless in soliciting material for review in these pages, sending it out to his cadre of highly professional reviewers, and [by some means obscure to me] keeping them all up to the mark; the reviews section is now one of the highlights of the Journal. Lastly and of course not least: my gratitude to all those who send us their copy, their ideas and their always constructive criticism.