The Information Age and the Need To Know

The Information Age and the Need To Know

FTLComm - Tisdale - Friday, July 26, 2002

Internet
It has been over a decade now since this period in which we live was first labelled the "information age." During the time since, we have seen things change pretty dramatically. Things like "all news" radio and television channels, and the most amazing thing of all, the development of the Internet which became widely available to Saskatchewan people in May of 1995.

access
The number of homes served by the Internet grows each and every year and the amount of use by those who have access continues to increase. For those without access, there is the public library and everyone has a friend who will give a hand to find something we are looking for.

newspapers
While the access for information has been growing exponentially we have seen several other related developments that are both confusing and problematic. Daily newspapers have become less and less important, not because people no longer buy them, but because the ownership of newspapers has become so concentrated. With that concentration has come the demand to increase profits resulting in the lowering of the quality of news papers in Canada and perhaps in other places as well, to the point that the last source of information is the daily paper, which has become an advertising medium with a few local stories and supposed national news stories that are always a day or two old and written by a handful of people in Toronto.

ambient
information
We have seen the growth of things like this web site you are reading because the news papers have throttled, or fired most of their staff, political and local content is simply no longer available. From feedback from readers of this site, I have discovered that the most valued information visitors are looking for are pictures and they are not looking at the primary subject, but the incidental things in the pictures which give them a window into Tisdale and with that ambient information they are able to get a feel for the community.

political
comment
It is the lack of decent political comment in Canada that has lead so many people to go to the web sites like this one to gather some informed opinion, or just find opinion, that they can lay their own thoughts up against, to draw their own conclusions.

only 1/3
Canadians
can use
Internet
However, and this is really an important issue, there are more than one in every three Canadians who do not have the connection, equipment, or time to use this amazing information system. To make things even worse, of the two thirds of Canadians who have Internet access in their home, or at work, less than half of them have skill levels that will allow them to actually find what they really and truly need to know.

lack of
skill
I was talking with a lady this morning who has had a computer in her home for perhaps as long as five or six years. She has high speed continue Internet service and enough skill to do her books on the machine, but lacks the ability to send or receive e-mail. She is not alone, I know from my own relatives, how many who have bought computers and have just not been able to get their act together well enough to make the Internet a tool for them.

library
reference
test
Now with all this in mind, I made a shocking discovery last night and it is something you need to think about. My partner and I selected five topics from current events and went to the public library here in town to see what we could find out about these issues. Kosovo, East Timor, Nunavit, Hong Kong and the whole set of now independent countries situated along the North border with Afghanistan. Our main focus was to see if we could find recent atlases that would show us the changes that have occurred with these places and all have had changes in the way they should be depicted on maps.

atlases
Atlases are expensive, but an old map that has the wrong name, the wrong border and related charts and information, is worse than useless, because it is misleading. Here is what we found, the newest atlas on the shelf was printed in 1999, the next newest was a 1998 and most dated back to the early nineties with the real academic atlas needed for appropriate and verifiable course work "Goodes Atlas" was a 1986 edition.

failure
Kosovo was depicted in a 1997 and the 1999 one, East Timor was labelled as Timor and not shown in any significant detail that would explain why Canadian and United Nation troops were there beginning five years ago. Only one showed Nunavit which is the largest governmental area in our country. Only two showed Hong Kong as a part of China and one a 1998 edition showed it as a colony of United Kingdom even though it had been absorbed into the People's Republic of China in July 1997. Most, except the older early 90s editions showed the countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union.

hard
copy
The Internet is a useful source of information, but to be an informed knowledgeable society, we have to have up-to-date accurate information, otherwise what little information we get from television and radio is out of context and an abstraction. We need to have documents that will sort out the details and we need them in books, printed hard copy has not, nor will it ever, be obsolete.

not top
priority
Tisdale's public library is a combined library with Tisdale Middle Secondary School and I do not want to condemn it, its staff, the town, or the school system for not having those vital print books. The facts of the matter are that were you to do the little test we did last night in any library, you would find a similar situation. Print material is really expensive and schools and municipal government do not place reference material at the top of their priority list.

Internet
over sold
The reason they don't is my fault, well not exactly, but people like me who advocate the use of online information have done an excellent job of telling people about the wonders of the Internet but we have failed to alert everyone to the fact that it is useful and can be a fabulous supplemental source of information, but what needs to be said is that in an "information age" we have to have information. Good reliable and accurate information that is not more than fifteen months old. Without references we are developing ignorance and our only means to economic development is through education and increased technological development. To have that ,we need reference material.

where's
Hawaii
I once had a wonderful grade eight student in my class who when at the end of the school year, I asked the students to come up with a topic that they wanted to explore for just over a week. Jana's mom and dad were leaving on a trip to Hawaii and this thirteen year old, who was really smart, her parents both were collage educated and her dad was the number two man in the huge local company, discovered to her horror, she did not have a clue as to where her parents were going. The more she looked at her problem the more she discovered she didn't know or understand. Here she was, nearly an adult ,who only could find her way from her town to Calgary because that was the only place the plane went. She set to work to become an expert on where things are and every kid in her class shared with her the importance of location.

location
This planet is a little place, it has a lot of different people who do what they do, because they are where they are.

don't
know
Last fall when the United States was faced with terrorist attacks by Saudi Arabian people who had their headquarters in a remote desert world called Afghanistan, it was discovered that few Americans, including their president, had even the faintest idea where these places where. They could not understand why it was that the people in the Middle East hated them and cheered when passenger aircraft slammed into two skyscrapers. They were even more confused when it was discovered that American attitudes toward that part of the world were extremely dissimilar from the views of Europeans.

geography
more than
weather
At the top of this page is a picture of a thunder cloud and we all know how vital it is to keep informed about the weather, yet it is even more important to keep informed about where things are, and the situations that govern the decisions people make, that often impact on our lives.

laugh
a lot
I have placed a picture of our yard at the bottom of this page to tell myself that this is where I live and in this image you can see the paved street, no outhouse, a car and details that tell you about the lives of the people who live here. But without knowing that, this is where my office is, the place were I work each and every day, the whole world is brought to me through that telephone wire out back. There is no wall, slit trenches or gun ports, no bomb shelter, armed guard or shell marks. The people who live here get enough to eat, have freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion and laugh a lot.

You need to know.

Timothy W. Shire


The Information Age and the Need To Know
FTLComm - Tisdale - Friday, July 26, 2002

Internet	It has been over a decade now since this period in which we live was first labelled the "information age." During the time since, we have seen things change pretty dramatically. Things like "all news" radio and television channels, and the most amazing thing of all, the development of the Internet which became widely available to Saskatchewan people in May of 1995.

access	The number of homes served by the Internet grows each and every year and the amount of use by those who have access continues to increase. For those without access, there is the public library and everyone has a friend who will give a hand to find something we are looking for.

newspapers	While the access for information has been growing exponentially we have seen several other related developments that are both confusing and problematic. Daily newspapers have become less and less important, not because people no longer buy them, but because the ownership of newspapers has become so concentrated. With that concentration has come the demand to increase profits resulting in the lowering of the quality of news papers in Canada and perhaps in other places as well, to the point that the last source of information is the daily paper, which has become an advertising medium with a few local stories and supposed national news stories that are always a day or two old and written by a handful of people in Toronto.

ambient information	We have seen the growth of things like this web site you are reading because the news papers have throttled, or fired most of their staff, political and local content is simply no longer available. From feedback from readers of this site, I have discovered that the most valued information visitors are looking for are pictures and they are not looking at the primary subject, but the incidental things in the pictures which give them a window into Tisdale and with that ambient information they are able to get a feel for the community.

political comment	It is the lack of decent political comment in Canada that has lead so many people to go to the web sites like this one to gather some informed opinion, or just find opinion, that they can lay their own thoughts up against, to draw their own conclusions.

only 1/3 Canadians can use Internet	However, and this is really an important issue, there are more than one in every three Canadians who do not have the connection, equipment, or time to use this amazing information system. To make things even worse, of the two thirds of Canadians who have Internet access in their home, or at work, less than half of them have skill levels that will allow them to actually find what they really and truly need to know.

lack of skill	I was talking with a lady this morning who has had a computer in her home for perhaps as long as five or six years. She has high speed continue Internet service and enough skill to do her books on the machine, but lacks the ability to send or receive e-mail. She is not alone, I know from my own relatives, how many who have bought computers and have just not been able to get their act together well enough to make the Internet a tool for them.

library reference test	Now with all this in mind, I made a shocking discovery last night and it is something you need to think about. My partner and I selected five topics from current events and went to the public library here in town to see what we could find out about these issues. Kosovo, East Timor, Nunavit, Hong Kong and the whole set of now independent countries situated along the North border with Afghanistan. Our main focus was to see if we could find recent atlases that would show us the changes that have occurred with these places and all have had changes in the way they should be depicted on maps.

atlases	Atlases are expensive, but an old map that has the wrong name, the wrong border and related charts and information, is worse than useless, because it is misleading. Here is what we found, the newest atlas on the shelf was printed in 1999, the next newest was a 1998 and most dated back to the early nineties with the real academic atlas needed for appropriate and verifiable course work "Goodes Atlas" was a 1986 edition.

failure	Kosovo was depicted in a 1997 and the 1999 one, East Timor was labelled as Timor and not shown in any significant detail that would explain why Canadian and United Nation troops were there beginning five years ago. Only one showed Nunavit which is the largest governmental area in our country. Only two showed Hong Kong as a part of China and one a 1998 edition showed it as a colony of United Kingdom even though it had been absorbed into the People's Republic of China in July 1997. Most, except the older early 90s editions showed the countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union.

hard copy	The Internet is a useful source of information, but to be an informed knowledgeable society, we have to have up-to-date accurate information, otherwise what little information we get from television and radio is out of context and an abstraction. We need to have documents that will sort out the details and we need them in books, printed hard copy has not, nor will it ever, be obsolete.

not top priority	Tisdale's public library is a combined library with Tisdale Middle Secondary School and I do not want to condemn it, its staff, the town, or the school system for not having those vital print books. The facts of the matter are that were you to do the little test we did last night in any library, you would find a similar situation. Print material is really expensive and schools and municipal government do not place reference material at the top of their priority list.

Internet over sold	The reason they don't is my fault, well not exactly, but people like me who advocate the use of online information have done an excellent job of telling people about the wonders of the Internet but we have failed to alert everyone to the fact that it is useful and can be a fabulous supplemental source of information, but what needs to be said is that in an "information age" we have to have information. Good reliable and accurate information that is not more than fifteen months old. Without references we are developing ignorance and our only means to economic development is through education and increased technological development. To have that ,we need reference material.

where's Hawaii	I once had a wonderful grade eight student in my class who when at the end of the school year, I asked the students to come up with a topic that they wanted to explore for just over a week. Jana's mom and dad were leaving on a trip to Hawaii and this thirteen year old, who was really smart, her parents both were collage educated and her dad was the number two man in the huge local company, discovered to her horror, she did not have a clue as to where her parents were going. The more she looked at her problem the more she discovered she didn't know or understand. Here she was, nearly an adult ,who only could find her way from her town to Calgary because that was the only place the plane went. She set to work to become an expert on where things are and every kid in her class shared with her the importance of location.

location	This planet is a little place, it has a lot of different people who do what they do, because they are where they are.

don't know	Last fall when the United States was faced with terrorist attacks by Saudi Arabian people who had their headquarters in a remote desert world called Afghanistan, it was discovered that few Americans, including their president, had even the faintest idea where these places where. They could not understand why it was that the people in the Middle East hated them and cheered when passenger aircraft slammed into two skyscrapers. They were even more confused when it was discovered that American attitudes toward that part of the world were extremely dissimilar from the views of Europeans.

geography more than weather	At the top of this page is a picture of a thunder cloud and we all know how vital it is to keep informed about the weather, yet it is even more important to keep informed about where things are, and the situations that govern the decisions people make, that often impact on our lives.

laugh a lot	I have placed a picture of our yard at the bottom of this page to tell myself that this is where I live and in this image you can see the paved street, no outhouse, a car and details that tell you about the lives of the people who live here. But without knowing that, this is where my office is, the place were I work each and every day, the whole world is brought to me through that telephone wire out back. There is no wall, slit trenches or gun ports, no bomb shelter, armed guard or shell marks. The people who live here get enough to eat, have freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion and laugh a lot.

	You need to know.

Timothy W. Shire