Douglas Coupland and William Gibson discuss culture, technology, and the craft of writing. Communications technologies are a global memory prosthesis, says Gibson, and aspire to an experience in which distinctions between the "virtual" and the "real" are dissolved. We are already the borg, Gibson says.
http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/douglas-coupland-william-gibson/
Archivists were once the people who managed and preserved our records. They were the ones you turned to first if you needed information.
But in an environment where documents are now just a mouse click away how do archivists ensure they remain relevant in the 21st century? We talk about data systems, preservation and relevancy in the modern world of the archivist – the record keeper.
The Australian Society of Archivists assisted Future Tense in attending the Recordkeeping Roundtable workshop. They had no role in editorial or content decisions relating to this program.
As our fast paced digital world continues what does that mean for the way we think about preserving things like old webpages and obsolete media formats. Are there possible lessons from our digital past for our digital future? We explore the fragility of our electronic data and also the temporary nature of the technology we use to access it. We also join the excavation of a 1970s computer chip - called the 6502!
Guests:
Finn Brunton, Assistant Professor of Digital Environments at the University of Michigan’s School of Information.
Jim Boulton, Curator of the ‘Digital Archaeology’ exhibition and Deputy Managing Director of Story Worldwide.
Greg James, Digital archaeologist, part of the visual 6502 team and software engineer.
Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian and Founder of the Internet Archive.
Paul Koerbin, Manager of web archiving at the National Library of Australia.
Further Information:
Finn Brunton’s profile (http://finnb.net/)
Finn Brunton interview on ‘dead media’ (http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/390536/_dead_media_never_really_die/)
The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/)
Pandora Archive (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/)
Digital Archaeology Exhibition (http://www.storyworldwide.com/digital-archaeology/)
Visual 6502 Project (http://visual6502.org/)
Archaeology Magazine feature on digital archaeology (http://www.archaeology.org/1107/features/mos_technology_6502_computer_chip_cpu.html)