The Meaning of the 21st Century: The Book of Humanity

In the cover blurb of his outstanding book “The Meaning of the 21st Century” entrepreneur, scientist, philanthropist and the founder of Oxford’s 21st Century School Sir James Martin says: humanity is “traveling at breakneck speed into an era of extremes–extremes of wealth and poverty, extremes in technology, extremes in weapons, extremes of globalism. If we are to survive, we must learn how to manage them all.” If we do not, then according to Martin “we may be headed for a new Dark Ages”.

Martin notes unequivocally, that if humanity is to survive on planet earth, it will do so because of the 21C Transition Generation. These are the creative, innovative and tech saavy teenagers and college students, currently living, very well may experience fresh water running out in many parts of the world (that will ultimately make food production difficult and bring about conflict and war); they will also experience increased climate catastrophies that caused Hurricane Katrina, and significant increases in human population. This generation will be responsible for implementing many of the changes Martin mentions in “The Meaning of the 21st Century”.

In chapter 13 The Awsome Meaning of This Century the author ask the question, “So, what is the meaning of the 21st Century?” Good question. Martin says emphatically that the 21st Century will bring us the following challenges:

1). The Earth 7). The Biosphere 13). Existential Risk
2). Poverty 8). Terrorism 14). Transhumanism
3). Population 9). Creativity 15). Advanced Civilization
4). Lifestyles 10). Disease 16). GAIA
5). War 11). Human Potential 17). The Skill/Wisdom Gap
6). Globalism 12). The Singularity

Not content to just produce a book on the 21st Century Martin also has plans to release a film of the very same title. A gifted futurist, Martin’s ideas about the future and the earth’s sustainability were well-received by attendees at a lecture on the campus headquarters of Microsoft computer software.

The issue that all educators in higher education should be ultimately concerned with is: Are today’s first generation 1.0 colleges and universities prepared for the world their students will inhabit?

Ms. Dewey: Another Perspective on Searching a Library Catalog

Long gone are the days when searching for a favorite book at the local public library consisted of thumbing through row after row of author, subject and title cards. Many a die-hard reader was said to suffer from thumb and finger tip burn as a result of this perusing activity. Most Americans under the age of 30, particularly those that took their first keyboarding class in the second grade and grew up playing video games, would scarcely know what a “card catalog” is. Now fast forward to the mid to late 1980s, when online library catalogs became a little more prominent, and the Commodore and Apple computer were seen as futuristic tools used in Issac Aisimov or Arthur C. Clarke science fiction works. For some, in today’s technology saturated world text based anything, lacking inter-active capability or a plethora of video is seen as archaic and useless. But for those that have a slight disdain for the old paper based library catalog why not give Ms. Dewey a test run.

The Ms. Dewey character played by actress Janina Gavankar taps on the computer screen and shouts “hello are you there?” when a user idles too long. Ironically Ms. Dewey was not set up or designed by any librarian, library advocate seeking to win back the latte guzzling reading public from Borders Books or Barnes & Noble. Ms. Dewey was in fact rolled out by Microsoft as a part of it’s 2006 viral marketing campaign to hype the Live Search interface.

Whether card catalog purists or librarian traditionalists think Ms. Dewey has any real merit is not really important. The Ms. Dewey program is whimsical and fun! Love it or hate it, library search interfaces like Ms. Dewey could be the new paradigm of online catalog searching. One thing however is assured: progressive public library systems can not go back to Melvil Dewey’s original paper classification list that was posted in early 20th century libraries.