Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sun, 27 Sep 1992 09:54:56 CDT
From:         "Michael S. Hart" <HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Internet Training

Pre-Script:  I have noticed that a great deal of the conversation
on this and related subjects has changed tone, as the majority of
network users is now becoming those who are forced to learn to be
on the nets rather than those who are on them by choice; not only
are those who are forced to be on the nets responding to things a
totally different way from a totally different perspective, but a
large number of them are not only forced to be on the nets as job
or school related work, but they are not being allowed to learn a
little at a time and to hack though things at their own rates.  I
have learned a great deal by attending a dozen hours of classes a
new networker is likely to be forced to take. . .and I can see an
immense difference between the way these people are going to view
the networks and the the previous generation of networkers.  This
is going to change the networks perhaps more than anything else.

This note it a compilation of responses to a number of notes that
have been floating around with complaints about the troubles that
people are having with computers and computer networks especially
in the context of computer information storage and retrieval as a
contrast to previous methods of information storage and retrieval
around the country, throughout the world, and throughout history.

I am posting this in the hopes that those who complain about this
new system will realize that the same complaints have been valid,
throughout the centuries, for all new systems, of all kinds.  The
professor whose networking class I am sitting in on now (research
for these network conversations) tells his students that networks
are more difficult that driving a car. . .that cars are mostly so
similar that you can jump in and drive off in any of them without
doing much in the way of thinking about it.  However, yesterday I
was reminded, vociferously, about the difference between the left
handed shifting and right handed shifting between United Kingdom,
United States, and a few other places, not to mention the lights,
wipers, opening the trunk, hood, gas cap (boot, bonnet, and ?????
for you UK drivers).

However, I find the driving analogy quite reassuring in opposites
to the attitudes of that professor et al.  I remember how extreme
the fear was of nearly everyone at learning how to drive. . .yet,
the vast, vast, vast majority of us learn it so well we just jump
in and do it as second nature. . .so much of a second nature that
people like my professor don't ever recall the terror most of our
contemporaries (and ourselves) felt at trying to keep a thousands
of pounds hunk of machinery going where we wanted at speeds up to
50 miles per hour or as low and creeping into a parking space.

This is quite a risky and difficult task in comparison to getting
around in a computer, and the costs of time, money and effort are
quite a bit lower in learning to drive around the networks than a
person is going to spend in learning to drive around in a car.

Not to mention that the crashes are much less difficult to handle
on a computer than in a car.

Even just normal breakdowns are quite a bit different. . .in cars
you may be a hundred miles from anything you might be desirous of
. . .while with a computer, you can always get up and get a drink
while rebooting.

Not only that, but wrong turns on physical highways can cost your
schedule hours, and only the most experienced drivers head off on
a cross country trip without any maps.  Making a wrong turn on an
electronic highway takes only seconds to recover from. . .so easy
that most of us don't feel a need for maps (though I think we are
going to figure out that we should have them in the future).




The most obvious examples come from those who have just moved.  I
find that people who have just changed libraries have many of the
same comments about being "terrorized" by libraries as some wrote
about being terrorized by the computers and networks.

The most common fear of libraries is not being able to find items
one wants. . .I am sure this is not new to most of you, but there
is an incredible similarity to the complaints one hears about not
being able to find their way around libraries, to those one hears
about not being able to find their way around the networks.

The complaints about having to learn and use different protocols,
interfaces, and operating systems seems very similar to what they
tell us about having to deal with changes to LIbrary of Congress,
Dewey Decimal System, or whatever. (At least one other cataloging
system was named).

However, the complaints were not limited to the actual systems we
confront/interface with to get our books, but with how the varied
implementations of the system were carried out.  People complain,
whether validly or not, that the same books don't always, or even
usually, have the same call numbers in different libraries. . .or
are even stored in similar locations. . .or even look the same.

An 11 year old who had just been uprooted and moved to a new home
with new libraries was dumbfounded, because almost all the facts,
locations, and procedures she had memorized from the previous two
libraries he had used were nearly useless in the new library, and
he was barred from the stacks in the new library, not being given
the chance to continue the readings he had started before moving.
This kid was so upset that he even complained that the books were
not stored on the same floors, on the same shelves, or even bound
in the same colors as those she was used to.  (s/he interchange)

We did manage to explain that not all shelves were the same size,
and even if they were standardized, not all libraries has just an
identical number of books to put on them, and that the numbers to
put on them changed every day as books when in and out.  Each and
every book should have its own location, he said, whether it is a
book now ready for circulation or not.

These complaints, from adults and children alike, are so similar,
in many ways, to those I have heard recently about the networks.

Why do I have to learn different operating systems to run the one
computer I use for this and the one I use for that?  Directories,
they are so different on different computers. . .how can we get a
file from this computer if we have no idea what the new directory
structure is as compared to the one we use for something else?  I
learned this set of commands already, why must I learn another?

I realize that to some of you, pointing out that libraries and an
assortment of other paper oriented information and retrieval jobs
have the same problems that computer oriented systems have.  Your
responses might be that I am bearding the lion in his den.  But I
think there are more valid responses possible, and cooperation in
the future.  I would prefer that cooperation be not panicked an a
manner similar to the math and science panic that followed Russia
putting Sputnik (the first satellite) into orbit on the 40th year
anniversary of the October (November) revolution.  However, there
is still a strong possibility, that people will not wake up to an
enormous potential in electronic storage and retrieval until some
country such as Japan issues all its school books on disk and the
students there take another quantum leap ahead in their studies.

After all, what else is likely to happen once any one group finds
that they can produce a much greater quantity and quality of work
when they have more information readily available, copyable in an
easy and accurate manner, and at less expense?

The result is going to be more papers written, of higher quality,
with fewer errors, more quotations of higher accuracy, less of an
anxiety about footnoting, etc.

Let's face it, modern papers take 90% of the effort in getting an
assortment of resources, hunting through them, copying down piles
of notes, footnotes, and the like, and then reassembling them for
a first draft, a second draft, etc., and that leaves only 10% for
actually thinking. . .doing the work between the ears.

The paper of the future is going to be just the reverse. . .a 10%
slice of your time and effort is all that will be required to put
together all your resources, notes, quotes, footnotes, and all of
that. . .leaving 90% for the actual thought. . .the real work.

Since our students seem to have decided exactly how many hours of
time they are going to put in on any of these papers, the results
should be that we either get papers ten times as good, or perhaps
ten times as many papers, or some combination in between.

(Of course, this does not apply to the person who is not giving a
thought to doing the papers in the first place.  But it should do
well for anyone doing any serious work.)

=====================================================

Thank you for your interest,

Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu


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There is a reason for this. . .a major publisher has said in
so many words they intend to collect all my notes, publish a
compendium of them, and post them all on electronic servers.
Some of what I post on particular lists or combinations is a
purely experimental process to see what kind of reactions an
audience is likely to have, then to polish up what I have to
say. . .or give up on it entirely in some cases.