Everything’s a network, even bookmobiles
A few times in the course of Derek Attig’s really interesting talk on the history of bookmobiles yesterday, he pointed out how the route map of the early bookmobiles (and later ones, too) resembles a network map. He did this to stress that the history of bookmobiles is not simply a history of vehicles, but rather should be understood in terms of those vehicles’ social effect: creating and connecting communities.
I like this point, and I don’t mean to suggest that Derek carried the analogy too far. Not at all. But, it is an excellent example of how we are reinterpreting everything in terms of networks, just as we had previously interpreted everything in terms of computers and programs and information, and before that in terms of telephone networks, and before that…and before that…and before that….
Cultural paradigm shift? Underway!