Daniel Caron: From clay to computer chips: new systems of writing, new ways of deciphering?

There's an addition to the LAC website by way of the text of a speech by Daniel Caron, Librarian and Archivist of Canada. It was prepared for delivery at LAC on October 14 to a Royal Society of Canada Symposium on Literacy and Citizenship in the 21st Century.

The talk at http://goo.gl/46GF8 outlines three issues: acquisition, organization of loci, and access. It's long on analysis and questions; short on answers.

A paragraph that particularly caught my attention is..

... the "from one to several" model of content sharing between creators and consumers, from ruler to subjects, or from company to customers, gave way to the "from several to several" model, and society has gradually abandoned the unique top-down approach in favour of a culture of content sharing that is more horizontal, single-tiered and multidirectional.

It's ironic as top down, supposedly abandoned, is just the approach that has characterized LAC of late.