Ignoring the Libraries of Congress

Later this month, the latest How Much Information? research project will reveal its findings. The last time HMI presented its data was in 2003, when Berkeley researchers determined that print, film, magnetic and optical storage media produced five (5) exabytes of new information in 2002.

If digitized with full formatting, the seventeen million books in the Library of Congress contain about 136 terabytes of information; five exabytes of information is equivalent in size to the information contained in 37,000 new libraries the size of the Library of Congress book collections.

This is how HMI attempted to contextualize the five (5) exabytes. You could argue that you would then need another context in order to understand the 17,000,000 books in the LoC, but you get the idea. Here’s a fire hose of data: take a sip.

Whenever I present this tidbit to people, the reaction falls into one of the following general categories:

1. Information overload isn’t new. The (loosely defined) information that life throws your way has, throughout history, been difficult to take in and understand.
2. There is no such thing as too much information. All of this data is a boon for curious, engaged people everywhere—go Internet!
3. My head hurts. Won’t you please make it stop.

Personally, I vacillate between #2 and #3, although I can see the point of #1. Nature, after all, is filled with signs, signals, and cues. I’m sure that there were Cro-Magnon who bummed on the number of animal sounds they needed to recognize.

But I would also argue that what we’re going through now is different because the 37,000 Libraries of Congress are on top of the general complexity of life. And even if you don’t engage with the new LoCs that are created every year, you know they are out there. All that info creates indirect pressure on you, especially if your job is requires mastery of knowledge, insight, making connections, etc.

In my talk I said it was important for every writer and artist to take a personal stance toward all this new information. My bet is when the next HMI comes out it will say that at least seven (7) exabytes of new information are created each year. Unless the upcoming solar storm season brings down the Web, we’re going to have to reckon with the LoCs.

So I’m going to try a little experiment this month. I’m going to ignore it all. I will still search for information, and use information, but I’m not going to worry it. Perhaps one of you fine readers out there will take it upon yourselves to do the opposite. Then we can compare notes, yes?

Tags: technology