DISNEYFICATION of History - Why Libraries?

["Mckenzie, Jamie" <jmckenzie@MSMAIL.BHAM.WEDNET.EDU>]

 Announcing . . .

     From Now On
            Vol 6|No 3|November-December|1996

     http://www.fromnowon.org/~mckenzie

            Three articles this month:

            1. The Disneyfication of History: Why Books, Libraries and
Librarians
                         Remain Essential
     2. NetWorth . . . The Hotbot Top Forty
     3. Librarians on the Leading Edge

A brief excerpt:

               The Disneyfication of History:
                    Why Books, Libraries
                          and Librarians
                         Remain Essential
                          by Jamie McKenzie


            "We live in a world where there is more and more
                              information,
                          and less and less meaning."
                             Jean Baudrillard
                       Simulacra and Simulation, 1981

            If history is the unembellished, factual reporting of events in
our past,
            there is considerable risk that new information sources,
technologies,
            marketing forces and media empires may insulate us from history
and
            replace it with what Baudrillard (and the Bible) have called
            "simulacra."

            With some exceptions (such as publicly funded sites - the
Census,
            NASA, etc.), the Internet offers information which is currently
popular,
            trendy, fashionable and cool. Search for something as central to
our
            national experience as Thanksgiving and you are unlikely to find
            much more than recipes and tourist attractions.

            We are often left wondering "Where's the turkey?"

            If we do find any turkey, it is likely to be a large, colorful
cartoon
            character dancing about with cartoon Pilgrims and early
Americans to
            the cheerful music of show tunes. What we face with the current
move
            toward popularly generated and entertainment molded information
            sources is the Disneyfication of history . . . a phrase
            which has been popping up with frequency as various novels and
            stories have been converted into Disney productions.

     Copyright, JMcKenzie, 1996