That’s a line from a speech famed CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow gave in 1958, and which I just heard at the end of the sort-of recent movie, Good Night and Good Luck. He was hypothesizing a future in which television might do more than entertain, in which the media would inform for information’s sake, without sweetening the news with mere titilation and irrelevant gossip. He followed with a line that, I think, goes a long way towards defining what our School of Information is and, indeed what all iSchools might be:
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
That aside, all iSchoolers should see this movie! Seriously, it’s like a genre unto itself: infonoir. It’s all smoke, words, and shadow. Brilliant!
Also, anyone from other iSchools out there? We should be talking!
good plug for a great film.
linda from the UW ischool me found me on Flickr, and i’ve just talked to a couple folks who have done the ’rounds at the SJSU library school.