If only...

Today I was walking around downtown Lethbridge at lunchtime, thinking about what great potential exists here, what with the wonderful historic buildings built to human scale, and the cool little shops and coffee joints that eke out a living in the city's core - especially (hooray!) a brand new record shop on 4th avenue. Anyway, lunchtime is a good time to be downtown, because there are actually people out and about, enjoying the fantastic weather. One actually begins to suspect there there might just be a pulse quietly throbbing away under the surface of this otherwise comatose prairie town. As I walk along, I think about what might have been, had the city's administration not made a few glaring errors that have seriously handicapped more recent efforts to revitalize the downtown core and hopefully bring the people back.

Now, folks are going to think that I have some kind of weird obsession with the University, since 2 of my 4 posts mention it, but no, no I don't. It's a coincidence, I swear. Anyway, I would invite you, my gentle reader, to close your eyes and picture what downtown Lethbridge might look like today if someone back in the day had said:

"Gol' darn it, why should we build a university on the west side of the river, where there ain't nothing but grasshoppers and abandoned coal mines and a one-lane wooden bridge to get to it? Instead, how 'bout if we rip up some of them railway tracks and build us a university right downtown, right opposite Galt Gardens? Hell, someone's just going to build a dumb ol' mall there someday anyway. Let's at least put something of value there while we have the chance!"

In case that ficticious quote didn't make sense to you (hell, it barely makes sense to me, and I wrote it!), what I am suggesting is that if someone had had the foresight to put the University of Lethbridge where Park Place Mall now resides, Downtown Lethbridge would be a completely different place today. I imagine dozens of coffee shops and lunch places flourishing around the perimeter of Galt Gardens. I picture groups of students hanging out in the park, playing hacky sack, doing homework, whatever. I see at least one decent nightclub where young folk can gather to dance and drink (Please! One decent nightclub isn't too much to ask, is it?!). I envision an efficient and well-used public transit system (not much parking downtown, after all - and yes, that's a good thing!). I see students choosing to live and work downtown, because it's handy to school and to everything they need. Grocery shops, a bakery; maybe a good Indian restaurant - we could have all of this and more if there was a university downtown!

Other folks would start to move downtown, too, drawn by the human energy and cultural life that radiates from the University like a beacon of hope. Young professionals would no longer aspire to a 3000 sq ft house in the 'burbs, but instead choose to be where the action is. There would be concerts and festivals and community celebrations where more than 20 people show up. Buskers ply their trade on the street corners. Flâneurs discuss Neo-marxist literary criticism on outdoor patios while sipping Tsing Tao and smoking Djarum Blacks. Persons with developmental disabilities are out and about, caring for the gardens and abundant hanging flower baskets. Crime is rare, because, well, there are people everywhere. Because people know and recognize each other, they're watching out for each other. It's called community.

Well, this post is getting rather lengthy, but I think you catch my drift. If we could take the thousands of people that head across the river each day, and plant them downtown instead, we would see a radical change in Lethbridge's urban landscape. If we had built it, they would have come. Instead, we go to Wal-Mart to see people, while after 5 o'clock, downtown is all tumbleweeds and drifters. Come on Lethbridge, let's learn from our mistakes! When the University finally does fall into the river, you know what to do!

How to rig an election

Today I read an article that astounded me. An article by Bobby Kennedy in the June 15 edition of the Rolling Stone is surely one of the most profound indictments of the Republican Party's misdeeds that has ever been published. If this article doesn't shake the foundations of American democracy, then the dear ol' U.S. of A. is in very, very deep trouble indeed.

Thankfully, Ben Metcalf knows what to do about it! (from Harpers Magazine, June 2006)

A Semiotics of the University of Lethbridge

So, lately I've been thinking about the University of Lethbridge. Not about the courses or the profs or the bad food in the cafeteria, but about the building itself. In case you don't know, this fascinating building was designed by Arthur Erickson in the late 60s, and built into the hillside of the river valley that runs through Lethbridge, Alberta. In designing the building, Erickson dispensed with anything that one might find on a traditional "campus." No sprawling greens, no cricket pitch, no courtyards or neo-gothic clock tower. Nothing remotely collegiate. Just a concrete monolith set into a hill. Inside the cavernous structure we find everything necessary for the academic life: classrooms, labs, lecture halls; a library. In the same building: residences, admin offices, a cafeteria, and so on...

Yes, the edifice is huge. It is long and narrow - a modern-day Noah's Arc sitting high and dry above the flood-prone Oldman River. In the 30 years since its construction, the original building has been outgrown, with new buildings springing up willy-nilly at the prairie level with such breathtaking lack of regard for the design of the original structure that Mr. Erickson himself is rumored to have disowned it altogether. Oh well...

But let's step back for a moment, shall we, and look deeper into the semiotics of the structure. What I find most fascinating about the U of L is what is says about academia and the world of knowledge. First, I think it no accident that Erickson put everything into one big building. Here we have the social sciences rubbing shoulders with mathematics. Psychologists sharing a hallway with geographers. Tidy management drones consorting with philosophy profs who never quite learned how to dress. It's Erickson's modern utopia - a manifestation of the Great Unified Theory, set in concrete and rebar. A prominent (if somewhat angular and unadorned) celebration of 400 years of human progress. All the Knowledge of Humankind gathered together under one roof - for the Betterment of the Species! "Indeed," the building says in all seriousness, "any distinction you may be tempted to draw between the disciplines is illusiory at best - and possibly detrimental to society." No, knowledge is a unit that cannot be broken down - not without abandoning the hope that we have placed in the human mind. Knowledge is a prime number. It cannot be divided.

And so, students entering the doors all fresh-faced and naive spend four years inside knowledge itself, only to emerge with a solid faith in Progress and Modernity. For the U of L is a thoroughly modern building. We might even call it a Temple of Modernity, so completely does it embody the modern ethos.

And that is why it is doomed. That is why it is in the process of self-destructing. And I'm not talking about the fact that it's slowly sliding into the river. I'm talking about the proliferation of buildings that have sprung up to supplement, in a most Derridian sense, the shortcomings of the original structure. You see, Erickson built his Temple on a myth. Even in the 1960s, the sands were shifting. Think of the Paris riots of 1968; the Vietnam war. "Progress" did not prove to be a firm foundation upon which to build a society, let alone a university building. In designing the U of L, Erickson forgot to account for the humanity of humans - their messy ways and irrational thoughts. Modernity was dying even as Erickson was trying to build it a tabernacle.

But fear not, Mr. Erickson, for fallible humanity is more than able to put your tomb of knowledge to good use, despite your best efforts!

About time...

...I started a blog. It's as much for me as it is for anyone else. I find lately that my thoughts are fleeting, and they often disappear before I can jot them down. I'm hoping that this blog will serve as a repository for my observations and ruminations, however inconsequential they may be. Perhaps the blog will become something greater than this, but I am content to let it evolve as it may.

I suppose it would be courteous to begin with an introduction. My name is Robin, and I'm a librarian at mid-sized public library in Canada. I'm what you call an e-librarian. I'm of the new school of librarianship. I get excited about things like social computing and ambient findability. I love how individuals and communities are creating spontaneous information spaces on the web through blogging and tagging. I know I am not alone here, and I'm hoping that like-minded others will find me.

This won't be a blog about libraries exclusively. Oh, no. As much as I dig my job, I've got lots going on in my head, and there's always some cross-over to other areas of life. My life informs my work, and vice versa. I carry my philosophies and interests with me wherever I go, like a set of spectacles that colour everything I see, and sometimes even bring things into focus! This blog is largely a space for documenting the connections and epiphanies that occur each day, with the goal of perhaps gleaning some nugget of wisdom, for my own interest, and, perhaps, that of others.

Well, this is adequate for a first post. Maybe next time I'll explain the "diesel" part.