Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.951214102802.9842E-100000@alcor.concordia.ca> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 10:36:44 -0500 From: "Wendy B. Lowe" <mailto:wendlon@ALCOR.CONCORDIA.CA> Subject: Re: (IT vs. Poverty) = (Let Them Eat "IT") ?! To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, The Big Glee Bopper wrote: >
> I think one of the trickiest _obsolete hardware_ to deal with is probably
> paper. What the computer did in the western world was to make it easier
> to move paper around. I think it is often the case that _digitizing_
> something is often a way to imprison information. Paper has it's problems
> but it still works after being dropped in a rice field which is more than
> you can say for a laptop either old or new. Fax machines, _old_ 386s,
> 1200 baud modems, dbase 2, etc are very useful but only if they are
> integrated with peoples lives and this usually means paper, things like
> newsletters and posters. I'm not saying go, back to paper-based catalogs
> but I am saying that the ultimate _old hardware_ may be paper which we
> often overlook in our efforts to digitize the world with both old and new
> hardware. The key is looking at peoples lives and seeing how to work with
> and within those lives to make a difference.
After seeing paper documents in the heart of the Sahel (Senegal, Mali, Niger) browning and illegible, dusty and brittle, awaiting the sirrocco to gather them up and bury them at the bottom of a dune ... or conversely documents in the same medium in the steaming Tropics (Congo, Guinea, Zaire, Sri Lanka - SW) wrinkled and blotched, clinging to everything they touch, I am not convinced that pulped, pressed and dried lignin is that great a "hardware"?
Graham Lowe