Legal Research

What will history say?

By Shaunna Mireau

I can’t believe how quickly time flies. It seems like last year I was being interviewed for a solo librarian job at Field Atkinson Perraton (now Field LLP). I am sure that one of the interview questions was “What do you know about Y2k?” Since there isn’t going to be a computer problem like this again until 2038, I wonder how this last year of the 1st decade of the 21st century will be defined by historians.

Will it be defined by a decade issue like climate change or terrorism or genocide. Will it be something specifically technological like the rise of microblogging or the strides made toward a semantic web or will the general overrule like the wide acceptance of digital technologies? Will this year or this decade be seen as the start of something globally significant?

Like law, history is defined and changed by looking back. Perhaps the history of this decade of the 21st century will be more widely available to those in the distant future because there is more written about it. Perhaps, like the wisdom lost with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, there will only be speculation. Perhaps all that will remain are the mundane musings of Facebook status updates and digital archaeologists will have to sift through the deleted pile.

My wish for this year is that it will be remembered as a year of collaboration and cooperation. I hope that history will decide that it was the beginning of something wonderful.

I’m off to make a backup. Merry Christmas.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 24, 2009 (boomark / email).