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| Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 25 Number 1, Spring 1992 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is an independent quarterly established to express Mormon culture and to examine the relevance of religion to .... |
The internet was still in its infancy. I took a personal interest in discovering how this new medium was opening up the world.
One day I saw a letter to the editor in a periodical called Dialogue that said an email list called Mormon-L was being set up by David Wright.
An open invitation to join the list was attached to the letter. Initially I was afraid to join, but my curiosity was greater than my fear.
I spent the first three weeks on the list, listening in on what seemed like an enormous telephone party-line, but with text as the medium. People were asking questions of one another – speculating on historical and contemporary Mormon issues.
In the world before the internet, this kind of speculation was done at home, or maybe in a Sunday School class or an evening fireside.
There was a favourite saying in those day to those who asked questions: just put it on a shelf, since what you are asking is unanswerable.
Now there were answers everywhere. With the internet, there was an open 24-hour line: people were talking from one side of the U.S.A. to the other, sharing information about what was happening in their regions. When I first joined the list there was dialogue about caffeine that involve(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Six )d such pressing questions as “does a chocolate bar have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee?”, for example. That makes me laugh now. I was all amazed. Open discussion and no one closing it down, putting it on the shelf.
Probably a year later, six Mormons had been labeled as dissidents and were marked for excommunication. Agog. That was me, to be listening in and over-hearing this discussed from a distance. I was going to work an hour early so I could watch who would speak out or up: who was being called into the next disciplinary council.
As I look back now, thirty years later, time has run its course. Internet chatter seems like just the course of the day. Mormon bloggers write about a myriad of topics. Anytime I have a question about religion, a google search will pretty well give me an answer or maybe two or three answer to the same question.
I look back to those early days when the internet was in its infancy. I am glad that I was there to listen and learn.
Arta
thanks for these memories. Yes, those were heady times. And there was so much great thinking and conversation going on. some of it totally nutty, but that was part of the pleasure. And there were so many people who became friends and loved ones without ever have shaken hands.
ReplyDeleteYou were the very first person I knew who was on the world wide web. Hard to believe that back then, it was really only people in universities who had access to it. And look at us all now. Crazy.
ReplyDeletePart of the training in the library was to make all of us competent with the world wide web. I can remember learning that I had to type www.(and then something)
ReplyDeleteWe don't use that extension anymore. I was lucky, wasn't I. Being there at the beginning. Sometimes I think the world has sped ahead without me. But that may not be true. I am not afraid of any coding I see. I now how to right click and left click and occasionally I make use of the CTRL key. What else is there?
Yes to many happy hours navigating the web. There is hardly a time when the web can't answer a question I have. I really laughed this week when I was on a string of emails that showed many ways to build a chicken coop. Some of the coops were very upscale.
Since I have time to think back to those first days of being on the internet, I am remembering that there were articles about the internet, and even more important to me, movies that showed how the internet morphed from being something used by the US army, to a way for academics to talk to each other -- and soon it became available to the whole world. What a gift, in less than 30 years. It has turned record-keeping upside down and on its ear -- all of us worrying about what will happen to the old repositories of knoweledge -- libraries.
ReplyDeleteI notice that our public library is reaching out to people, telling them to come and visit on-line, and to see what is available while they are all at home and the libraries are closed. Miranda took me to a fantastic new library at Seton, just before we began to all stay home. In that library, there is a helicopter for children to climb in and play on. Now how big do you think the library is, to contain a "playground" like that in it. When I walked in there was hot air that would suck up a handkerchief and then throw it out into the air to be caught by children.
I gathered a number of Indigenous books to take home that day. I haven't had time to read one and was worrying about getting them back to the library on time. Now I have a notice from the library -- the new due date is sometime in June. How happy did that make me. I will read my way through those books before the end of June.
I think this ends my rant on how the early beginnings of the web have snatched the hearts and minds of everyone who loves knowledge. We haven't lost anything -- just gained access to more gifts than a lifetime could enjoy.
Yes. More gifts than a lifetime could enjoy. Amen.
DeleteAnd now into my email box come more gifts than I can manage in a day. Let alone that lifetime, which seems to pass so quickly.
DeleteI like this post. I have vivid memories of time and space around my introduction to the internet, which I feel was really through you, Arta. I remember your shared office space. Was it on the fifth floor of the library. I can remember reading Mormon-L over your shoulder there, or a printed copy of some of the posts at home. It truly was something I never imagined. Being able to read messages from other Dialogue readers around the world.
ReplyDeleteWe were quick to find _Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought_ in the library, once I no longer took the subscription at home. Greg Bates had given me his earlier Dialogues, ones before I started subscribing. When I was sorting and resorting, those ended up going into the collection at the UofC library. Now I think everything is online -- even those earlier books. Time changes so much.
ReplyDelete