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Jonathan Willson: Department of Library and Information Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
The "cyberpunk librarian" made a single brief appearance in 1992, and was given title role in a collection of essays published by the Library and Information Technology Association (USA)[ 1]. The following year saw the emergence of Bauwens' "cybrarian", a strategic member of a new organizational model for corporate libraries[2 ]. These labels are products of the debate about the future role of librarians in an electronic networked environment. It is perhaps fitting that the author first made acquaintance with the cyberpunk librarian through the medium of the full-text of an article downloaded to the desktop from a remote database.
"Cyberpunk librarian" is proposed as a metaphor for the librarian able to operate in the emerging cyberspace. The subculture of cyberpunk provides a model that combines an enthusiasm for technological systems with ways of using them that may challenge convention. A broad range of literature is reviewed to identify future directions for libraries and librarians who will have to seek a response to the major social impact of technology-driven change. This article sets out by exploring and defining the electronic frontier.
Cyberspace
Cyberspace, for the most part, does not yet exist but the term is gaining currency in popular and scholarly literature. The word originated in the futuristic fiction of William Gibson[ 3] to describe a "consensual hallucination" experienced daily by millions of people in every nation, accessing graphic representations of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. His novels reflect a concern about contemporary changes in communication structures - a dystopic vision of powerful corporate interests set in a decaying urban environment. The origins of cyberspace can be traced from the 1830s development of the electric telegraph through to the present day convergence of computers and telecommunications and the vastly increased bandwidths of the data highways. Cyberspace relates to and encompasses networks, virtual reality, multimedia, hypertext, indeed all recent developments in information and computer technologies. It variously describes a computer-generated virtual environment, new ways of perceiving data inside computers and an electronic meeting place. A key feature is interactivity on multiple levels - person to person, person to computer, and computer to computer.
Batty and Barr[4,...