The electronic revolution "may prove to be a revolu-tion not only in the library itself -- the way books are cataloged, stored, and circulated -- but in the nature of learning and education."
Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb exults at the prospect of the electronic revolution making "even smaller libraries the equivalent of libraries in major research universities and scholarly institutions." She especially enjoys "the computerized catalog, so much more efficient and informative than the old card catalog; the ready access to other library holdings and data bases; the ability to retrieve rapidly information and material that otherwise would have taken days or would have been irrecoverable; the convenience of networking with colleagues working on similar subjects. . . ."
Nevertheless, Himmelfarb remains profoundly ambivalent about this magnum leap forward. "Like a great many revolutions," she observes, "it is salutary -- up to a point. But, like most revolutions, it tends to go beyond that point. The democratization of knowledge is all to the good," she explains, "if that means the democratization of access to knowledge."
Writing in the Spring issue of the American Scholar, Himmelfarb resolutely rejects "the democra-tization of knowledge itself. And this is where the Internet, or any system of electronic networking, may be misleading and even pernicious. In cyberspace, every source seems as authoritative as every other," she warns. "The Internet is an equal opportunity resource; it recognizes no rank or status or privilege. In that democratic universe, all sources, all ideas, all theories seem equally valid and pertinent."
How to penetrate that jigsaw jungle, that's the question. "It takes a discriminating mind, a mind that is already stocked with knowledge and trained in critical discernment, to distinguish . . . between the trivial and the important, the ephemeral and the enduring, the true and the false," Himmelfarb insists. "It is just this sense of discrimination that the humanities have traditionally cultivated and that they must now cultivate even more strenuously if the electronic revolution is to do more good than bad."
Data, data everywhere -- and not a stop to think! That's the danger of the Internet. Himmelfarb worries that the electronic revolution could be hijacked by the intellectual revolution that immediately preceded it, which she labels postmodernism. "For the postmodernist," she explains, "there is no truth, no knowledge, no objectivity, no reason, and, ultimately, no reality. Nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent, nothing is transcendent. Everything is in a state of total relativity and perennial flux."
Gertrude Himmelfarb warns that "the new technology is the perfect medium for the new ideology." The electronic revolution and the intellectual revolution, she contends, "bear an uncanny resemblance to each other and have a symbiotic relationship." In order to make the most of the former, we must be on guard against the latter. After all, the world is awash already in nihilism and indifferentism. We don't need any more of these toxins. With Himmelfarb's admonition in mind, however, we can turn the Internet to the service of Truth and watch the spinners of cynicism and deceit snare themselves in the worldwide web.
