habitually probing generalist

Peggy Johnson, in her editorial in the current Library Resources & Technical Services [50 (2): Apr 06], summarizes Thomas Frey’s ten trends affecting the development of libraries.  Frey is the exective director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute.  The article cited is "The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation."

Now, I’ve seen some intelligent things come out of the DaVinci Institute, and this article (blog post) even has some.  But.  I have something to say about Trend #9. 

First.  There is some "truth" here.  Some.  Trend #9 says that we are transitioning from a product-based economy to an experience-based economy.  On one hand, I think this is pure and utter (marketing) nonsense.  Marketers gave up selling us "products" and have been trying to sell us "lifestyles" for years.  Now that isn’t quick enough for our time compressed lives (trend #5) so we must purchase "experiences."  On the other hand, as much as I don’t personally buy this rhetoric, I can see what they are talking about, as it regards the masses anyway.

Each item that a person owns demands their
attention, and the accumulation of physical goods to demonstrate a
person’s wealth is rapidly declining in importance.  Experience becomes
the key. (from the DaVinci Institute post)

I’m all about reducing ownership of physical goods as a means of demonstrating wealth, but I don’t buy this rhetoric for a second in a consumer society.  It is also not the case that all of my items demand my attention.  I have things I don’t even know that I own anymore.  How is that demanding my attention?  Sorry.  I meant to be good and just give them this for arguments sake.

  So here is how Trend #9 affects libraries. 

…books themselves will transition from a
product to an experience.  As books change in form from simple “words
on a page” to various digital manifestations of the information, future
books will be reviewed and evaluated by the experience they create. (from the DaVinci Institute post)

Thomas Frey may be a bright guy.  I have no way of knowing.  But honestly.  That is one of the (intellectually) saddest and just plain stupidest sentences that I have read in over 40 years of reading!

I mean seriously WTF?  Whatever the mechanism of distribution, books will remain a product.  Someone (a huge conglomerate most likely) will still be selling/renting/leasing/licensing them to me, and if not the book themselves then access to them.  That means, in the English that I speak, they are still a product.

There is an inherent assumption in here that if something doesn’t have flashing lights, (computer) interactivity, and require electricity then it cannot be an "experience."  Nonsense.

The saddest part is I have to wonder if Thomas Frey has ever read a book.  Every book that I have ever read has been an experience.  Some good.  Some bad.  Some mediocre.  Some life changing.  Some forgotten.  But since when is a few hours spent curled up engaged with someone else’s ideas not an experience?

The only question that I can come back to is, "Do I speak a completely different language than everyone else?"  Or secondarily, "Are we going to let futurists and marketers define language and, in fact, experience for us?"  Being one who grew up reading the futurists in Life and Look and so on, I have an easy answer to the first question, because I have yet to see the flying cars and the video phones, etc. that were promised to me decades ago.  The second question is harder because I am only one poor soul in a mass market economy and my individual buying decisions do not really affect much.

My only other possible answer to the question of langauge is that Quine was correct about the "indeterminancy of translation."  And not only that he was correct, but that he was correct even when taken to its logical extreme.  And that my friends, I must reject with all of my being.  And if you understood even a small part of what I’ve written here, well my friends, so must you.

We (native English speakers) do generally speak the same language.  So.  I must ask, if any of you can help me understand what is being said in the statement "books themselves will transition from a
product to an experience," other than a massive twist of langauge that only serves to market "experiences" to us, please let me know.  In the meantime, my heart breaks for those who have never experienced a book.  And it breaks even more to know that those who have can try and convince us that we haven’t.

As for commenting on the utter ridiculousness of "future
books will be reviewed and evaluated by the experience they create," beyond the experiences they already create (which is a vast oversimplification; as in books create nothing.  Hint: it takes a human (or other sentient creature) to have experience), I’ll remain silent.

Futurists.  Bah.  They’ve been letting me down for 47 years.  At least the "good" ones made what they predicted sound good.  This is just stupid.  Or if you prefer to label it a shift in the meaning of terms, then we need to come up with a disclaimer system for language.