Permanent Ephemera

Ephemera is fleeting stuff. Until it becomes someone's treasure. BIG MAC COLLECTIBLES? BUBBLE GUM COMICS? Remember gum wrapper chains? Ever help make one?

What's the unique resource in a triple-secured vault in Stratford-On-Avon? Not the massive collection of early printed versions of Shakespeare's works, although they are very valuable. No -- the one-of-a-kind set of playbills representing the plays produced in London since the theaters re-opened after Cromwell.

In the 21st Century, ephemeral takes on new meaning. Electronic resources do not occupy physical space in any meaningful way. Anyone can blog, set up a wiki, open accounts in multiple social networking sites, create web sites. Nothing informational needs to go away or be discarded. Electronic libraries do not run out of shelf space. Electronic news clips do not get yellow and brittle. An art display or Avenue of Trees may come and go, but the digital images can have indefinite life. The ease of producing such electronic forms means their number explodes exponentially. INFOGLUT results. Organizing access and facilitating retrieval are major issues. Admittedly imperfect search tools like google generate fortunes.

FLICKR users organize images by nested COLLECTIONS and SETS.

Look at how Alex Wright summarizes the content of his 2007 book, GLUT (look at the chapter synopses under the icons on the right). NEXT UP: ELECTRONIC IMPERMANENCE (or WHOOSH vs. WHOMP Revisited) (Watch this "whoosh" clip for a digression).