Approximately 300 years before the birth of
Christ the Library of Alexandria burned down. It was the best
repository of literature, maps, and writings of all time. Ptolemy
had written letters to all the countries of the world asking them
to send their writings of every kind. He also gave orders that
all books on the ships docking at the Port of Alexandria were to
be copied (Canfora 20). Couple the destruction of the Library
with the expansion of Christianity, which used most of the
scribers of the time to recopy the Bible, and it all adds up to a
very incomplete record of literature, philosophy, even general
knowledge of 
large
parts of human experience. Before Gutenberg introduced his
printing press only 30,000 books, mostly Bibles, existed. By the
year 1500 more than 9 million books of all sorts existed. The
Information Superhighway is the next step that will transform
culture so dramatically (Gates 8-9). What Gates is implying is
that with technology we can ensure that the loss of so much
information about human existence will never happen again. All
documents, movies, and books that were in danger of being lost
are now being formatted so they cannot be lost. There is now a
larger bank of human knowledge than ever before, but the more
important aspect is its new permanence. This new permanence is
one of the greatest aspects of the technological revolution
because it helps to define the generation gap. Never before has
so much information been available to so many people at every
different age level at once. Like the Library of Alexandria new
technology allows us to understand new subjects further and share
information faster thereby further defining the differences
between generations.
