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I HAVE ALWAYS loved the library. I remember being a child and experiencing the wonder of shelves upon shelves of books. A quiet place where I could get a card and choose any book I liked, queue up and present it to the librarian and take it home.
I’m delighted to get to experience the same thing all over again with my children. They really look forward to our trips to the library. They regularly enter the colouring competitions as well as choosing books for the week. Their interaction with the librarians is highly educational too, it’s the first thing they do entirely on their own steam.
So, you can imagine how disappointed I was to read about the staffless library trials that have taken place. Minister Simon Coveney has said that the staffless operation will only be to extend opening hours, and that staff will not be replaced. In fairness to him, he may well believe that.
The reality will most likely be very different
It will be easy for those in charge of the purse strings to compare costs between the staffed and unstaffed times. When a librarian calls in sick or takes holidays, it will be extremely tempting to save money by not covering them. When a librarian retires, it will be all too easy not to hire a replacement.
When humans are compared to technology on a purely cost basis, there will only be one winner. In times of tight budgets and competing demands on local authorities resources, the easy savings will be made. Librarians will be the low hanging fruit.
Children won’t be the only ones affected, libraries are quiet places used by many. In this fast-paced technological age where more and more of our interactions are with machines, we should be fighting to keep a refuge of such value.
My children’s children may well never get to experience the joys that we did. Librarians are an integral part of the experience. I think we will live to regret the loss of them if it comes to pass.
What we need is a thoughtful approach to technology
Blindly allowing the “Market” to dictate our path has not served us well in recent times. Technology can either set us free or imprison us. We need to set clear goals about the kind of world we want to live in. We need to value human interaction.
A seismic shift in our consciousness is required. Driverless cars could be the shift that demands action. There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the USA alone. Ireland as a whole is no stranger to the truck driving industry.
Calculating the secondary employment created in accommodation, rest stops and restaurants would be a challenge. The number of taxis, couriers and other driving jobs would easily dwarf this.
Without major changes to our entire economic system it is hard to see these job losses being absorbed. The reduction in demand for products and services as well as the large-scale defaulting on debts by those newly unemployed could see the whole house of cards come crashing down.
A problem of this magnitude needs scrutiny and planning
Yet the Government decides to pander to a European Declaration that I am sure no-one outside of officialdom has read? The Declaration of Amsterdam, which commits EU support for the introduction of driverless vehicles, may have been endorsed by Transport Ministers last April, but have you heard of it? Blindly on we go.
We are in an age of raw populism leading to a widespread rejection of expertise as well as dysfunctional governments firefighting against bad decisions like Brexit and the impending Le Pen coronation in France.
The self-proclaimed land of the free has elected an emblematic demagogue as President. We in Ireland are no exceptions. We have a do-nothing Dáil which lives up to the name. We must do better. You might argue that we have gotten away with it so far, but we cannot continue to refuse to seriously plan for our future.
Eric Nolan is the Labour Party’s Local Area Representative for Cork East. He was constituency party campaign manager for the Marriage Equality Referendum. He works as an aviation firefighter at Cork Airport and has served as a shop steward and worker director.
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Like the writer I have many happy childhood memories of afternoons at the library. I recall now with great affection how patient the staff were with the questions of that little boy; and the respect I developed then for librarians is something that I’ve carried over into my current grumpyhood.
Unlike the writer I have no doubt that Coveney knows exactly what he is doing. Nor do I think that he could care less about the pressures that staff must be under now. I would hate to have to put a smile on my face each day, knowing that I am being willfully phased out by people who want to look good by saving a few Euro, and damn the consequences. And sure, you can say that ANYONE’S job can go at any time these days and that is true; but this is so unneccessary and so short-sighted in the long run.
We’ve already got a country where a couple can go for a meal and spend the whole time texting; where communicating with real live people is a poor second to our virtual friends. Jesus, the last thing we need is to dehumanize this society any more than it already is.
@Charley Brady: So should we give up on technological advancement in order to save jobs? Should we never have brought in the combine harvester, which ended thousands of jobs? Or how the large mining machines meant all those pickaxe miners no longer have their work? Or how ships no longer need dozens upon dozens of people to operare them? Or how supermarkets replaced all the small shops, but led to cheaper and a greater variety of food and a better quality of life?
Driverless cars can cost jobs at first, yes, but it can also save tens of thousands of lives every year on the planet. In the end most technological advancement creates a multitude of new jobs, but some old ones are just not needed anymore.
There are more software engineers needed than there are on the planet. This is a job that didnt exist 50 years ago, and now millions are employed by it. While technology ends some jobs, it creates many new ones. And most importantly, technology usually saves lives.
Go back to Utopia. Your visa’s run out.
@Andy K: Sorry, Andy. Just seeing your reply. Of course I’m not arguing against those things. That would be like arguing against the technology that allowed our great-whatever grandparents to buy affordable books, ending a time when only the elite could read them – which in turn educated people into wanting a better quality of life for themselves.
But you can go too far. It’s possible today to walk down a busy street and encounter not one person who hasn’t got his head stuck in a phone. And the bizzare thing is that you are rarely bumped into, as if we’re developing some sort of frigging radar. It’s crazy.
And even crazier is that, like in ‘Frankenstein’, we’ll only know that we’ve gone too far…when we’ve gone too far.
@Charley Brady:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
(Douglas Adams)
Rambling, incoherent nonsense from beginning to end. Pick a topic and stay on it. Or just shorten it to “I’m a Luddite. People are voting for the wrong things instead of me.”
Don’t worry, it’s only labours latest cause, to stop skynet
The last three paragraphs are full of generalisations and guess work. Le pen isn’t favourite to be french president. You’re sure no one read it with a question mark. Driverless cars could save hundreds of lives not mentioned.. In saying that it is a good point about automation replacing thousands of jobs and the state will have massive trouble supporting this.
It’s inevitable though. Machines will replace all human labour and eventually most, if not all, professional roles. It will be the biggest threat humanity has ever faced but also our greatest opportunity. My hope is that in 100-200 years people will look back at our 9-5, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year jobs as completely backwards. Jobs could be a hobbie to stave off the boredom of having all your needs met.
A union rep giving out that union jobs won’t exist soon..not surprising. Look at what’s being predicted with industry 4.0, this won’t only affect transport(7.2% of Ireland’s employed) but will affect everything from doctors to solicitors.
You can’t stop progress just to keep outdated jobs. People need to take responsibility for themselves and learn new skills constantly or risk being left behind. New technology creates a whole set of new jobs and in most cases it doesn’t just happen suddenly so people have years to see it coming.
Automation won’t create many new jobs. This is the problem. A lot of the higher end jobs around automation such as programming will largely be carried out by algorithms
So who is going to design the machines John? Who is going to maintain them? Who is going to set up the companies to build them? Who is going to sell them? Technology is nowhere near a point where it can replace the human worker in all industries.
John is correct. Automation will destroy a lot more jobs than it will create. “Outdated jobs” will soon be a large proportion of today’s jobs and you don’t need technology to replace every human worker in every industry for society to have a major problem on its hands.
@Zozzy Zozimus: It all looks lovely. All these technology driven “advances” look good, look attractive, look as if society will only benefit. All little pieces of a jigsaw. They all look good on their own.
Put them together and it looks totally different.
Driverless cars and vehicles. Unmanned libraries. Cashless society. Living wage, etc, Add it to the other things happening in society today that’s not technology driven, homelessness, everything that was a public service to be privatised, everything to be commodified for profit, food production methods, car insurance unaffordable,personal responsibility being forced as a mantra, wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and it make a very ugly picture.
There will be far to many “useless” people populating the world. To many useless mouths to feed and shelter. What methods will be used to reduce those populations. Pestilence? War? It looks like methods are being refined now.
Librarian’s and Libraries are very far from being outdated. They are usually early-adopters of new technologies and make them accessible to their users. Our public library provides access to digital magazines, online learning, ebooks etc. It has self-service machines for issuing & returning items, but thankfully our public Librarians are still there too.
A big challenge for humanity is the reduced need for a workforce. By 2020 the estimate is for the loss of 25 million jobs worldwide through automation. What do people do? I wouldn’t be encouraging any young person to go into driving for a living anyway as those jobs will become obsolete.
@John Bennett: Yes but we can’t stand still because of progress. I don’t know but maybe in 200 years time, many of our young people will be employed in the space industry seeking new planets and life….a fascinating thought.
Ah stop I’ve just started my accounting career….no luck
@John Bennett: watch a robot brick layer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVWayhNpHr0 .
Ultimately technology can and probably will replace all tasks no matter how complex. How this is squared up with the fact we have billions of people on this planet most of them impoverished and a planet that is over heating partially fuelled by this massive consumption. There is surely a tipping point sometime in the near future? Somehow I don’t think this is a sustainable model for mankind.
I’d advise you to read this before resigning his arguments to nonsense. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/universal-basic-income-robots-eu-meps-unemployment-mady-delvaux-stehres-european-parliament-a7527661.html
Robots are great at making but bad at consuming
“Humanless libraries and driverless cars. We will live to regret them?”
-No more road accidents or road rage.
Are we living to regret the loss of the telegram boy, street sweeper, lamplighter, switchboard operator etc? This is a natural part of progression, we’d still be living in the dark ages if we took the position of never adopting technology which made old jobs redundant.
Will will have either phased out money or everyone will have a guaranteed minimum income !
@Mrs M: there’s a number of cities worldwide who are currently trialling Universal Basic Incomes to determine how it would work in practice. The theory is good and I believe all governments need to be considering how to implement USI. Something like that won’t be brought in across the board after a budget announcement but would need to be staggered over years as industries decline. Basically we need a future forward thinking government to consider a plan of action for the increasing automation of work
This is a very short sighted view of driverless cars. New technologies like this come along and create new opportunities. What we have to look forward to is a new age of unprecedented abundance.
To get there, there will be short term teething problems that need to be planned for. But do you really want Ireland to become the only country in the western world that doesn’t benefit from automation technology? The country that, through luddite-esque legislation, has its citizens do unnecessary work when they could be doing something more useful to the benefit of society at large? And do you really want to pay a premium on all purchases of products that citizens of other countries don’t have to pay, just so humans can continue to do this unnecessary work?
I’m with you on libraries, librarians provide a very worthwhile service and a human interface point which is valuable to me, and to my children. It’s much more than checking in and out books, there’s advice etc.
Driverless cars however, I can only see good in this! Reduced road deaths, and reduced need for cars in the first place can only be a good thing. If my car can drop me to the pub, and then go off and do some work as a taxi for a few hours before coming back to get me, all the better. I’d love not to have to buy one, park one, insure one, maintain one with it’s services and NCTs sucking up my time. They cost a bloody fortune in time, money and resources. Shared ownership would suit me much better than my car sitting idle for 99% of it’s existence.
Who goes to the library grandad
@Jackson Bollovks: Those who can read.
You can lead in technology adoption, and profit from it, or you can lag behind and be destroyed by it. Instead of bemoaning the advent of the driverless vehicle and the 24 hour library Eric Nolan should be thinking about ways that Ireland can be at the forefront.
Driverless vehicles still need software developers. Couriers are still needed to get the package from the vehicle to the hands of the purchaser. Service centres will still be needed to handle the distribution network.
Libraries will still need librarians. Technology can free them up from the dross tasks (like stamping the date on books) and give them more time for the engaging and interesting tasks such as book readings for children and helping students with their research.
Use it or lose it. Shades of the movie “Idiocracy” haunting us at the minute.all this tech, people who are actually the market, with nothing to do and low income, controlled by bread and circuses.Now where did that paradigm work before???
@Hugh Foley: They should remake that movie to be less shite, the concept was accurate.
Nobody is propos8ng “humanless libraries”. All of the users will still be human.
Great article,thank you. Le pen isn’t in yet.The cost of manufactured goods is tending towards zero because of automation,with the corresponding loss of jobs to follow.Capitalism values the short-term profit tomorrow above all else,and it’s in danger of destroying democracy by polarising the population into haves and have nots ( inequality).The government will probably have to create fake jobs or else give everyone free money, within 15 years. Most critically,all governments need to agree to tax capital wealth(like Thomas piquetty has outlined) to encourage spending.The reason why they haven’t done this already if because the rich bank roll the politicians. It’s refreshing to see political elites being beaten by the populists, even if it’s not a solution. It means democracy is still sort of working though.
I’d rather have driverless cars than Librarian-less libraries. In an age where more information is being recorded and stored, we need people whose job it is to organise and retrieve information.
The automation of driving is happening though, whether we like it or not. As long as it is proven safe (which so far, appears to be the case) putting our heads in the sand will not solve anything. We need to find ways to structure our society where increasing amounts of jobs are automated.
This requires creative policy thinking which the three main Irish political parties will not be able to cope with. It may require looking at a Universal Basic Income (which the jury is still out on IMO), and/or significantly reducing the amount of hours everyone works (the 6 hour work day is being looked at in Sweden by some employers).
I support driverless cars, I hope they will bring the dreaded driving test to an end.
The setting of Judge Dredd is a dystopian future Earth damaged by a series of international conflicts; much of the planet has become radioactive wasteland, and so populations have aggregated in enormous conurbations known as ‘mega-cities’.[56] The story is centred on the megalopolis of Mega-City One, on the east coast of North America. Within Mega-City One, extensive automation (including intelligent robots) has rendered the majority of the population unemployed.
Judge Dredd originated in the seventies, but theres a touch of orwells 1984 about it as in its propehesies are becoming reality
If we’ve to pick a scenario from fiction to aspire to than I think I’ll stick with Star Trek’s vision of the future as opposed to Judge Dredd’s.
@Tricia Golden: sad reality is we’re a lot closer to the judge dredd scenario than star trek
Something happens to the Sun, a nuke going off or something that effects the Earths magnetosphere and everything with a chip in in will be useless. All technology will reverse to the stone Age because everything has a chip in it, just a thought?
Can you imagine a polar shift, technology would be useless then???
@Alois Irlmaier: I’m going to take up knitting, people would kill for a nice sweater in a post apocalyptic winter
@Tom: All I will say is Preppers, they have had all their knitting done a long time ago lol.
What a load of drivel. Transparent attempt by Labour hack to seem relevant and “current”.
Could be worse, some eejits might think they can carry out scrying with their TV’s and mobiles like with Black Mirrors… lol.
Drink driving out the window is a treat for everybody
@Tommy O Rourke: Until you get drink on the electronics?
Was Terminator 3 on the box last night?
The only way people are going to stop being replaced by machines is if they are cheaper. In the U.S. there are people doing what we have machines do. the most noticeable is automated car park payment. We use the card and automatic barrier while they hire somebody. A really low paying job but it is cheaper than a machine. Are they really jobs worth saving?
Huge tech advances like a driverless car mean notable improvements like safety efficiency and financial benefits.
Loads of jobs have gone in the past historically due to industries changing – it should absolutely not be the reason for advancing and developing.
Did we make a mistake with coopers in the past too should we have kept those jobs and not advanced?
We’re far from “a widespread rejection of expertise” in my experience. Instead of botching something, people are more inclined to hire an expert than previously. To delegate, to get a second and third opinion. Or DIY. Populism might be dumbing down, but ultimately people are going to save time or money by giving some thought to what they want vs need. Plenty are sharing their expertise with those interested in learning. There’s less deferring to self-styled ‘experts’, but more thought given to alternative approaches.
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