It used to be one of those things about Lawyers that they were bookish. Which isn’t surprising, after all, Law is about words. And words used to reside in books – or some other form of print media.

But words have moved on. And books seem ever less like books. And both books and words seem ever more like data.

And Lawyers have to adapt, like everyone else. To find ways to enable the Law to still be about people, despite the pressures in the business world to turn people into code.

In this context, it is interesting that there is a local news story about two holograms named Holly and Graham. I don’t know who thought up the names. Of course, whoever did, just wanted to make them seem kind of real. Presumably, with personalities.

The relevance of the question in our banner: are you just data? seems ever more applicable!

By contrast, a story that I can’t find anywhere on the internet, is about Waterstones in Luton which was, until a few days ago, the only remaining bookshop in the centre of Luton (at least that I know of) – not counting the remainder shops or the second hand shops.

Of course, zillions of books can be bought on the internet, both new and second hand. Amazon is an enormous website for new books. And Abebooks advertises that it has 100 million second hand books to sell.

But still there is something unsettling about a University Town (which wants to be a City) not having a single specialist bookshop in the Town Centre.

I can’t help wondering if we allow ourselves to be reduced to data by both businesses and Government, we shall give away our ability to think for ourselves. We shall be the mere recipients of someone else’s data processing. I don’t think most people want that.

Article posted on Tuesday, February, 15th, 2011 at 11:04 am

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