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Here's an odd question:  Do future ready libraries loan out typewriters? Should we?

Last night, the whole family, including my 11 year old who wasn't thrilled about it, went to see the new documentary, California Typewriter.


California Typewriter Trailer from American Buffalo on Vimeo.

Oh how I wish I could be typing this on a typewriter right now.  It feels weirdly strange to be "blogging on a computer" and writing about typewriters. It's been awhile since we've been to a movie that had us engaged in conversation and reflection the whole car ride home and then some.  We were still talking about it today.  See, right there I just deleted some words or letters because I changed my thoughts and yet, I wouldn't be able to do that on a typewriter.  There.  I did it again.  Those thoughts are gone permanently.  Yet, on the typewriter I could xxx them out but you would still see my mistakes.  It's a fascinating concept.  John Mayer was great at expressing that whole idea in his segment of the film.

Do you remember your first typewriter?  I don't necessarily remember my first but I do remember my Mom telling me that once I passed my typing class in high school, I would be allowed to use her electric typewriter.  That was a huge deal. Until then, it was all manual.  And right at this moment, I wish I could go back to the tap-tapping of that first typewriter.

My step-dad has a bunch of typewriters in his basement.  I'm going to make it my mission to check them out.  How fun would it be to have one in the library? Put aside the technology for a bit. So what if the Internet goes out?  If I could find a couple of rotary phones, too, and we'd be in business. (No joke--we got a new phone system at school this summer and it is connected to our computers so when the Internet goes out, we have no phones.)

Then there is Jeremy Mayer.  He is an artist that "destroys typewriters" and uses their parts to create sculptures. Talk about a Makerspace idea...

"I love typewriters, even though I love them inside out."-Jeremy Mayer

We may think of future ready as moving forward into the 21st century.  But maybe we need to look at it from a different angle. What objects from the classic "Carousel of Progress" GE ride at Disney World can we reunite with, revisit or even repurpose? The typewriter, says Jeremy Mayer in his TedTalk "reminds us of our past and maybe something we should retain for our future and it shows us who we've been and what we are now." What other objects out there can make us future ready while preserving the past?

Postscript:

I just had to get my hands on a typewritten letter today so I took a voyage into my attic.  The first box of treasures I came to was from college.  It didn't take me long to find a couple of typewritten letters, one from a friend and one from my Mom.  Only after watching the film do I realize how special these are.  I tried to highlight where both authors mentioned typing pretty early on in their prose.

 I love how my mom thinks she has a "great advertisement for a computer/word processor"!

Here Chris mentions how people "have expressed dissatisfaction with my typewritten letters."  Yet, in the film Tom Hanks expresses how if someone thanks him with an email it is automatically deleted. If they send him a typewritten note, it is so much more meaningful.  Future ready library, do you have a typewriter for me to borrow so I can write a personal letter to Tom?