Valerie Hawkins
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valsadie.bsky.social
Valerie Hawkins
@valsadie.bsky.social
620 followers 510 following 38 posts
Writer, social media, libraries, pop culture, movies, history

Social Media Director of @rebelliousmag.bsky.social

AKA LibrariesVal, RebelliousVal
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valsadie.bsky.social
My favorite line in the film is Katharine Hepburn's "That's *wrong* information!" in response to one of the computer's answers.

I wrote about it back in 2016, "On Desk Set (1957)" at (Friend Link) librariesval.medium.com/on-desk-set-...
Every time someone insists that something will spell the end of libraries, I know immediately that the speaker does not use libraries. And hasn’t the slightest idea about how they can and are used. Decades ago, the 1957 movie, Desk Set, from the play of the same name, presented a still contemporary take on this whole scenario. A four-woman office of reference librarians are driven to distraction thinking that they are to be replaced by a computer — the huge, wall-sized, slightly-mad-scientist-looking-with-flickering-lights-and-spinning-reel-to-reel-tapes-and-horn-toots computers of the 1950s. Spencer Tracy plays an odd little man who created the computer — who doesn’t explain right away and waits until everyone is at their wits’ end to say that he means for the computer to help the librarians do their work, not do the work for them. It couldn’t do the work for them if it tried — and it does try, rousing co-star Katharine Hepburn to memorably expel at its response, “That’s wrong information — !” Garbage in, garbage out.
January 23, 2025 at 1:41 AM