I’ve been doing some research related to “information overload,” and have found evidence of a “crisis” as far back as the 16th century. By definition, a crisis requires a period of normalcy by which to define itself. I argue that we don’t really have a “serials crisis” or a “crisis in the humanities,” because the state in which we find ourselves has been the normal state for decades. Humanists, like librarians, always think people are out to get them (which is true), but they also think that the situation is new (which isn’t true). If we’re always in crisis, then we’re never in crisis.
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Wayne Bivens-Tatum, ‘The “Crisis” in the Humanities’, Academic Librarian, 5 November 2010
http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2010/11/the_crisis_in_the_humanities.html
