Published 27 May 201026 March 2011 · Main Posts Meanland extract – What is it that makes the web so amazing? Jacinda Woodhead ‘Fess up: who remembers a time when there was no internet? Once upon a time, if a child, student, writer or reader wanted to know something, they would have to march off to the library* – a day’s hike to the great metropolis on the horizon, for some – and physically track down obscure and tangled information that lay hidden between pages, at the back of shelves and relied primarily on one’s ability to navigate the Dewey decimal card catalogue and microfiche machines. It was often laborious, sometimes frustrating and could result in getting lost for days in the wrong terrain. What is it that makes the web – a living library – so amazing? First and foremost, the answer would have to be information, and an almost universal access to that information. Traditional libraries also offer this, but the beauty of the internet is the ability to link to a resource, and immediately see it, providing the reader with a knowledge architecture that the singular text from the library can never have. The book – even if accompanied by a generous list of additional reading material – is static. It is bound to its form as flat, unchanging text on a page that leads nowhere but to the following page. The internet offers the capacity to connect data – that is, make data meaningful. Read the rest of the post over at Meanland. Jacinda Woodhead Jacinda Woodhead is a former editor of Overland and current law student. More by Jacinda Woodhead › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 28 March 202428 March 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. First published in Overland Issue 228 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.