Wednesday, November 6, 2013

lurking surveillance society

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GEl4ZhBbFY&sns=em


Sent from my iPad

a person is looking for books on the computer catalog at the toronto public reference library, books written by an author who has been in the news lately. from the dozens of books available he selects three and makes a computer request for the library staff to bring the books from closed stacks. he then goes to the second floor to pick up the books from the delivery shelf. when he gets there he notices some of the books he didn't request by the same author are on the book trolley by the shelf and thinks the authors books must be a popular read right now especially since a new book came out and the author was interviewed.

a couple of weeks later at the same library he browses the computer catalog to see if they have anything by an author he read of in another book. they have several books by the author and he reads the descriptive summarys and when he has finished reading them he decides the second one sounds the most interesting and tries to request it only to find it has already been requested, so he requests one of the authors other works. as he walks to the second floor to pick up the book he wonders to him self how strangely coincidental it is that an author who is almost unknown would have two people looking for his writings on the same day in the same city in the same library.

not long after that day he begins to notice strange activity by the libraries security guards who seem to be walking past him more than usual and looking at him from around the corner of the bookshelves.