First Encounter
Unlike many younger folks, I can remember the first time I used a computer and the first time I met the Internet.
My first time using a computer wasn’t all that great. I was on a college tour and prospective students were invited to try a moon lander game. I crashed and burned. Didn’t touch a computer again for a long time. But, hey, it was still mainframe and terminal days, so computers didn’t do anything very interesting, anyway.
Eventually I learned some word processing, the most useful “killer app” for an English major. When I got my first full-time job, I was the computer guru who knew how to use Word Perfect and Lotus 1–2–3 on a very early IBM PC. (It was the XT or AT, I forget which.) From there it was slow incremental progress, learning new software as it came out or I found it useful for my job.
Then, in the early 1990s, I was working in the Education Department of a museum when we first got Internet access and e-mail accounts for everyone. It was early days: we were allowed (within reason) to choose our own e-mail addresses. Some used first initial and last name, some their full name, some only their last name. I was KELund, the rare case of using both first and middle initials with my last name.
I’m not sure exactly when my first view of the Internet came. Sometime in late 1994 or early 1995, I think. What I remember clearly was early Summer, when the school year was ending and there was a lull in our programming. I had time to explore.
The browser was Netscape Navigator, the search engine AltaVista. (Where were the Google boys? Probably still in high school.)
Having earned that BA in English, my first thought was, “I’ve died and gone to the world’s best library.” I typed in the names of other museums and some non-profits that I knew, and in a few seconds I had access to whatever they’d put up on their websites. Simple HTML, but more than 20 years ago, that was a big deal.
Early on I discovered the Internet Public Library, my first guide to navigating the World Wide Web. (Years later I met a women who’d worked on IPL via Twitter.) And the joys of hyperlinks!! It’s difficult to comprehend now, but back when the Internet was a frontier and much of the map read “terra incognita,” the ability to follow link to link to link was amazing.
Adobe Acrobat! I had but to read an article in the New York Times that mentioned some report, and I could search for it and read the original. News, that year, changed for me. It still was important (and still is in 2015), but now it was a pointer leading me to further investigation—a beginning, not an end.
Another difference in those early days: I could download and install the Acrobat software myself, without administrative access. That would soon change in the workplace, and when I eventually worked as the administrative assistant in an IT department, the thought of it made me quiver. But in the early- to mid-’90s, few of us were daring enough to download software to our work computers—and there wasn’t much to download yet, anyhow.
We were fortunate that year to have a group of young employees in the Education Department, mostly instructors, who were curious to explore new uses for computer technology. Our Office Manager nicknamed Brad, Jay and me “the computer buddies.” Brad accused me of cheating when I read the Lotus 1–2–3 user manual (does anyone remember computer manuals in hard copy?). Most of our learning was trial and error, followed almost immediately by teaching anyone who was willing to listen. The computer buddies were an informal in-department tech support—but sometimes we had to teach ourselves to do something in order to answer a colleague’s question.
I was an administrative assistant, but I taught a workshop on spreadsheets for our instructors. Just a little intimidating, but I knew something they didn’t. We were, after all, the Education Department: we practiced what we preached.
One Summer soon after, while my boss was on vacation, I researched NASA on the Web for a colleague. Eventually I found the budget information he wanted, though never in as much detail as I hoped. But I also came across some strange websites devoted to space, including conspiracy theorists who thought the Apollo moon landings were faked and one odd group who thought their deity was coming on a comet to take them to heaven. Several months later, they committed mass suicide.
That was an early cautionary tale. The Internet reflected the real world: there are smart people, there are interesting people, and there are flat-out crazy people. Caveat browser.
Two decades on, the Internet has changed. Yes, it’s better: there are more websites, it’s more interactive, and social media is a whole new way to interact and discover new content. Video and podcasts have advanced as bandwidth increased. But it’s also a scarier place: malware hardly existed when the Web was a frontier and not all social interaction is friendly. But the same might be said of the real world... or maybe it’s me. Have I become jaded with age? No matter. The Internet and I aren’t breaking up.
Karen E. Lund has spent most of her career in non-profits, museums and education institutions, where she sometimes spends too much time in spreadsheets. She blogs at Circle of Ignorance and has been using the Internet for more years than she usually cares to admit.
