Michael E. Gorman

“Though many people now think that digital technology has created an entirely new way of learning, the fact is that there are only three ways in which human beings learn and that digital technology is but the latest manifestation of the third and most recent of those ways. Humans learn: • from experience (physical interaction with, and observation of, the world) and have done ever since the first humans learned that one red berry may be tasty and healthful and another might kill you; • from communicating with people who know more than they do (speech and hearing) and have done so since the first wise woman taught the first band of early humans huddled in the safety of a cave; and • from interaction with the human record (written, symbolic, and visual records) and have done so since the age of miracles began with the invention of writing many millennia ago. The third way of learning permits the first two ways to extend across space and time—the records of experience and knowledge allow those remote in time and distance to learn from the experience and knowledge of others.”
― Michael E. Gorman, Our Enduring Values Revisited: Librarianship in an Ever-Changing World