Backcover:
Break-throughs: Astonishing advances in your lifetime in medicine, science and technology
Panati
1980
This is one of my favorites! Check out the predictions on the back cover. Don’t worry kids flying trains and do it yourself abortion kits are on the way! I especially am waiting for that pill that allows me to eat whatever I want and not gain an ounce! Beam me up, Scotty! (I happen to know that this library automated in the mid 90’s so AGAIN I ask myself what possessed some staff person to stick a barcode on something so awful and outdated EVEN in the mid 90’s in 2009 it is just SAD!)
18 responses so far ↓
gothougeekly // May 21, 2009 at 4:24 pm |
Saw a reference to this blog on ALA Direct, and had to come take a look, partially because of the fun subject and partially because I’m in my very first MLS class: Collection Development Policies and Plans. You gotta love books like this, and I had no idea as a patron that I could point out obviously outdated books to the harried staff. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen things about “modern” anything on the shelf that were at least 30 years out of date. With the pace of change, though, I’m wondering how we will be able to keep up. Run the catalog for publication dates? Search keywords? Scour the stacks?
betani // May 21, 2009 at 7:13 pm |
Oh, good grief! This just might trump the Y2K book that was still on our shelves a year or two after the fact.
Steve // May 21, 2009 at 9:34 pm |
Historical significance? Maybe it should be moved to the anthro section.
ZenKimchi // May 31, 2009 at 3:13 am |
“Check out the predictions on the back cover.”
Kinda hard to. The pic is too small. Do you have a link to a larger version that’s readable?
marykelly48 // June 1, 2009 at 11:45 am |
Sorry! Stupidly I didn’t check and see if it was readable from the “outside”. Chalk this up to my newbie status as a blogger!
ZenKimchi // June 1, 2009 at 12:16 pm |
I just don’t want to miss any good drops of comedy goodness.
Kathryn // June 4, 2009 at 10:26 am |
I love that we should have had tamed hurricanes 11 years BEFORE Katrina.
Jonathan Badger // June 6, 2009 at 12:45 pm |
I don’t know — there exist blogs like PaleoFuture which are into outdated future predictions. I think a lot of people enjoy reading about what people in earlier generations thought the future would be like.
Futurist books are pretty cheesy even when first published, so it’s not like they really can give any dangerous misinformation the way old medical or scientific works can.
Ety // June 6, 2009 at 7:31 pm |
I would gladly buy that book right now. I have a thing for retro-futurist stuff, and that’s just beautiful.
Bob // June 7, 2009 at 3:17 pm |
From perusing the back cover of this book, the author seems to have gotten more than a few things right. MRI scanners, personal computers, RU 482.
It should sell pretty quickly at the Library’s book sale.
Kento // July 1, 2009 at 2:32 am |
Home computers…?
kieran // July 21, 2009 at 3:29 pm |
This makes me wonder how accurate our depiction of history is.
Courtney // July 21, 2009 at 11:37 pm |
It’s funny how precise his predictions are. He must have had some inside information, perhaps from voices in his head…
Michelle // July 23, 2009 at 7:14 am |
Some of the predictions are quite on the money. The anti-pregnancy vaccine is practically right with people using implants, the safe at home abortions has come to pass, early stage abortions are usually carried out by taking a couple of pills.
I also like that they recognise Fusion as our ideal energy production method, most of the world is still behind the book in that respect!
Morraeon // July 24, 2009 at 12:17 pm |
:: Reads the line on hurricanes being tamed, looks sadly in the general direction of New Orleans::
Mrs. Micah // August 14, 2009 at 4:36 pm |
Wow, so right and so wrong. Interferon is one of the things my mom uses for her cancer treatments.
But with getting a couple…nearly…right (albeit timing wrong), no reason to have that book. It’s clearly an era-specific one, like a Kelly Blue Book.
Carly // August 26, 2009 at 6:19 pm |
I laughed at this book. Controlling hurricanes after 1994? Not so much. Katrina and Gustav anyone?
melpy // December 2, 2009 at 6:08 pm |
Wow…literally everything on the back cover was ridiculous until I got to home computers…hahahahaha.