Computer and Library Learning (Archived)

Herbert Marshall McLuhan would have been 100 years old today were he still alive. On the surface, he was an English literature professor at the University of Toronto as well as a literary critic, a communications theorist and a rhetorician. He became an influential figure in media theory that came up with famous expressions such as “the global village” and “the medium is the message”.

On a CBC broadcast on April 1, 1965 (See: McLuhan predicts 'world connectivity'), McLuhan showed prescience in predicting that people would not only gather in classrooms to learn but would also do so through “electronic circuitry” (i.e. the Internet).  On a May 18, 1960 CBC broadcast (See: World is a global village), McLuhan discussed the importance of television changing the world into a “global village” or an “interconnected tribe” in which people find out what is happening all around the world, and the comfort of teenagers in using devices such as telephones and televisions to communicate and receive this information.

McLuhan predicted the onset of the Internet as an “extension of consciousness” in his book, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962), winner of the Governor-General’s Award for Non-Fiction (1962) and available for loan through Toronto Public Library.

McLuhan used the phrase “the medium is the message” in Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man (1964), available for loan from the Toronto Public Library, in which the medium used should be the focus of examination rather than the content within that medium.

Click here for a full list of titles by author Marshall McLuhan available at the Toronto Public Library.

Click here for a full list of titles about Marshall McLuhan (as a subject, including biographies) available at the Toronto Public Library. Here are several examples:

Marshall McLuhan (2010) by Douglas Coupland (part of the Extraordinary Canadians series)

Marshall McLuhan: Wise Guy (2001) by Judith Fitzgerald

McLuhan: a Guide for the Perplexed (2010) by W. Terrence Gordon

Click here for information about the McLuhan100 lecture series offered at the Toronto Reference Library, including McLuhan 100: McLuhan’s Legacy (Monday, August 15, 2011 – 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) and McLuhan 100: Toronto’s Future in McLuhan’s Global Village (Monday, September 26, 2011 – 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.).