This year I’m adventuring with Douglas Adams’ science fiction series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just started the fifth book in the “increasingly misnamed trilogy.” I now appreciate just how handy a towel can be, and I share in the relief that “DON’T PANIC,” is written in reassuring letters on the cover of the encyclopedic tome that gives the series its name, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
During one of our recent reading sessions, my husband noted that The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a precursor to a modern technology so ubiquitous it has become a household word: Wikipedia is essentially a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Criticism of collaborative knowledge repositories abounds, but no matter the pros and cons of Wikipedia, there’s no doubt its presence has changed our reality.
As I researched the parallels between Wikipedia and the science fictional Hitchhiker’s Guide, I learned that author of the series, Douglas Adams, actually founded an online collaborative encyclopedia based on the Guide. Here is his vision statement of what he hoped to create with the Earth Edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide:
“A collaborative guide, one that was written and kept up to date by the people who use it, in real time.”
He also wanted to h2g2.com to be:
“A place to share knowledge and celebrate the things you love by writing about them.”
Adams’ vision became a reality in 1999, two years before the launch of Wikipedia.
It’s so cool to look back and see what science fictional technologies have now become part of our everyday lives. But it’s a rare thing, indeed, to see an author reach beyond his fictional creation and bring his ideas into the practical world.
htg2.com has had its ups and downs, and its inspirational founder is no longer alive. But The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition is still up and running. Recent entries include The Beatles Blue Album and The Potato Dumpling War of 1967. htg2.com looks like a wonderful source to learn all kinds of things I never even knew I didn’t know.