I had a great visit today to the research library at The McLuhan Institute, run by Andrew McLuhan and stocked with his father Eric’s vast collection of materials. It’s an extra-acadamic resource for studying media, containing many historical and current books (presently being catalogued) marked-up and annotated by Eric McLuhan, tying them into and updating the legacy of Marshall McLuhan’s media work. I found lots of interesting things penciled in the books I flipped through.

For instance, in Virtual Reality by Howard Rheingold I found some underlines Eric made in this paragraph of page 16.

Imagine a wraparound television with three-dimensional programs, including three-dimensional sound, and solid objects that you can pick up and manipulate, even feel with your fingers and hands. Imagine immersing yourself in an artificial world and actively exploring it, rather than peering in at it from a fixed perspective through a flat screen in a movie theater, on a television set, or on a computer display. Imagine that you are the creator as well as the consumer of your artificial experience, with the power to use a gesture or word to remold the world you see and hear and feel. That part is not fiction. The head-mounted displays (HMDs) and three-dimensional computer graphics, input/output devices, computer models that constitute a VR system make it possible, today, to immerse yourself in an artificial world and to reach in and reshape it.

In the left-hand column next to the second underline, where it says “gesture or word”, Eric has written the annotation “logos”.

And also inside the book was this interesting business card—check out that email address!

There is also a book store containing first editions of many hard-to-find McLuhan books—I was able to complete my collection while supporting this wonderful, one-of-a-kind resource. Supporting The McLuhan Institute with some purchases or on Patreon is an investment in our collective future. But, most important thing is to actually go read the books! If you are able to make it to Picton, ON and need to consult a 21st century (or nineties) McLuhan I’d definitely give Andrew a shout.