Sitting in front of his 30-inch flat panel computer monitor, next to his laptop and digital clock, Virtual Dave explains how we live in a virtual world. Books are now digital documents just put onto paper. Banks now create virtual identities to keep virtual credit. Libraries are now evolving from bookshelves to online databases.

Despite all of his cyberspace knowledge, Virtual Dave does his best work in reality, as R. David Lankes, an associate professor at the School of Information Studies. His father coined the nickname, Virtual Dave, while Lankes managed a virtual lab as an undergraduate student at Syracuse. It stuck, and that’s how the professor greets every visitor to his Web site.

For Lankes, working with technology isn’t just his day job. He said evolving technology can change the world and not just in the figurative sense.

‘They’re nice contained worlds,’ Lankes said. ‘So sometimes when you’re dealing with really complex, nasty problems – political problems, people problems, things without easy solutions – technology will work if you give it a battery and plug the wire in right. It’s a challenge, but you know there’s a solution.’

Lankes was one of the pioneers of the World Wide Web. When it first emerged, he was part of a team that created one of the first 100 Web sites. The project, called the ERIC Clearinghouse, generated the first Web presence for the Discovery Channel and created some of the first Web content for CNN.

Michael Eisenberg was one of the team members who worked on the ERIC project, now known as the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS).

Eisenberg, the current dean emeritus of University of Washington’s Information School, remembers Lankes coming to work anxious about new ideas or technologies he thought could be utilized. Soon, the two were making regular trips to Washington D.C. to advise the government on how to use technology in schools.

‘We taught the U.S. Department of Education in particular about technology, about what was possible,’ Eisenberg said. ‘We didn’t invent Yahoo! or Google or something like that, but we could have. Dave could have.’

While Eisenberg saw potential in Lankes from the start, others did not. Growing up, adults criticized his work ethic. Lankes described high school as the hardest thing he has ever done. He failed to apply himself in classes that he was uninterested in. In chemistry, he had a 95 percent test average but a zero percent homework average. It was classes like these that nearly got him kicked out of school.

‘Well, let’s just put it this way, he didn’t like to do any homework,’ said Lanke’s mother, Elizabeth Lankes Stephens. ‘He did fine in the classroom, he just didn’t see any reason to do homework.’

From elementary school through high school, Lankes aspired to be a cartoonist. His teachers recognized his academic potential, but criticized him for not applying himself.

‘I grew up with everyone telling me I was a procrastinator, and everyone telling me I was never living up to my full potential,’ Lankes said. ‘And that always annoyed me because if I never lived up to it – how did they know what it really was?’

He describes himself as a broad thinker with grand aspirations of how technology can change the world. But when technology gets him too far away from reality, technology brings him back.

Another anchor to reality for Lankes has been his family. His wife, Anna Maria Lankes, said her husband brings his enthusiasm about his work home with him. She accompanied him on a trip to Australia earlier this year, where he spoke about the developing world of library technology, the focus of much of his research.

‘He sees the big picture,’ she said. ‘He sees things long-term, and he figures out where it is that he thinks the area should be going and he figures out the best way how to get there. He really is a very global thinker.’

In his early years as a professor, Lankes frequently traveled between Washington D.C. and Syracuse, often flying there and back in a single day. He and Eisenberg spent many hours in the USAir club lounge in the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was there that some of Lankes’ technological aspirations began to materialize.

‘We were going to change the world,’ Eisenberg said. ‘And in some ways we did, particularly in education.’

Lankes is now the executive director of IIS, a think-tank for library and information technology. IIS has been integral in some major advances in library technology developed by the group. They developed an ‘ask a librarian’ button, which puts the user in contact with a librarian through e-mail, instant messaging or a live Web chat.

‘If you want to see the latest phone or computer, just go see Dave,’ said Joanne Silverstein, one of Lankes’ colleagues. ‘If it lights up or plays music, he’s got it. One of my proudest moments was when he said I picked out a better PDA than he did.’

For most, the latest technology provides a unique gizmo for one to enjoy for fun. For Lankes, tinkering with technology helps keep him focused. It brings him back into reality when his mind leads him far from it.

‘I’ve always been schizophrenic between thinking big thoughts and thinking really tiny ones,’ Lankes said. ‘How to change the world and then how to adjust the preferences on this program.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on March 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm