Whether automation helps or hurts workers is on an ongoing question. Here, at the beginning of the information age, a blinking, whirring, wall-sized EMERAC computer (a play on the real-life ENIAC) puts a group of reference librarians to shame in a scene from Desk Set (1957). Yep, there are pink slips in those pay envelopes. Of course, “Emmy” herself was replaced by a newer, smaller, faster model long ago.
