The Association of Finnish Non-Fiction Writers celebrated its 30th anniversary last Thursday at Finlandia Hall. The best part of the program was a panel discussion about changes in our knowledge environment. The panel was chaired by Arto Nyberg, and the participants were Mikko Lehtonen, Markus Leikola, Kirsti Lonka, Hanna Nikkanen and Fredrick Rahka. The discussion was stimulated by the usual anti-Internet suspects: knowledge is becoming superficial, the number of new books is decreasing, and literacy is going to collapse. Fortunately, these aren’t ideas the debaters cling to. In fact, they support all forms of reading and writing.Kirsti Lonka noted that the author is not the same person after writing a book, because he has reorganized his store of knowledge. This knowledge building is so important in learning that students need to actively create content and not simply take in what’s presented. It’s fine with Markus Leikola that people seek information from the Internet, as long as they assess the quality and are willing to go to the sixteenth Google result page and even further. According to Mikko Lehtonen people imagine that in the past there was a golden age of reading, compared to which things have declined greatly. If ever there were such a golden age of literacy, he says, it’s our own.