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In lugnet.market.shopping, Kerry Raymond writes:
> > I have noticed a couple of Australian stores undergo this renovation.
> > In Sydney(AUS), Parramatta, Chatswood and Moore Park have gone from library
> > mode to carousel format. The LEGO section was moved from up against a back
> > wall to a much more visible sector of the central core of the store.
> > A TRU I saw in Melbourne was already in this format.
>
> I dunno how much time you spend in modern libraries, but from the sound of it,
> I think TRUs are just catching up with the modern library. The modern library
> consists of lots of curvy-shaped tables with PCs everywhere with a few
> carousels of books dotted here and there, some bean bags, and a big rug for
> story-telling time. That's the way it is at most community libraries.
>
> [start ranting]
>
> Here at the university (with all the heavy-duty thinking that supposedly goes
> on), we have several large multi-storey libraries, but even so, you have to
> travel to the upper reaches of the ionosphere to actually encounter the
> traditional book stacks. Most books are being carted off to warehouses where
> they can be retrieved at enormous inconvenience should some luddite library
> user actually want one. The modern library user apparently prefers to use the
> WWW or the CD-ROM databases in preference to books. We have groups of comfy
> chairs, and some of them are curvy too, because our libraries must be hip and
> funky if we expect undergraduates to visit them. It's clearly successful as
> our libraries are awash with undergraduates surfing the WWW. I never realised
> how many of them needed to study movies, motorcycles etc as part of their
> degree, but I guess our degrees are probably more funky these days too
> (Bachelor of Commerce with double major in Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance).
As a heavy user, the modern library is where it is at. I can now usually
download obscure journal papers in seconds rather than waiting a couple of
weeks for hard copies to appear (usually it would be a "dud", or I had moved
on since then.) I can check to see if a book is on the shelf or reserve it
from my desk. If it is on the shelf, I can often find a review of it before
I lumber up to the library to get it.
That said, I still request books heavily. If your library does not have a
book you want (or it is only on CD) - make a request!
Scott A
As
> far as I know, we have yet to install any story-telling rugs, but with the
> constant dumbing-down of undergraduate degrees, I guess it's just a matter of
> time. "Now, today, children, we are going to read a story about Cissy the C
> Programmer and how she found Peter Program's memory leak."
>
> Indeed, if you inspect our library WWW site http://www.library.uq.edu.au/ you
> will see that we don't call it a library anymore; we call it a "cybrary"
> instead and if you look in the FAQ, you will see "book" mentioned only once
> but lots of mentions of computers, email, and Internet access.
>
> [end ranting]
>
> Personally, I like having Lego in high shelves, as small children can only
> reach the lower levels thus ensuring that some stock survives the slobber
> factor. And besides, speaking as one of the elderly of LUGnet, the knees are
> the first joint to go, and so reaching those bottom shelves is more of a
> challenge :-) Ironically, most toy stores (like TRU here) that use high
> shelves tend to put the Duplo and Primo at the top and the UCS and technics
> sets at the bottom. This strikes me as being dumb as toast. Far better, I
> would have thought to put the little-kid Lego at the bottom and the robotics
> etc at the top, reflecting the height of the intended user. If all the toy
> stores go kiddy-low, I can see myself having to hail the sales assistant to
> ask "Young man, can you get that set on the *bottom* shelf for me please?". I
> guess I will just have to shop on-line more as I get older :-)
>
> Actually one thing that TRU gets right is their trolleys, they are some of the
> biggest and can hold a lot more Lego than the stores with smaller trolleys or
> none at all. Given that any retail study finds that people's purchases are
> limited by their ability to carry them, I am often perplexed by the toy stores
> that offer me a carry basket which won't fit anything bigger than an impulse
> set. How do they expect us to buy a Silver Champion with a mere basket?
>
> Kerry
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Modern Libraries (was Re: Bad news for TRU)
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| In lugnet.market.shopping, Scott Arthur writes: (snip of message which led to Scott Arthur's response) (...) My experience is that all of this is PARTLY true. On the good side, as Scott suggests, you can often get articles from journals which (...) (23 years ago, 30-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Bad news for TRU
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| (...) I dunno how much time you spend in modern libraries, but from the sound of it, I think TRUs are just catching up with the modern library. The modern library consists of lots of curvy-shaped tables with PCs everywhere with a few carousels of (...) (23 years ago, 29-Jan-02, to lugnet.market.shopping, lugnet.loc.au)
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