Subject:
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Re: Modern Libraries (was Re: Bad news for TRU)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 31 Jan 2002 22:36:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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657 times
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Erik Olson wrote:
>
> Alas for "dead storage".
>
> Do less people browse now?
>
> There is nothing like flipping through the card catalog just to discover the
> breadth and depth of what exists.
>
> There is nothing like wandering the stacks and discovering that your library
> posesses handmade books, one-offs, journals with all the minutiae intact
> such as announcements.
>
> One of the oddest browsing experiences I have had was to physically show up
> at the Troy Public Library to retrieve some odd art books, to discover that
> the entire library--two floors--is cast iron. The shelves, the floors, the
> bannisters, NOT the books.
>
> Keep computers in their place -- save the card catalog.
I liked RPI's online card catalog. The nicest part was you could log in
remotely and use it. It also had an extremely nice search engine, where
you could expand and shrink your search. I never tested it for how
complete the coverage was, and I forget what exactly led me to things
like NASA bulletins while researching stuff for games (I did a LOT of
research for SF games, but also some for fantasy games - the most
notable item discovered while researching stuff for a desert campaign
was about donkeys and how they are actually somewhat better than camels,
in part because how quick they can tank up. Most mammals can get water
poisoning by drinking too much at once, but one researcher noted that a
donkey could completely fill it's digestive system in one go - the
indication: while watching a donkey tank up, he noted one sucking it
down until the point some squirted out the other end...).
Of course, having written a Master's Thesis, the cool thing is you can
find me with an author search...
You can't find my dad by author search, but if you go look up "Handbook
of Geophysics and Space Environs" you'll find they have at least one
publication with my dad's name (they may have more, I don't think I ever
exhausted the search of the publications they had which I found near the
NASA reports published by the Air Force Geophysics Lab aka the Air Force
Cambridge Research Laboratories - I know I did find at least one such
report with a co-worker of my dad's).
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Modern Libraries (was Re: Bad news for TRU)
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| Alas for "dead storage". Do less people browse now? There is nothing like flipping through the card catalog just to discover the breadth and depth of what exists. There is nothing like wandering the stacks and discovering that your library posesses (...) (23 years ago, 31-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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