Double Fold

Reading Double Fold, by Nicholson Baker, has led me to reflect on the many changes I've seen while working in a large suburban public library. When I had my first job there as a page (30 years ago!), I was frequently called to the circ desk to get magazines out of storage for patrons - either from a room on the same level, or from the attic of the adjacent building (an historic home).

I soon became a helper for the desk assistant who was in charge of periodicals. A few times a year, it was my job to move magazines from the Adult Library into storage. The shelves were very crowded, and my supervisor always told me to "save everything." (Baker would have been pleased.)

By mid-week, there were piles and piles of magazines and newspapers that patrons had requested - waiting for me to reshelve them.

As the years went by, we saved less and less (although we still have National Geographic back to 1917 in the attic - not the best place imaginable). Now we use only two or three bookcases in the first-floor storage area for magazines - just enough to temporarily de-clutter the display area in the library. At the beginning of next year, the custodian will put most of those magazines in the recycling bin.

Oh, I almost forgot. Bound volumes of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (back to 1929) reside in the attic, too. When I point them out to our new student pages on the "tour", they look puzzled - then amazed when I tell them how they were used.

Once in a long while, a patron wants to see a volume or two!

Just for Fun (Revised)

This is just to demonstrate that I finally tried Scribefire as a way to post to my blog.



Bill Gates: The Early Years | Photo Essays | TIME

Just for Fun

OK, this won't count as my third blog entry this week, but you could say it's related to LIS 2600. Check out these photos that will be in the new issue of Time.

Firefox Fixed (Or, My Brother to the Rescue)

On June 1, I wrote about my inability to access the university's digital library while using Firefox as my browser. My wonderful brother logged in to my computer remotely and discovered that although I had the latest Java update installed, Firefox did not like the fact that old versions were still lurking. Once he removed them, all was well. The Host Checker stopped its never-ending "check" and finally got down to business. What a relief when I finally saw that I was getting access! (For some reason, the old Java versions did not cause a problem in Explorer.)

Thank goodness for a brother who works in IT all day and still has the patience to help me with my computer!

It's time to get up and stretch. I've been sitting in front of this computer for almost four hours.

Settling in?

Recent days have been much more difficult for me than the first two weeks of class. Apparently, this would be the opposite of the norm, according to our professors. Today I had a chance to speak with two people about this - a teacher and a coworker.

My junior high U.S. History teacher tutors in my library. I told him that being in grad school is like having two full-time jobs. I'm spending many hours on coursework after working in my library for eight hours, and I feel like I'll never get ahead. He advised that it takes about a month for the new routine to take hold. Then he reminded me that I've always been a good student and that everything will be fine; it might be a little harder since I haven't been in school for a long time.

I've also been speaking with one of our reference librarians about all the required reading, the recommendation against reading every word, and the "completion not perfection" mantra. I don't like the idea of skimming; I want to absorb everything. Well, now I'm trying to look for main points in certain types of assignments. My friend said that she thinks the professors are teaching us how to handle the huge amounts of information we'll handle in our professional careers on a daily basis. She pointed out that this is especially important for me, since my goal is to work in leadership roles in public libraries after graduation.

Back to the books....

The Internet as an Interactive Medium

This excerpt of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, includes passages that are directly related to our coursework about information and how it is distributed. Gore contrasts television, which "dominates the flow of information" with the Internet and its potential "to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework" and to connect "individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge." I've reserved the book at my library.

Frustrations with Firefox

Only one frustration, actually. For some reason, I can not access the university's online library using Firefox. I get to the Host Check screen, and it looks like data is being transferred, but it never finishes. The Help Desk staff told me that I won't be able to use Firefox to get into the library - something about an recent upgrade preventing its use.

I've learned through the Discussion Board that you can't use a Mac for this purpose, but that's not the problem.

The Secure VPN Service instructions state that Firefox 2.0 with Sun JRE 1.5 is compatible. What is Sun JRE 1.5? Is it an automatic component of the latest edition of Firefox? I'll have to find out. Could that be the missing link?

I was moving along O.K. until now. I know we've been told that things won't always work smoothly and that frustration will be a part of online studies. Stay tuned.