New computers!

Jenny and Becca are posing here with the stack 'o boxes containing our new computers and monitors. The Systems people will be here in the coming days to install them and cycle the old machines to different purposes.



These beauties come loaded with all kinds of productivity software, from word processing to CD/DVD burning. It's a big departure in philosopy for the University Library, which has historically confined public computer use to "library" research purposes simply by not installing productivity software. For a long time, e-mail was also restricted, until web-based e-mail made it too pervasive to prohibit. Now I think we have a better understanding of how people actually search for information, which generally involves moving freely among information, communication, and productivity technologies. I've long felt this way, but was reluctant to push the issue because we have so few computers in our library -- these four and the one we purchased with the prize money from our website design award (yes, we're a small, small shop!). All it takes is three students writing papers or reading their e-mail and only two computers are left for research. But I'm ready to try it now. After all, we've never had a problem when classes come in. The web surfers graciously move to a lab, pick up People or Sports Illustrated, or go back to doing math homework.

And to think that when I started here, we had one dumb terminal that had to be booted up from - I kid you not - a cassette tape player. I won't tell you what year that was.