Welcome to Orcmid's Lair, the playground for family connections, pastimes, and scholarly vocation -- the collected professional and recreational work of Dennis E. Hamilton

 

Libraries Are About, Umm, Books, Aren't They?

Jon Udell: Goldberger vs. Pleas.  I live in Seattle, and I want to see what the new main-branch library is going to bring us.  While they were tearing down the old main-branch library to make room for the new one, the collection was moved to temporary quarters that I visited last year during an Itek conference in the adjoining Convention Center.  The collection seemed to be in dismal shape, especially in science and technology.  I want to see what it is like when it is rehoused in the peculiar architectural adventure that is the new edifice.

My neighborhood branch library, in West Seattle, recently reopened after renovations for preservation of the 1910 structure and for necessary upgrading with regard to earthquake survival.  The interior is more fascinating than the exterior, although the exterior setting and entrance to the library are pleasant.  It's a small libary and, while I also grumble about the quality of the collection, I have found books here that I didn't know about. I treasure the discovery of their availability.  This local branch is also a good source of escape fiction for the housebound. I am making regular book runs while Vicki convalesces from a recent leg surgery.

I remember when the previous Seattle main-branch library was built. There, one day in 1961, I was looking for information on computers and I discovered a shelf of Communications of the ACM.  I had never seen the publication, and it was amazing to read the Report on ALGOL 60 and then work back through all of the 1960 issues.  I sent in my membership application that day, and I also resolved to go down to the 1961 National Meeting, being held in Los Angeles.  This, combined with my having just been fired by the Seattle office of Remington Rand Univac (hence my having time to explore the library) and receiving a notice for pre-induction physical expanded to a major course-change in my nerdy life.  I wasn't inducted and I reported to the New York City headquarters of Remington Rand, having converted dismissal to a transfer into a software-development organization where, for a time, I was Univac's Mr. Algol.

When I visit the new new main-branch library, I wonder if there remains anything that offers others an invitation into new territory like that which inspired my adventure into the unfolding of computer science.
posted by orcmid at 5/20/2004 11:38:13 AM