IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of procrastination, it was the age of Mountain Dew. It was the age of frozen microwave dinners, it was the age of chocolate milk. This, (for better or worse) however, is not “A Tale of Two Cities.” Neither is this “A Tale of the Eating Habits of a Single Male College Student.” This, my astute reader, is “A Tale of Two Libraries.”
The first library is that which lies in the present and the past. It is the library that has spanned countless generations and civilizations around the globe. This library is a monument to human achievement; not only in the knowledge contained therein, but to the meticulous detail and thought which have gone into the categorical organization of such knowledge.
The second library is that which lies in the future. Books still exist, as do librarians, except computers have slowly begun to replace the human factor that lends a library its character.
But what happens when the computers go down? The answer is that a library can become a very scary place.
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4 comments:
Hi, I wrote the article you mentioned here on this blog. I couldn't figure out how it was getting so many hits on our school paper's website until I came across your site.
Just wanted to say thanks for my fifteen minutes ;-)! Libraries rock!
Dave Bachtel
Marietta, GA
Thank you for writing the piece. You have a great writing style--plus it doesn't hurt that your topic was near and dear to my heart. Say, have you ever thought about becoming a librarian? ;-)
thought is definetly the key word. ;-)
I tend to think of most librarians as being both patient and meticulous, qualities that I often lack. I'm on the other side of the fence. As a programmer (and a member of generation Y) I find I tend to demand instant gratification (which can be good or bad).
But I do, and I always will have alot of respect for librarians!
I am still new to the newspaper writing thing, and its definetly encouraging to know that there are people somewhere reading the stuff that you write. I hope that with time, I can become a better reporter too. My news pieces tend to be verbose and read more like magazine articles than something you would find in a newspaper. But it's a learning process, and I'm definetly still learning. :-)
Just curious, did you find the article through a google news alert?
Thanks,
Dave Bachtel
Marietta, GA
I tend to think of most librarians as being both patient and meticulous :-) That makes me smile--mainly because that describes my husband (a research scientist) and not me (I'm the one who's probably borderline ADHD). I actually think I went into librarianship because of the instant gratification--be it seeing a cataloging record appear to the public immediately after clicking that save button or seeing the Ah Ha! moment on a patrons face when they realize how much information is easily and quickly available to them.
But I digress (and try to recruit too much)-- I actually think your story came across the Yahoo News Alerts as opposed to Google--surprisingly enough they return different stories pretty frequently.
I wish you luck in the newspaper field--of course keep in mind librarianship is always a great 2nd career field too. ;-)
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