ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


3 0  /  C&RL News ■ January 2002

College & Research Libraries news

Archaeology and evolution

What happens when you clean your office

by Denise Beaubien Bennett

T
o celebrate the arrival of som e n ew  of 
flee furniture, the inhabitants of the Elec­
tronic Formats Unit in the M arston Scie

Library at the University of Florida cleaned 
the entire area. We w ere fortunate to have 
Student Assistant Allan, w h o  doubles as com ­
p u ter geek an d  neatnik, o n  th e payroll dur­
ing o u r cleanup.

T hose of us w h o  have survived the tech ­
nical revolution in libraries tend to react w ith 
bem usem ent w h en  w e encounter relics while 
cleaning o u r offices. But Allan is in his early 
20s, and he reacted w ith wonder, am azement, 
and reverence as he d u g  through the layers 
o f accum ulated treasures.

Allan u n e a rth e d  a H ypercard  package, 
circa 1990. “I d o n ’t k n o w  w h at this is, but it 
looks pretty cool!” I explained how  Apple 
developed th e program  to hyperlink discrete 
“cards” w ithin a “stack,” years before the Web 
exploded.

Next cam e a stack of floppy/C D  mailers, 
m ade o f corrugated cardboard. Allan ask ed  if 
he could toss them . I said that w e u se d  them  
frequently back in the g o o d  old days, w h en  
w e m ailed floppies a ro u n d  an d  h ad  to return 
o u td a te d  CD-ROMs to th e  p ublishers. H e 
lo o k ed  puzzled, an d  I ex p lain ed  that librar­
ies subscribed to CDs for years before the 
jew el case w as invented.

Allan’s eyes filled w ith pity. Faculty m em ­
b e r Jo h n  added, “Yes, an d  th e first CDs w ere 
m ade o f w ood!”

nce

T hen cam e the prize— a b o x  w ith a DOS 
3.30 m anual an d  an accom panying 5.25" dis­
 kette. “I k n ew  these existed, b u t I’ve never 
seen  or to uched on e before!” Allan especially 
ap p reciated  seeing “IBM” splashed over the 
m anual a n d  diskette. H e k n ew  that DOS was 
originally d e v elo p e d  by Microsoft for IBM, 
bu t h e  w as unaccustom ed to seeing IBM re­
ceive the to p  billing. Allan m o u rn ed  that he 
lacked access to a 5.25" floppy drive.

In addition to  th e DOS m anual, Allan was 
surprised to see the n u m b er o f o lder soft­
w are packages that contained p rinted m an u ­
als. We explained that p eo p le did (an d  m any 
still do) prefer to  consult p rin ted  manuals, 
an d  also that old diskettes d id n ’t have enough 
room  to  store m anuals as w ell as program s.

P erhaps I sh o u ld  feel em barrassm ent over 
the length of time it took us to clean o u t the 
office. But I’m  h ap p y  w e saved the arch aeo ­
logical dig for Allan, w h o  truly appreciated 
handling the relics an d  learning about the 
evolution o f the technology from physical 
pieces to n etw o rk ed  resources. He regarded 
the process as a history lesson.

Allan’s reactions will serve to rem ind m e of 
the perspective of the current generation of 
students. They handle CDs and floppies, but 
they expect all library resources to be n et­
w orked and W eb-based. And the next time 
o n e of your netw orked services crashes, spare 
a moment of thought for the days w hen w e had 
to reload crashed programs from floppies. ■

About the author

Denise Beaubien Bennett is reference librarian, engineering selector, a nd  online coordinator a t the M arston Science Library 
a t  the University o f  Florida, e -m ail:denise@smathersnt2.uflib.ufl.edu

mailto:denise@smathersnt2.uflib.ufl.edu