The Tech in My Life #9: Borrowing Library Books

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These days, borrowing books from a library is simply a matter of scanning your plastic reader’s card, and then scanning each item, and making sure the titles you borrow correspond to those listed on the terminal screen before you walk out.

Once upon a time, it was all done with cardboard tickets and date stamps: each borrower had a card pocket to hold tickets equivalent to the number of books you were allowed to borrow at any one time; and each book had a pocket to hold a unique title card, alongside a pasted-in sheet showing the date by when the book was to be returned.

To borrow a book, you took it to the counter where a librarian would take the card from the book and place it along with your borrower’s ticket into a filing system organised by return dates, and each book would be stamped with the corresponding date. The whole process was run in reverse when you took the book back.

In the early 1970s, when I used to borrow books from the Adelaide City library, there was an interim technology, that at the time seemed very futuristic. It still used paper borrower’s tickets, but from memory, instead of each book having a title card, the system used an encoded magnetic strip or microchip. The book was scanned, alongside an image of the borrower’s ticket, and out came a photostat strip of paper with the borrower’s number and the list of books being taken out. I don’t recall seeing this library technology in use any where else, and I may have got some of the details wrong – but in essence, it was an early form of the scanning system in use today.

Next week #10: Portable music

The Tech in My Life #8: Overhead Projectors

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As with Roneo and Banda machines, school also introduced me to overhead projectors – the presentation tool that pre-dated PowerPoint and digital projectors.

Some teachers would diligently prepare the transparent sheets in advance, and hope that the ink wouldn’t rub off or smudge ahead of time. I seem to recall that some lessons involved pre-printed crib sheets, that teachers would annotate by hand in real time. Others simply made it up as they went along – hopefully, they remembered not to write directly on the projection bed with a permanent marker, but used the special pens whose ink could be easily wiped off afterwards.

This rudimentary technology survived into my time at university, and even into my early corporate life – before laptops became ubiquitous. Nowadays, even a Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote or Google Slide presentation can seem quaint, as audiences increasingly demand/expect more immersive content. But maybe a return to simpler formats would prove the adage that “less is more”?

Next week #9: Borrowing Library Books

The Tech in My Life #7: Stencil and Spirit Duplicators

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Before Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop and print-on-demand services, “desktop publishing” meant stencil machines and spirit duplicators. Mostly known by their brand names such as Roneo (mimeograph or stencil duplicator) and Banda (ditto machine or spirit duplicator), these printing presses were small enough to be operated on an actual desktop. They were perfect for self-publishing small print runs of home-made magazines and newsletters.

At school, teachers used them to make handouts and quizzes. In years 11 and 12, my friends and I produced several issues of an alternative school magazine using a Gestetner stencil duplicator. Fiddly work, but highly satisfying when everything went right.

Most people will probably remember them for the heady smell of the chemicals they used. Thanks to health and safety concerns (as well as cheaper photocopying and better flatbed scanners), these machines are no longer anywhere to be seen.

The core technology lives on in the form of Risographs, a 1980’s invention that has seen renewed interest in recent years among zines and comics – mainly because the economics can work out better than photocopying, inkjet printing, laser printing or traditional offset printing, and because the process uses more organic soy-based inks.

Next week #8: Overhead Projectors

 

The Tech in My Life #6: Microfiche

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If we accept that knowledge is power, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely*, then librarians are potentially the most corrupt people in the world: they have access to infinite sources of information, over which they often hold the keys.

I was reminded of the power that lies within libraries during a tour of the recently refurbished State Library of Victoria. In the newspaper archive, there were cabinets full of microfiche, the old analogue technology that has outlived many digital formats.

Microfiche is ideal for preserving volumes of old newspapers, given its ability to capture facsimile images of each page, reduce storage space and avoid acid decay of old newsprint. And, with tools like optical character recognition (OCR), it is even possible to create detailed indexing and metadata not previously available with physical microfiche itself.

I recall the first time I used a library microfiche – for a school history project, researching 19th century newspapers. Later on at university, I had access to numerous archives, but you still needed to know how to navigate the index files to locate the specific records and documents (this was long before the wide availability of library computers, databases and online search). In one instance, students were required to undertake a short course on how to use the materials before they were given access – a perfect example of librarians as knowledge gatekeepers!

* Apologies to Sir Francis Bacon and Lord Acton for this conflated mashup…

Next week #7: Stencil & Spirit Duplicators