I was reading my brother's blog today (he is a great, witty writer)and he was ruminating about his time with Ma Bell - Bell Telephone - and rubbing elbows with the creative types at Bell Labs (whose researchers developed radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, C and C++ programming languages). He wrote about how he knew everything about how telephones work when working there, and kept up with the all changes, while the older researchers kept up only in their slice of work and were quaintly fuzzy about modern phones. He remembers being very judgmental about it, until he retired and now realizes he hasn't a clue about modern telephony, as much as he continues to purchase and tinker with the most modern gadgets and electronics.
And that is the thing of it. It is easy to focus on the details of living each day, and suddenly realize that the parade is passing by - or has passed and is out of sight around the corner - and you realize with a jolt just how out of step you are with things many people take as vital parts of their lifestyles. We see that every day here, people changing jobs and suddenly having to be adept with navigating complex, online application processes and online training modules. We see that with people coming in asking us to help them with their new phone, new tablet, new reader. And we keep up with the times, we make sure we can meet these needs as always. We are glad that people think of us when they need help - it is what we are here for.
But that said, we suddenly woke up to a parade whizzing by and we needed to do some running to get to the front again. What parade? Well, we realized that our public computers are all running Windows XP and not able to support some important upgrades. While we get new computers each year, we have a lot, and the rotation is at least 7 years per computer - a long time in computer years.
So, we just want you to know - we see the parade, and we know what we need to do, and we are starting with our next budget cycle with a new focus on the physical side of the digital world here inside the library. We have been keeping up with the virtual side of the modern library (ebooks, remote access to information, etc) and now we will match that internally.
I will keep you posted with developments.
Before the parade passes by Hello Dolly
