Relativity

30 Mar 2009 in Completely True Stories of My Life by Alex | 4 comments

Today I went to the library to look for a book called something like “First Steps Towards Cyberspace”. It is an early collection from like 1991, which is pretty early for people academics to be thinking about Cyberspace.

It turns out that back in 1991 when librarians got books about Cyberspace they were still rare enough that they didn’t say “Ah, yet another volume about cyberspace”. In this case, they said “Space, huh? Well we have a call number for that.” And they filed is under QC173.59.S65, which is the Library of Congress catalog number for studies of space and time — like as in Einstein space and time.

It was a unique and special time for me, because I think there is very little chance I will ever visit QC173.59.S65 again in my life. It is not that I am not interested in theories of relativity — although I am not — but rather that it is one of the few areas of the library where I can literally physically not understand a damned thing they are talking about inside of the books there. Like, not even a little bit.

As it turned out, QC173.59.S65 was extremely poorly shelved and none of the books were in order. Or perhaps there was just a disturbance in the space-time continuum that moved them. At any rate the book I was looking for wasn’t there. So maybe I will have to go back again, someday.

As I reflect on this post, I realize I have gained insight into two things.

First, that many of my students will not have the physical ability to find stuff in the library that I do because they did not grow up learning to check to see if books had fallen behind the rest of the books in the stack, had been misfilled, etc. They just lack (I imagine) those sorts of physical shelf-searching skills oldsters like me have.

Second, this blog has probably become like the #1 google hit for the string QC173.59.S65.

Or maybe not.

  1. Seth’s avatar

    Seth on 31 Mar 2009 at 10:38 am

    #2 actually, but you try harder!

  2. Tad McIlwraith’s avatar

    Tad McIlwraith on 02 Apr 2009 at 11:19 am

    “First, that many of my students will not have the physical ability to find stuff in the library that I do because they did not grow up learning to check to see if books had fallen behind the rest of the books in the stack, had been misfilled, etc.”

    You are so right.

    I was shocked recently when the librarians at our college told me that they actively discourage students from browsing in the stacks. The argument against this was something to do with the non-intuitive nature of the library of congress filing system. I told them this advice was ridiculous.

  3. Andrew’s avatar

    Andrew on 08 Apr 2009 at 11:36 am

    You’re at #4 as of this writing, on my browser. (Ever notice how sometimes that makes a difference with Google?)

  4. John Rocket’s avatar

    John Rocket on 26 Sep 2009 at 7:07 am

    Cyberspace: First Steps – while it might not be in your local library – it is on Amazon!

    http://www.amazon.com/Cyberspace-First-Steps-Michael-Benedikt/dp/026202327X

    It’ll be a good day when the physical library is gone.
    I agree with the Kindle problems you discussed – people need to be able to underline, add comments, manipulate the e-text and if it was easy to use and workable… it would be a joy! Imagine just having all these texts and you could do a simple search to find your thoughts or just display the underlined passages (dated at last change) with your notes attached! That will be the killer-app for any eReader! The companies on the ‘passive reading’ side of the equation – not on the capacity for the reader to alter the text for their own purpose. Maybe the eReader is just a transition – it will be folded into the tabletPC – like iPod => iPhone.

    All the best, and I’ve enjoyed reading some of your entries on PNG.