Psalm of Journals

Woe be it unto the publisher who makes changes without informing the library community. Wrath should be poured out upon those that change sizes in the middle of the volume. Chaff is what shall be called those that change names and format, but keep the same numbering. Fire and brimstone should reign down on those that change publishers in the middle of the academic year and content becomes electronically impossible. The whirlwind will be reaped by all of these fallen publishers. Yea, though the library worker shall walk through the shadowed valley among these legions -- at the reckoning the fallen shall be called out and condemned to an eternity of using papyrus to produce their journals which will catch fire upon completion and lock them in a never-publishing cycle of torment. Gnashing of teeth and rending of garments will be done by the publishers and though they will call out -- no library worker will save them from the everlasting fire and their names shall be stricken out first when budgets are cut and they shall publish no more forever.

Amen.

Britannica Fiche

Where do I start with my feelings on Britannica Fiche? An odd quote about "Britannia ruled the waves and waived the rules..." comes to mind....! I do not think the creators of this technology thought beyond the space saving feature.... Where I work we still have collections of this stuff and it is now impossible to read. We have a new micro form machine that zooms up to 96X and can also scan it directly (on a flatbed scanner), but the print is still unreadable. I all but stood on my head and tried to find a way to get a coherent copy of an article for a patron and still had to request it through inter-library loan.

I *like* technology. I find it fascinating -- I even have a Masters in Information Technology Management -- I just wish some of this purveyors of information would *plan* ahead. Obsolescence is a fact when it comes to technology. Tablets and papyrus gave way to the book and now we have e-books and readers... But at least with tablets, papyrus and books, one could still (theoretically) be able to read from the text 40 years after it was created...!