One of the myriad charms of our wee abode is its proximity to the Beaverton City Library, a rather large and airy affair only recently constructed in what Beaverton affectionately calls a ‘downtown’. It is my habit to borrow recorded books - sometimes of an edifying nature, but more often goodish murder mysteries or the occasional P.G. Wodehouse (though I would argue that P.G. Wodehouse is, if not edifying, at least healthy for the brain and spirit. And isn’t laughter good for the cardiovascular system?). I listen to these books whilst cooking, cleaning, sewing, jogging, or anything else that fails to amuse my spoiled brain. Unfortunately, until recently I was dreadful about returning them on time (thank goodness for maximum $2.50 per item fine!). I like to call this “supporting my local library monetarily.”
My dear husband does not support my monetary support of the local library. Not to say that he is against libraries, but he is against my persisting in overdueness. He rolls his eyes, and points out that the library system allows one to renew one’s books online. I toss my head, and say ‘I don’t know how’ and ‘Wouldn’t I need to go through some account set-up?’ I think the real reason for my irrational dread of the WILI (Washington County Interlibrary Information) website was memories of having to dial in to the library system with telnet, in years of lore. Vast ASCII screens of greetings and instructions, staring out in mesmerizing profusion from my father’s amber monitor. But finally, today, my desire to have a back-up set of tapes on hand and my desire to know what next transpires in the life of William Monk, amnesiac Victorian police inspector, conspired to drive me upon the WILInet.
And lo, it’s easy! It’s DREADFULLY easy! The account was already set up with a default password. I changed my password, placed two holds, renewed the tapes I’m listening to at present, and put a few history tomes I wish to peruse on my booklist. I command the library gnomes! They fly hither and yon to wreak my will!
And, most charming of all? The patron info includes the date I first got a library card - Halloween, 1986.
Comments
Ah, memories
I remember fondly the telnet-based WILI interface. I was a big fan of the local BBS scene when I was a wee lad, and so the text-based nature of the WILI interface did not bother me.
There was a point where I visited the library Dynix system weekly, at least. I generally didn’t bother going to the library unless I had a hold on whatever it was I wanted first.
I also remember being quite outraged when I went to the library and discovered my beloved dumb terminals gone and replaced with damnable Windows NT boxes. The new system has never worked quite as smoothly as the Dynix system did, and it undoubtably costs more to maintain (not to mention the cost of all those Windows PCs that do nothing but query a web page).
Re: Ah, memories
Yeah, good ol’ dial-up-dynix. I remember that being one of the first systems that I managed to get my old 1200bps modem to talk to.
And Matt, I sympathize with your feelings re: the new system at the library. I remember when they switched… it was awful (still is, actually, but it’s at least gotten somewhat better than it had been). NOTHING worked right- it served up incorrect, inadequate results, and it did it very very slowly. All of those wonderful terminals, which let an experienced user find exactly what you were looking for with a minimum of keystrokes, replaced by a monstrously annoying to use mouse/pointer system.
As if that weren’t enough, all of the poor overworked librarians had to use the new system as well- much to their dismay, as I recall. And who can blame them? Going from something as nice and simple as Dynix’s terminal interface to something as crappy as their web interface would make anybody persnickity.
I think that Multnomah County’s libraries had the right idea- upgrade their terminals to allow public web access and all of that other jazz, but make people interact with dynix via a vt100 emulator. Much, much nicer that way- and people learn useful computer skills.
Oh, yeah, lest I forget- during college, I was lucky enough to get to attend a national conference of librarians. I found that nearly all of them despised their libraries’ new web-based systems, and longed for the return of the text-based way. I actually asked the guy at the Dynix booth if they got a lot of complaints, and he said that not only did they get a lot of complaints about the web systems, but that they routinely got sales requests for the old text-based system. However, he said, marketing had decided to stop selling it, as it was too old-fashioned and “wouldn’t sell”.
sighs.
Re: Ah, memories
Actually, I should mention that I liked the text-based system when I was using a computer at the library. It was easy. It was just over dial-up—with a list literally 5 inches long of which number to use in which situation, and the ASCII occasionally disrupted, and long delays between keystrokes and updates, that I hated.
I agree that the new web-based system in the library is teh Suxx0r. Interestingly, it doesn’t look the same as the actual website at wilinet, which seems to work just fine. Isn’t that kind of odd? Two web-based solutions for the same problem?