Electronic calculating-machines

Source: tumblr

Today I want to draw attention to a very special (dusty and possibly moldy) old book we have in our collection, a book about electronic calculating-machines. Yep, that hyphen is meant to be there.

Electronic computers : fundamentals, systems, and applications / with the cooperation of Hans W. Gschwind, Martin G. Jaenke, and Robert G. Tantzen. Vienna : Springer ; Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1961.

This book is apparently 235 pages long, has illustrations and diagrams, and has a spine length of 23 cm. It also includes bibliographies. Most importantly, though, it has a subject heading of "electronic calculating-machines". Totally avec hyphen.

I looked up this subject heading on Library of Congress Authorities and found that, unsurprisingly, it's been superseded by a brand spankin' new authority heading:

C o m p u t e r s

A new year...a new office space...and a new whiteboard!

It's that time again - the time when we clear off our wondrous whiteboard full of groovy things and start afresh. Fitting, really, since we're now in our new office space after spending endless weeks in what we called "library camp". The ants are gone, we have running water and we're seated within sight of a window... Yes, fresh air is the name of our game, and if it wasn't ridiculously stinkin' hot (I hate summer) we'd actually be enjoying some of it.

Anyway, the white board needs cleaning off, but some things will remain, for e.g. our time-map for each day:

• 8am - 9am - Breakfast
• 9am - 10am - Brorning Tea
• 10am - 11am - Morning Tea
• 11am - 12pm - Munch
• 12pm - 2pm - Lunch
• 2pm - 5pm - Postmunchitis

Possibly everything else will go, though we might actually keep the lists of items of work we're meant to be doing... I dunno.

Did I mention that Mo-faux Monday occurs every Monday?