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I looked up this subject heading on Library of Congress Authorities and found that, unsurprisingly, it's been superseded by a brand spankin' new authority heading: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

"Animals worth knowing" - a nice read for a Friday arvo

Favourite book title of a Friday afternoon:

Animals worth knowing, selected from "Life histories of northern animals" (1934), by Ernest Thompson Seton

I'm thinking that a lot of animals are worth knowing, 'cause ya know, they're all cute and stuff! Some animals may be less cute than others. For instance, if you compare a koala with a cockroach, well, okay, I guess it depends on your definition of cuteness. For some, feelers and fluttery cockroach wings may be super cute. For others, like me, fluffy koalaness is more cute.

But this isn't even about what's cute, it's about what is worth knowing. I'm curious about this book. We supposedly have it on our library, so I'm going to have to check it out and see if I agree with Seton's opinion on which animals are worth knowing.

A slight spanner is thrown into the works, however, when we see that on Amazon.com, this book is listed as Animals (worth knowing), rather than Animals worth knowing. This suggests to me that the book could be basically about animals, and the information we're given in the book is worth knowing.

I'll let you know what I think when I find the book.

"Microbes and men" by Robert Reid

I love these dorky scientists and their very dorky book titles. Microbes and men - bring any famous books by Steinbeck to mind, folks? It should have been called Of microbes and men, though, really. Right?

Anyway, this is all I have to say today, but I want to explain that this post is part of the Library Treasures blog post series we will be featuring here. Great authors, great book titles, and great other things (authority records perhaps?) that we stumble across in our lovely dusty grimy library and its...errrr, "quaint" catalogue.

One down, many thousands to go!

P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!