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	<title>Comments on: Another museum piece from a public library</title>
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	<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/</link>
	<description>The shame of library collections!</description>
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		<title>By: LG</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-1510</link>
		<dc:creator>LG</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:14:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-1510</guid>
		<description>And yet, I&#039;m sure we have stuff like this, or worse, in my own library.  Weeding is discouraged because we still have space on our shelves and if we started weeding they&#039;d look empty.  When I work on my database maintenance projects, I always wonder how much less I&#039;d have to do if we could just weed the horribly out of date stuff and just GET RID of the records for those books.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>And yet, I&#8217;m sure we have stuff like this, or worse, in my own library.  Weeding is discouraged because we still have space on our shelves and if we started weeding they&#8217;d look empty.  When I work on my database maintenance projects, I always wonder how much less I&#8217;d have to do if we could just weed the horribly out of date stuff and just GET RID of the records for those books.</p>
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		<title>By: Nick Moffitt</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-808</link>
		<dc:creator>Nick Moffitt</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:02:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-808</guid>
		<description>I do not think that the age of a book on computing necessarily indicates its obsolescence.  I have quite a few genuine classics in my personal collection, and I do refer to them from time to time.

While it&#039;s true that specific aspects of the technology have changed, the underlying science remains valid and interesting.  The book you list here is likely not desired by the patrons of this library, but I would weep hot tears if anyone tried to pull classic LISP texts or historic operating systems volumes.

That said, Christian Berger, you should be aware that the type of computer described in the book listed above bear little resemblance to the models you are familiar with (at least from a general user&#039;s perspective -- the underlying mathematical principles of automatic computation still haven&#039;t changed).  In 1966 most computers lacked permanent disk drives, keeping all software in RAM and storing and loading data from tapes loaded manually by support staff at user request.  

That was if you were lucky enough to be on one of the earliest timeshare systems!  More likely, you used a card punch machine to generate a stack of cards containing batch job instructions and/or FORTRAN code.  Then you put your stack into a mailbox, went to lunch, and hoped that the printout of your results would be in your mailbox by the time you were done.  If you made a typo, that was another three hours&#039; work to correct and try again.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I do not think that the age of a book on computing necessarily indicates its obsolescence.  I have quite a few genuine classics in my personal collection, and I do refer to them from time to time.</p>
<p>While it&#8217;s true that specific aspects of the technology have changed, the underlying science remains valid and interesting.  The book you list here is likely not desired by the patrons of this library, but I would weep hot tears if anyone tried to pull classic LISP texts or historic operating systems volumes.</p>
<p>That said, Christian Berger, you should be aware that the type of computer described in the book listed above bear little resemblance to the models you are familiar with (at least from a general user&#8217;s perspective &#8212; the underlying mathematical principles of automatic computation still haven&#8217;t changed).  In 1966 most computers lacked permanent disk drives, keeping all software in RAM and storing and loading data from tapes loaded manually by support staff at user request.  </p>
<p>That was if you were lucky enough to be on one of the earliest timeshare systems!  More likely, you used a card punch machine to generate a stack of cards containing batch job instructions and/or FORTRAN code.  Then you put your stack into a mailbox, went to lunch, and hoped that the printout of your results would be in your mailbox by the time you were done.  If you made a typo, that was another three hours&#8217; work to correct and try again.</p>
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		<title>By: Andy Lovas</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-777</link>
		<dc:creator>Andy Lovas</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:50:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-777</guid>
		<description>I was there. The people around me were the best and brightest available. None of us saw the potential, particularly of microprocessors, which then didn&#039;t exist. The lesson, I believe, is not to limit anticipations of the future by simply extrapolating what exist at the time. If it is possible, then  eventually it will become probable. Dare to think it and, if not you, someone will make it happen .</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was there. The people around me were the best and brightest available. None of us saw the potential, particularly of microprocessors, which then didn&#8217;t exist. The lesson, I believe, is not to limit anticipations of the future by simply extrapolating what exist at the time. If it is possible, then  eventually it will become probable. Dare to think it and, if not you, someone will make it happen .</p>
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		<title>By: Christian Berger</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-386</link>
		<dc:creator>Christian Berger</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:03:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-386</guid>
		<description>I do not think this book is outdated. Many businesses could need computers. I mean look around you. Send a simple e-mail to a business theese days and it&#039;ll still be processed by a human as they won&#039;t use computers to do any work.
In most businesses computers are nothing more than typewriters and e-mail terminals.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I do not think this book is outdated. Many businesses could need computers. I mean look around you. Send a simple e-mail to a business theese days and it&#8217;ll still be processed by a human as they won&#8217;t use computers to do any work.<br />
In most businesses computers are nothing more than typewriters and e-mail terminals.</p>
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		<title>By: To Preserve and Protect &#171; Collections 2.0</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-281</link>
		<dc:creator>To Preserve and Protect &#171; Collections 2.0</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:55:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-281</guid>
		<description>[...] stuff needs to be in an academic library for historical purposes. But how many of these do we really need to save? Can we really know if there is any &#8220;just-in-case&#8221; need? [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] stuff needs to be in an academic library for historical purposes. But how many of these do we really need to save? Can we really know if there is any &#8220;just-in-case&#8221; need? [...]</p>
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		<title>By: Susie</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-263</link>
		<dc:creator>Susie</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:59:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-263</guid>
		<description>What&#039;s really scary is that Worldcat shows 333 libraries that have this title, and it is also in Google books</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What&#8217;s really scary is that Worldcat shows 333 libraries that have this title, and it is also in Google books</p>
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		<title>By: Debi</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-261</link>
		<dc:creator>Debi</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:23:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-261</guid>
		<description>Here are some other gems from that same area of the shelf:
Bright Future Careers with Computers (1969)
Computer Programming for Chemists (1965)
The Real Computer: its influences, uses, and effects (1969)
Time-sharing Computer Systems (1968)</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Here are some other gems from that same area of the shelf:<br />
Bright Future Careers with Computers (1969)<br />
Computer Programming for Chemists (1965)<br />
The Real Computer: its influences, uses, and effects (1969)<br />
Time-sharing Computer Systems (1968)</p>
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		<title>By: Debi</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-260</link>
		<dc:creator>Debi</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:16:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-260</guid>
		<description>I was hoping this title isn&#039;t in our collection.  It is.  It will now be weeded.  Sheesh.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was hoping this title isn&#8217;t in our collection.  It is.  It will now be weeded.  Sheesh.</p>
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		<title>By: Chuck</title>
		<link>http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/another-museum-piece-from-a-public-library/#comment-259</link>
		<dc:creator>Chuck</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:10:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=341#comment-259</guid>
		<description>And Watson, the first CEO of IBM, thought that three or five computers would be all the the world would ever need!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>And Watson, the first CEO of IBM, thought that three or five computers would be all the the world would ever need!</p>
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