On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:00:31 GMT, Michael <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>[email protected] wrote:
>>
>> Lots of familiar pictures of old bicycles turn out to be from articles
>> in the much shorter weekly version of "Scientific American," which
>> unfortunately has not been digitized.
>>
>> Damn all microfiche readers and the hideous computer printing
>> contraptions lashed to them with rusty digital bailing wire!
>
>
>Are they like the monstrous things in e.g. libraries for viewing/printing
>microfilm, their fiche-fed cousins?
>Never saw a *printing* fiche viewer myself (sheltered life). Soon after I took
>up genealogy, nearly 20 years ago, I snapped up a brand new, surplus fiche
>viewer for $10. It folds up into its own briefcase. Very nifty... and
>superfluous, since, to this day, I've never had any fiche to view (as opposed to
>"fish to fry").
>
>Michael
Dear Michael,
Probably the same thing, a microfilm reader mistakenly described as a
micofiche reader--it's the reel to reel microfilm, not the flat card
stuff.
By "monstrous" you probably mean size, but "monstrous" also does
justice to the inconvenience and frustration involved in using the
damn thing.
After the librarian cheerfully explains that the arrow molded into the
loader is indeed pointing the wrong way, you use three lens rings to
zoom, to focus, and to rotate the image.
After that, more intelligent design details take over. Pushing a
paddle switch up moves the picture down and vice-versa, while pushing
a handle in or out moves the image left or right.
Numerous legends about paper size and black corner lines framing the
screen are supposed to show what will be in the scanning field, but
they don't work on the computerized system.
Turn to the nearby computer and enter your 13-digit library id,
followed by your minimum 8-character password so that you can be
limited to the default 3 hours and 35 minutes (no one seems to know
why they picked 215 minutes).
After the librarian finds the scanning program and starts it, you find
a page that you'd like to scan, center it on the screen, zoom to fit
it roughly between the marks, check the focus, turn to the computer,
click on file, pick scan to page from the twenty options, and wait for
about twenty seconds while the reader groans and labors.
An almost pure-white overexposed scan appears on the screen. It's
about the size of a credit card and you can't enlarge it. Several more
tries with what appears to be the exposure control on the reader
produce equally useless results. Luckily, you stumble over a tiny
button next to and LED marked AE, guess that it might mean automatic
exposure, and try it--success! The unreadably small scan on the
computer screen looks reasonably like a printed page, so now we're
ready to print!
File. Print. Yes, I'd like to print to the only printer. Long wait,
then a new program erupts on the screen, explaining that it will cost
$0.10 to print the selected scan and asking if I really want to risk
my money. Yes. Another long wait, then a progress bar that stops and
waits for twenty seconds before it revives. A message then
congratulates you for successfully printing.
But where is the damn printer? After determining that no printer is
visible on the computer or the reader, you walk 120 feet to the
librarian's desk on the nearly deserted 3rd floor and ask the obvious
question. She cheerfully explains that now it's time to learn how to
operate the printer, which is next to her desk.
Put in your 13-digit library id on a computer next to a copier. No
password is required here, but you type the long ID blindly as if it's
a password. Click okay, and a print job appears.
Next, coins are required for the waist-high copier, whose bill changer
slot and coin return are conveniently located at knee height, possibly
to encourage use by basset hounds.
Feed a dime into the copier, admire the display that shows you have
0.10 worth of credit, highlight the only print job, and click on
print.
A message informs you that you must put money in the copier. Puzzled,
you do so, and click OK. The program throws you out and you must start
all over again, entering your 13-digit ID blindly. Eventually, you and
the librarian determine that money can only be added to the copier and
recognized by the computer if the coins are inserted at a particular
point in the process--and then you have to wait a while until the
computer approves your credit. Anything else leads to failure.
Finally, you succeed! Or so the message says. But nothing comes out of
the copier that you fed your dime into repeatedly. It turns out that
the program prints to a computer printer nearby, which isn't working.
The librarian fiddles with things until the printer starts coughing
out pages--and more pages--and more, until a long print job some
employee sent from another station is finished.
Then your page from Scientific American appears.
Sadly, a quarter of each side of the page is missing, so you go back
to wrestle with the zoom adjustment and make more scans until you
figure out that a different lens is needed to make things work.
Astonishingly, the lens swap in and out effortlessly, the only part of
the process that isn't designed to thwart the user.
After a dozen scans or so, you give up and return the reel in its
carton to the file cabinet stuck in the avant-garde corner of the
hideous new library building. Despite having more empty space than the
aircraft museum out at Memorial Airport, the new library is so badly
designed that the huge heavy cabinet was placed in an acute triangular
corner. Marks on the wall show where the one corner of the pull-out
cabinet shelf hits the wall--you can't pull it out far enough to put
the carton back in place, so you have to dig five cartons out, put
your carton in, and then stuff the others back into the gap, one by
one, somewhat like loading cartridges into a magazine.
On the way home to scan the printouts into your own computer and
upload them to tinypic, scheme to bring a digital camera and crude
tripod next time and see if you can sneak around this incredible
nonsense.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
