The face of the first-year faculty member betrayed his ignorance. I might as well have said hornswoggle, codswallop or twenty three skidoo. I had suggested “bibliographic instruction”, but quickly translated to “library class”. Then it occurred to me.

I’m getting older.

I am now beginning my second decade as a librarian. Gazing at the leafless trees outside my office window, I indulged myself. I took a brief occupational “self-inventory”. ( I really loathe that term) A magical mystery tour of sorts. Only this one via a bookmobile.

I’m of the early 90’s vintage of library school graduates. Dewey, (Mr. Melville that is), DOS and Dialog still vivid from my education. Oh, those wonderful “blue sheets” and the stress of searching under a running meter. As good a baptism by fire as there ever was in library school. I haven't seen those binders in years.

“Sonny in those days we had to formulate search strategies, nothing like this Google stuff today”.

Any other contemporaries miss the old NewsBank on microfiche? I always suspected color-coding could rival any alphanumeric classification system. Olive green for “Law & Legal Systems”, gray for “Science and Technology”, purple for “Social Relations”. Subject/color associations seared in my head to this day. The gentle pull of the microform cabinet exposing that rich tapestry of color and 24x reduced articles. Exquisite.

And who can forget the umpteen volume reference staple SIRS? Another mosaic of color classification. Remember sharing anticipation with your patron when peeling back that heavy binder cover? And the utter devastation of discovering that all fourteen articles on Anorexia Nervosa had been previously pilfered.

I digress.

Our lexicon has changed too. At least for burgeoning old-timers like me. I reckon the term Controlled Vocabulary to our newbie instructor may represent a politically correct way to characterize limited language skills. Mediated Searching - collective bargaining research, Document Delivery - a fetched print job, and Thesaurus (I couldn’t resist) a distant relative to the Triceratops.

Yep, it seems I’m gently settling in to my middle years I suppose. The whine of the Canon 400 microform copier, the workhorse albeit grating rhythm of the dot matrix printer, the closing "snap" of a Reader's Guide. All these sounds gone the way of closing catalog drawers. Poof!

Did I mention the sound of ripstop nylon when wearing parachute pants at the Reference Desk ; )

But change is good. And I needn't convince readers here of our collective reputation for stasis. Our objective remains unchanged but I do miss some of the old tactics. The physicality of reference work. Pulling and flipping, pulling and flipping. Scattered volumes the metaphorical equivalent of spent shell casings on a hunt. I loved looking at it all when finished. And today we have our well worn mousepads and browser cache to reflect upon.

I’ll leave reminiscing about the Vertical File with sure to be future topics; Virtual Reference, WebFeat, and Open Access. Look for Part II when I commence my third decade in the business. (God willing)

Back to the Library…eh um…Information Resource and Learning Technology Center.