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

I’m getting older.

I am now beginning my second decade as a librarian. Reflecting upon leafless trees through my office window I indulged myself. I took a brief occupational “self-inventory”. (I really hate that term).

I’m of the early 90’s mint of library graduates, snail mail, DOS and Dialog still vivid from my education. Oh, those wonderful “blue sheets” and the stress of a running fare clock when searching.

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

Does anyone else miss the old NewsBank on microfiche? I always suspected color-coding could rival any numeric classification system. Olive green for “Law & Legal Systems”, gray for “Science and Technology”, purple for “Social Relations”. A 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 the anticipation with your patron when peeling back that thick binder cover? And the utter devastation of discovering 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 psychology instructor may represent a politically correct way to define limited language skills. “Mediated searching”, collective bargaining research 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-like, albeit irritating rhythm of the dot matrix printer, the self-inflicted blood blister when snapping blue sheet revisions for Dialog, all lost on today’s generation. Did I mention the breath ability of parachute pants when working reference?

I’ll leave reminiscing about the vertical file with “Virtual Reference”, “WebFeat”, and “Open Access” for part II. Look for this when commencing my third decade in the business. (God willing) Back to the library…eh um…information resource and technology center.