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Lisa's |
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The computer is a marvelous invention.
We have a seemingly limitless amount of information available to us upon
the click of a mouse. It’s
unthinkable to me how so much knowledge can travel through those simple looking
wires. Amazingly, it does.
In the comfort of our own residencies, we have access to the world.
And we don’t require any modes of transportation, solely an icon or
keyword to make the journey. When I was a teenager, in the 1980s, reports for school
were constructed the old-fashioned way. I
spent afternoons and Saturdays at the local library, thumbing through card
catalogs. Remember those days?
I borrowed the books I could, and resorted to writing down phrases and
photocopying pertinent sections of sources that were forbidden to leave the
premises. The library became my
home away from home, and sometimes, an escape from home. Until college, I grew up with a an abundance of needless
aggravation from my father. He was
impossible to live with, as he was usually yelling and complaining about
anything and everything, depending on what type of day (evening, or night) he
had at work. Basically, I was
engulfed in routine turbulence and stress.
The library recharged my sanity to some degree.
It was peaceful, quiet, and conducive to concentration and creativity; it
was everything my home life was not. At
times, I told my father I had to go to the library to do research, when in
reality, I needed to get away for a few hours.
He was glad to drive me to an educational atmosphere and I was more than
happy to be dropped off. Sometimes,
I’d sit and think. Sometimes,
I’d just sit. Neither one was a
waste of my time. While attending college, I lived with a friend’s
family, as my parents had moved to Florida.
I no longer used the library as the means for my escape; my new living
conditions awarded me freedom. Instead,
the library was purely the source for term papers and various projects.
One semester, I was enrolled in a course entitled, “Experimental
Psychology.” For my final
project, I set out to discover if there was a correlation between short-term
memory and grade point average (G.P.A.). I
tested an equal number of students majoring in the arts and those in the
sciences and showed them a series of index cards containing non-sense syllables
(ie: xrg, cpq) for a few seconds each. The
students were to write down how many syllables they could recall.
My hypothesis was proven: Those
with higher G.P.A.s recalled a significantly higher number than those with lower
G.P.A.s; hence, their short-term memory ability was proven to be measurably
superior. The above project required a lot of research in regard
to similar studies. My local and
college libraries did not contain many of the sources that were needed to
complete my study. Therefore, I
found myself walking into the library of a large university in the vicinity.
There was one problem: Reference
material would only be dispatched to university students with the proof of I.D.
cards. A huge dilemma was before me.
I needed the material but wasn’t a student, nor, did I know any
students there. There was only one
thing to do…find a student willing to borrow the material for me.
I had an idea… Sitting down at a table, I scanned the room until I
noticed a guy making eye contact with me. At
that point, I smiled. When he
smiled, in turn, I walked over to him, explained my situation, and asked him to
do me a favor. Bingo!
Next thing I knew, he was handing the librarian his I.D and delivering
the reference material to me. I
absorbed what I needed, thanked him, and walked out.
I must admit, I attempted this stunt several more times, and continued to
get away with it. I always exited
quite quickly before any of them had the chance to ask for my phone number. (Look, if the shoe were on the other foot, I’d like to
believe I’d have done the same.) Anyway, nowadays none of that is necessary.
We don’t need educational buildings or the people who inhabit them to
assist us in our endeavors. All
that is required is our private little information enablers.
Although I value and rely on my personal computer to a moderate degree, I
enjoy frequent visits to my local library. Sometimes, I sit and think. Sometimes, I just sit. Both are equally constructive.
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