I just remembered something I had meant to discuss (but forgot—see, you’re not alone transitfan). After the main part of the IAB meeting, we went over to the Oviatt Library to see the exhibit of the Tseng Collection of Chinese Antiquities. They had a single vase there worth 5.5M$. Imagine that. They even loaned the vase to one of the engineering faculty to do a spectral analysis of it. (By the way, for the history freaks out there, the CSUN Library also has a San Fernando Valley History Digital Library).
However, the most interesting thing about the library wasn’t the exhibit. It was in the east wing: a four-story automated book retrieval system [do go to the webpage; it has a neat picture!] based on what is used in warehouses. This holds 70% of the collection, some 70K books, and is only about 60% full. It has 6 aisles, each with automated cranes that retrieve crates of books: books are checked in and out of the crates, and other books can be put in to a crate and checked into that crate. Students can get a book from this system in under 10 minutes. Most amazing to me is that this system, which dates to 1991 (and uses the Unix operating system—yes, I asked), had only minor misalignments during the 1994 earthquake (about 1″). When they had to rebuild the wings of the Oviatt, they tore down the building and built a new building around the retrieval system. Quite interesting.
This afternoon, I’ve been useful. I’ve put up film window coating on the kitchen windows. This will make it so folks can’t easily see in whilst we’re out. They actually went up pretty easy. I’m debating whether to attack my daughter’s new bunk bed, but that may not be a one person job. So, its back to the laundry.
