Ye Old Comments and Suggestions
I'm sitting here in my favorite nook at Uris Library at Cornell. It's just across from where Yoram Szekely, esteemed librarian, kept a "Comments and Suggestions" notebook during my freshman and sophomore years. Where once was a faded denim three ring binder, with cardstock pages divided into a question area at the top and a response area at the bottom, there are now four Dell computers. Three chairs inhabit my nook, upholstered in sturdy brown leather and nearly as comfortable as the two soft plum chairs that used to be here. The carpet is new, but the view over Libe Slope to Lake Cayuga is the same.
The C & S book was more than its name suggests. It was actually a discussion board, the only difference being that YS faithfully answered each comment in his Courier type. I was "Tursiops" (yes, I've been using genera as pseudonyms for 25 years) and
meritahut was "Little Sidhe." I wrote in green ink, she in purple. I can't really remember the discussions we had (probably dreck, that hasn't changed!) but it was a community (mostly of anonymous strangers) and had the same pull we now feel online.
Ah, nostalgia. It appears YS retired in 2003. I was looking for any vestige of knowledge about the old C & S book and ran into another 2003 blurb from Cornell about the shushing librarian Action figure. And no surprise that they mention Erica Olsen's Librarian Avenger blog (but as it was 2003 they didn't us the hip blog term).
I love libraries. And I'm doing my part to create some online evidence of the old C & S book so there's something there in case someone else Googles it.
What ho! Google wins again. I discovered that a "Dear Ezra" column started up shortly after the demise of C & S back in 1985, and that it is available online and has a little history. Go to http://ezra.cornell.edu/ and search for "Yoram Szekely." The earliest mention I could find was this one.
And that's the extent of today's procrastination (I hope).
The C & S book was more than its name suggests. It was actually a discussion board, the only difference being that YS faithfully answered each comment in his Courier type. I was "Tursiops" (yes, I've been using genera as pseudonyms for 25 years) and
meritahut was "Little Sidhe." I wrote in green ink, she in purple. I can't really remember the discussions we had (probably dreck, that hasn't changed!) but it was a community (mostly of anonymous strangers) and had the same pull we now feel online.
Ah, nostalgia. It appears YS retired in 2003. I was looking for any vestige of knowledge about the old C & S book and ran into another 2003 blurb from Cornell about the shushing librarian Action figure. And no surprise that they mention Erica Olsen's Librarian Avenger blog (but as it was 2003 they didn't us the hip blog term).
I love libraries. And I'm doing my part to create some online evidence of the old C & S book so there's something there in case someone else Googles it.
What ho! Google wins again. I discovered that a "Dear Ezra" column started up shortly after the demise of C & S back in 1985, and that it is available online and has a little history. Go to http://ezra.cornell.edu/ and search for "Yoram Szekely." The earliest mention I could find was this one.
And that's the extent of today's procrastination (I hope).