The Graduate Reading Room
Where we are now.
The Graduate Reading Room is not a place in which we read graduates, and not
even supposed to be. Indeed, it is no longer a place at all; it was
overwhelmed by what is now the graduate laboratory on the second floor
( City ), and all its contents placed in storage. The theory is that it will be reconstituted when there's enough room. Meanwhile, new stuff still goes there, becoming instantly inaccessible to anyone, but we hope that posterity will be
grateful.
The Graduate Reading Room is supposed to be a place where graduates
read, but even when it existed there was very little evidence to that effect.
There is quite a lot of readable material in its collection, but a
graduate was rarely seen in there - if we exclude the occasional visiting
lecturer and, during its latter days, the information coordinator.
This is a pity. The ready availability of a collection of useful literature within the department, including
many recent journals, is a significant asset which one might hope could be used profitably by graduate
students and others. Why wasn't it so used ? Here are some guesses,
with comments and notes of proposed action if there is any. Note that these are just my comments; other opinions, and suggestions for
possible action, are most welcome. There is no guarantee that any of the actions ( including
mine ) will ever happen, but it's worth a try.
- Nobody knows it exists.
- Well, you know now. It doesn't. But it retains a notional existence. It
used to be in room 241A at the city campus. That doesn't exist any more either.
( It's been reabsorbed into room 241, now the graduate laboratory. At the time
of writing, several months after the change, the back door to 241 was still
labelled 241A - and still carried the GRADUATE READING ROOM sign ! )
- That's a long way from Tamaki.
- True. We should explore the question of whether it would be worth having a reading room at Tamaki
too.
- The place was a mess.
- True. It's better now than it was, because I threw out a lot of rubbish
when we stored the material. But as you can't get at it, that doesn't help a
lot.
.
- Nobody knows what's there.
- True. If it ever comes back, and if I'm still involved, I'll try to list
the things.
- You can't get in.
- Inevitable, considering its notional existence. When it was real, it wasn't
open outside office hours ( which destroyed a good proportion of its
potential value ) because it was in the same room as the hypermedia unit,
and there were worries about the expensive equipment. There is some hope that
with the future reorganisation of the department's space this problem can be
overcome.
- That's an insult - surely we can trust our graduate students.
- Sadly, experience demonstrates that we can't. Fifteen years ago we could, but now people steal
things.
What is going to happen ?
A good question. The answer depends on whether or not space ever turns up. I
made some suggestions a long time ago, which are still valid.
These are my proposals from that time, with notes on the little that happened.
The first task is to sort through what's there. Despite my weeding out when the
material went into storage, some things will fairly obviously be instantly rejectable;
some will be duplicated; some will be too old to worry about ( that does not include the
information coordinator ); some will be clearly valuable. Once we know what's there, we can make
decisions.
And until then there isn't much more to say, but I'll happily receive ideas from anyone who wants to say it.
Alan Creak,
2000 May.
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