technology Archives - Awful Library Books

Video Technology of Yesteryear

October 4, 2021 Mary Kelly Bleeding Edge 4 comments

The Electronic Revolution
TV and Video
Irvine
1983

The copy of this book that I examined was PRISTINE. When something this old is in great shape, I am immediately suspicious. In my humble opinion, this copy wasn’t used AT ALL in it’s nearly 40 years in this library. I don’t have circulation numbers, but I would bet my MLIS, that it has less than 20 checkouts in 40 years. There isn’t so much as a blemish on this cover or on the pages. Since it is in such great shape, I bet the librarians passed it by and never looked at a pub date.

For you youngsters out there, now I can show you the mysteries of the Cathode-ray tube. This is when there were actual tubes in the television. By the early 2000s, this technology started to fade into disuse as more efficient substitutes became popular. I am also particularly annoyed that the video crew didn’t bother to wear gloves or cover the equipment. I guess I should be happy they were wearing masks.

Why Did the Computer Cross the Road?

September 16, 2021 Holly Ha Ha Ha? 7 comments

Hello, Mr. Chips! Computer Jokes and Riddles
By Ann Bishop
Published 1982

Submitter: Turns out computer joke books age about as well as any other kind of computer book. The content starts before the title page, with a picture of a computer carved from a literal apple, though I’d be hard pressed to identify it as a carving of a computer if it wasn’t captioned. There’s a nice Red Scare Era joke on page one, and later on a joke about computers driving cars that reads a little differently now that computers are driving cars. Also a joke about humans turning computers on—is that supposed to be literal, or did we put innuendo jokes in books for children 40 years ago? Shockingly, this book circulated as recently as 2016, which is also about when I became responsible for this collection. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed it took that long for this book to come to my attention.

The Computer Revolution

April 19, 2021 Holly Bleeding Edge 4 comments

Computers in Society
7th Ed.
Schellenberg
1998

Submitter: Just when you think you have cleared out every out-of-date tech book in your collection, one shows up to flaunt its uselessness. Computer book from the last century? Off to the recycle bin.

Holly: I hate it when that happens! I’m sure half the URLs listed in the second image below don’t exist anymore (although I didn’t test them). I also like how the introduction talks about the “computer or information revolution” when we’re a few revolutions beyond that.

Cyber Seduction

May 12, 2020 Mary Kelly Life, Death, Love, and Marriage 2 comments

Online Seductions
Gwinnell
1998

Before all the dating apps, Facebook, and other social media all sorts of interactions were happening in the early media of AOL, Prodigy, and BBS groups. The author professes to neither be “for” or “against” online matches. She has mostly anecdotes of both successful and not so successful matches.

Online dating is pretty mainstream now, so although her advice is not wrong, it is out of date. Time to let this one go and update with something from this century.

Proto Internet for Kids

February 17, 2020 Mary Kelly Bleeding Edge, For the Kids 5 comments

Internet
Koehler
1995

When I plucked this out of a library collection, I started to laugh because the average little kid would have no idea what this book was about. This book was written for their parents.

The Internet was still a novelty to most people at the time of publication. Services like AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve were the players in making the Internet accessible to the general public.

This is a nice snapshot of the early days of the Internet, but today’s kids aren’t really interested in digging into the Gopher servers.

I wonder whatever happened to my Compuserve address?

Mary

Live like it’s 1994

January 30, 2020 Mary Kelly Bleeding Edge 14 comments

The Internet Complete Reference
Hahn and Stout
1994

Have you been wondering what those AOL disks that come in the mail are all about? Did you hear about something called Electronic Mail? This book has you covered. It is still in circulation as of this writing. I am pretty confident that public libraries can weed pretty much any tech books from the 1990s without damaging the library’s collections.

Mary

Computers on the cover

December 6, 2019 Mary Kelly For the Kids, Friday Fiction 7 comments

The Computer Nut Byars 1984 I know there are lots of Betsy Byars fans out there. If Byars is still a hit with the kids, by all means carry on. My gripe is the cover art. It just looks dated.