Saturday, February 26, 2005
LIBR 200
Today was the first of 4 in-person class meetings for LIBR 200, "Information and Society."
There was some overlap in class membership w/ the 202 class I started last month--I'd say 1/3 to 1/2 of the folks are the same. 200 and 202 are two of the three core courses required to be taken early in the program, so that makes sense. The demographics of those who are only in this class are similar to the others....we all have BAs in various liberal arts fields, most have been working in education or non-profit or service-sector jobs and are looking for a change. In fact, "history," "English," "Fine Arts" and "Liberal Studies" account for the undergrad majors of 5/6 of the class. Add in a few psych, soc, and communications folks, and that's us. Even the few who are working as IT professionals seem to have started out w/ a liberal arts degree.
Our professor is a Chinese fellow who did his BA in China and then his MA and PhD over here. He is very thoughtful--brought hot tea and oatmeal raisin cookies for the class. No wonder he gets such good student evals. :-) His accent is fairly strong, but manageable if you pay close attention.
Before becoming a professor, he worked in Silicon Valley for RICOH, a maker of photocopiers, scanners and faxes. When everyone was forecasting the advent of the paperless office, this made RICOH more than a little nervous, so he did various research studies into how people actually use paper documents, and how that is or isn't changing w/ technology. He presented the highlights of this research in today's lecture.
Some interesting factoids.....the use of paper and paper products in the USA is expanding at a geometric rate. Within that increase, there is an increase in the use of paper for printing, copying, etc., and a decrease in the use of paper products for shipping, i.e. cardboard, etc.. The paper involved in producing and signing off on testing for a 747 airliner weighs almost as much as the airplane itself. A US Navy Cruiser carries 26 tons of manuals documenting its weapons systems.
While the amount of paper being consumed is increasing, the nature of the uses it's being put to are changing as technology changes. The amount of paper used by photocopiers is decreasing while that used by printers is increasing. The number of envelopes used is decreasing. The number of Post-It notes and highlighters used is increasing. These are manifestations of the change from the document life cycle of
"write-->print one copy-->photocopy multiple sets-->mail to recipients via postal mail"
to that of
"write-->transmit in electronic format to all recipients-->individual recipients print out copies for their use."
I have to have an idea of what my final paper topic will be by tomorrow. So, lots of brainstorming tonight. I'll post a few more thoughts along those lines here later.
There was some overlap in class membership w/ the 202 class I started last month--I'd say 1/3 to 1/2 of the folks are the same. 200 and 202 are two of the three core courses required to be taken early in the program, so that makes sense. The demographics of those who are only in this class are similar to the others....we all have BAs in various liberal arts fields, most have been working in education or non-profit or service-sector jobs and are looking for a change. In fact, "history," "English," "Fine Arts" and "Liberal Studies" account for the undergrad majors of 5/6 of the class. Add in a few psych, soc, and communications folks, and that's us. Even the few who are working as IT professionals seem to have started out w/ a liberal arts degree.
Our professor is a Chinese fellow who did his BA in China and then his MA and PhD over here. He is very thoughtful--brought hot tea and oatmeal raisin cookies for the class. No wonder he gets such good student evals. :-) His accent is fairly strong, but manageable if you pay close attention.
Before becoming a professor, he worked in Silicon Valley for RICOH, a maker of photocopiers, scanners and faxes. When everyone was forecasting the advent of the paperless office, this made RICOH more than a little nervous, so he did various research studies into how people actually use paper documents, and how that is or isn't changing w/ technology. He presented the highlights of this research in today's lecture.
Some interesting factoids.....the use of paper and paper products in the USA is expanding at a geometric rate. Within that increase, there is an increase in the use of paper for printing, copying, etc., and a decrease in the use of paper products for shipping, i.e. cardboard, etc.. The paper involved in producing and signing off on testing for a 747 airliner weighs almost as much as the airplane itself. A US Navy Cruiser carries 26 tons of manuals documenting its weapons systems.
While the amount of paper being consumed is increasing, the nature of the uses it's being put to are changing as technology changes. The amount of paper used by photocopiers is decreasing while that used by printers is increasing. The number of envelopes used is decreasing. The number of Post-It notes and highlighters used is increasing. These are manifestations of the change from the document life cycle of
"write-->print one copy-->photocopy multiple sets-->mail to recipients via postal mail"
to that of
"write-->transmit in electronic format to all recipients-->individual recipients print out copies for their use."
I have to have an idea of what my final paper topic will be by tomorrow. So, lots of brainstorming tonight. I'll post a few more thoughts along those lines here later.
Comments:
Post a Comment
