The great libraries story

Geir.Hasnes@DELAB.SINTEF.no Geir.Hasnes at DELAB.SINTEF.no
Tue Nov 30 13:02:21 CET 1993


I include a letter I got from a friend working in the National Library
Service of Norway. He is representing Norway in an international committee
on standards for paper so that it can be preserved. I hunger for your
comments, Don!

"To Geir Hasnes:

I received the special Donald Duck edition from Statsbygg (Norwegian State
Buidings institution), and was ordered to study it closely. Some people
there opinionated that 7 shelves of books were too much for as short a
person as Scrooge McDuck.

I have given this comment:

The National Library Service has studied closely the problems with seven
heights of shelves in the underground book store. The usual solution would
be an aeroplane stairway like tree construction, normally done in mahogany,
that can be moved around the store. If one chooses this underground as a
standard, and furnishes the libraries with mobile scaffolding, in oak or
other cheaper materials, one has to reckon with a distance of four meters
between the shelves to give room for manouvering. Eventually one may have
to organize separate courses in stairway manouvering. 

Normally, rats and other rodents will concentrate on leather, parchment and
sugary book binder glue. Ruminants, on the other hand, can utilize
cellulose as nourishment. There must have been a special crossing of
cow/sheep and rat that has created the special Duckburg breed that has
preferred to digest the cellulose and until now has not touched the binding
materials. I look forward to learning more about the basis for this
sensational zoological development, that may be taken as yet one
confirmation of Darwinism."






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