[Ads-l] News Article: Cold Book Storage at Harvard

[Joel S. Berson]

I haven't viewed the "interactive documentary", but I have a couple 
of comments about the article:

The problem of finding the shortest path through a series of points 
(shelves) is, IIRC, indeterminate -- that is, there is no algorithm 
that can find the *shortest* path.  It can only find a good path.

Scanned PDFs are available from the Depository only for faculty, 
staff, and students.  We poor alumni and alumnae "only" get the 
actual book, which we can feel, smell, etc.

Although such hard copies also arrive at Widener within two days.

The Depository's location is "publicly undisclosed".

There is a lengthier article at 
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/09/where-books-and-more-go-to-wait/, 
which reads as though it was the source for the one that Garson points to.

I trust that in these weeks the Depository can maintain its 50 degree 
F. temperature, or the cold storage will become the much colder storage.

Joel

At 2/8/2015 03:45 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>Title: A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Vault Where Harvard Keeps Millions of Books
>Author: Sarah Zhang
>Website: Gizmodo
>Date: February 6, 2015
>
>Short link: http://bit.ly/1DROnNV
>
>http://gizmodo.com/a-glimpse-inside-the-hidden-vault-where-harvard-keeps-m-1684024865
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>The Harvard Depository, some 30 miles from the Cambridge campus,
>better resembles an Amazon warehouse than a library. The 200,000
>square foot facility houses the vast majority of Harvard Library's
>collection--some 9 million books, films, LPs, magnetic tapes, and
>pamphlets sorted not by the Dewey decimal system but by size.
>
>A fascinating new interactive documentary, Cold Storage, glimpses
>inside this little-known world.
>[End excerpt]
>
>Garson
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org