A. Ah, but the bulbs themselves are only 34 watts each. By using three low-power bulbs, you get more shadow-free light on the desk top than from one 100-watt bulb. The system was designed by a lighting engineer to produce a standard recommended amount of illumination on the reading surface. While some people could get by with less not all could; but the individual study light is allowed and encouraged if custom lighting is desired.

Unfortunately, removing one lamp imbalances the ballast, and causes it to burn out. Buzzing light should be reported to the Admin Office, 4th floor, or the circulation desk.

A. The dollar isn't for the ILL, it's for the photocopy. If you're borrowing a book on ILL it's free, because you have to give the book back, but there's a charge for photocopies because you get to keep them.

We used to charge ten cents per page for ILL photocopies. You'd have to wait for the library to notify you that your request was in, then come into the library to get the copies and pay: now we ask for a dollar up front, and we mail the copies to you. It's much easier for both of us.

A. Global Architecture is a series of seventy booklets that were published by ADA Edita, Tokyo, mostly in the 70's and early 80's (only one booklet published in the 90's). Each one was a study of an individual building, and they were very expensive, about a dollar a page. WSU has some of them--if you know which one you want, we can easily get any of them on Inter-Library Loan.

A. Well, that's unfortunate, since it was designed by graduates of the UI School of Architecture. If you're referring to putting the main staircase tower on a corner, that's a function of a fire code which requires all main staircases to have a direct exit to the outside. We had to tear out the central stairs in the old building because they didn't meet code.

A. At the beginning of the semester, we're often short on people to work the late evening hours. That's what happened in this case: we had only one person to go around and clear the floors, and he had to start earlier than usual.

The library owns a bull-horn which would have helped in this case, but for some reason our student workers are reluctant to use it.

Q. I would love to see more white paper recycling bins in here. The one box stuffed under the copier is woefully inadequate. One on each floor would be great.

A. The re-cycling program at the UI is run at the building level by volunteers, library employees who take their own time to empty the recycling bins. We have about as many bins as we can manage given the number of volunteers.

A. Sorry, but they don't ask us for permission (or advice).

A. The problem is not with the availability of terminals, but wiring. Each terminal currently requires a separate line to the telecommunications equipment in the basement, and it's expensive to pull the wiring. We're looking into changing our telecommunications system from direct wiring to a local-area-network, which would allow us to use the building wiring already in place. This may be in place by next Fall.

A. It's a hold-over from 1889, when secessionists wanted to split the Panhandle from Idaho Territory, and join Washington or Montana. Even today, there are those who would like to join Eastern Washington, Western Montana and Northern Idaho to form a new state, named "Columbia", or perhaps more descriptively, "Poverty".

A. If we had unlimited resources, why sure, we'd just hire five or six more librarians, and have 'em here around the clock. Unfortunately, we have to live in a world of finite resources, so we have to make choices. Given a choice, most on-campus opinion seems to favor longer open hours with less assistance. We try to schedule Reference Librarians during the hours of peak demand, which leaves out nights after 9:30, Friday evening, Saturday morning & evening, and Sunday morning.

A. You think you have it bad? The Reference Librarians have to put up with it all day--at least you have the option to leave.

The beeping comes from software supplied by Lexis/Nexis, and signals the user when the computer has reached the bottom of the page. It's a "feature" built into the software. We can't turn it off, since it uses the same signal to tell you when you've done something wrong. Smart software, huh?

A. You have been led astray by well-meaning, but ignorant, adults who insist on telling impressionable youth that the "library is so easy to use", when the last library they used took up a single room and had a one-drawer card catalog.

University libraries are designed to connect people with the TOTAL cumulated written record of civilization. Here we're talking 200 million books, and God only knows how many journal articles (650,000 in one year from Chemistry alone). Just the volume alone makes using academic libraries hard. This creates great job security for librarians, and these are the people you need to talk to, since we specialize in sorting needles from haystacks.

Be sure the next time to come in during reference hours (posted on the desk) . We enjoy helping future (and present) Vandals.

A. A (loud)speaker to tell people to be quiet? Nice sense of irony, there.

A. OK, here's some more.

One liners by Stephen Wright

After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?
How can there be self-help "groups"?
If white wine goes with fish, do white grapes go with sushi?
If a mute swears, does his mother make him wash his hands with soap?
If someone has a mid-life crisis while playing hide & seek, does he automatically lose because he can't find himself?
If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow, but only to be troubled and insecure?
Is there another word for synonym?
Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Just "before" someone gets nervous, do they experience cocoons in their stomach?
When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their picket signs?
When you open a new bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away?
When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you're just sitting there, staring at carpeting?
Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all"?
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why do they report power outages on TV?
Why are builders afraid to have a 13th floor but book publishers aren't afraid to have a Chapter 11?

A. When you do a "Name" search on Freud, you get 9 names. One of the first seven is "Freud, Sigmund 1 Item". However if you hit the "enter" key to get the last two names, you'll find that one is Anna Freud and the other is "Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939 209 Items"

There's an error in a subject heading that caused the first item to display without the birth and death dates. We'll fix it so it'll file together with the rest.