Today while looking through library photos in hopes of finding shots that would make it possible for me to find where we buried a time capsule in 1995, I saw one that begged for a “Then and Now” type framing.

The above photo dates to 1995, with the computers shown being a gift of Bill Gates. (If you look center-left in the second photo, taken today, you can see a Bill Gates READ poster, which interestingly uses a MacOS-style menu bar as part of its design. Before 1995, which is when the library added its second wing and the original floorplan was greatly renovated, the above area was the children’s department. (Now they have half a building all to themselves!) After the renovation, it became reference. I’m not sure when part of the reference stacks were replaced by the Siegel Lab, but I know it existed at least in 2007 (I used it during Thanksgiving and Christmas break for high-speed internet, as opposed to my dial-up at home). Back then we had four computers; now we have over fifty in our adult, teen, and children’s labs. Interestingly, we had a youngish phone technician coming in today to study the building in preparation for a complete overhaul of the system, and he asked why this area was called “Reference”. We had to explain to him that before the internet, the library had vast holdings of books and maps and such and ‘reference librarians’ used their card-catalog and index voodoo to find information people needed. During my 13+ years at the library, I’ve seen books steadily disappear and computers steadily expand, though I think they have peaked — in 2012 my 21-seat lab would stay borderline full most of the day, but now our 30~ computers (half in that lab, half in our “Zoom Rooms”) are rarely always booked. The biggest change in reference has been from looking up facts to helping people navigate “self service” websites: most of the population isn’t comfortable with computers still, with no appreciation for the need for keeping up with usernames and passwords. As the local history librarian, though, I get to do more reference-digging than most of the staff.