Dear George:

I guess it had to happen eventually. After having pain in my arms and wrists for the last few months, I finally went to see my doctor. He told me it looks like I have a moderate case of carpal tunnel syndrome. Like most librarians these days, I spend a lot of time on my computer. I love my work and don’t want to have to quit, but the ideas of having surgery or of wearing those awful wrist braces are equally unappealing. What can I do?

Aching in Atchison

Dear AA:

I feel your pain. Literally: I was diagnosed about 18 months ago with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and I’ve had to make a number of changes in my work space, both at home and at work, since then. Please note that what follows is very general information, and should not be used to substitute from the direction you receive from your medical professionals!

Fortunately for both of us, and for the other sufferers out there, there are many resources available to help us reduce the pain and discomfort through better posture and ergonomically sound design of our work spaces.

First, start by reviewing this excellent overview of CTS from the National Institutes of Health. There’s also an excellent article in Wikipedia on CTS. Cornell University has a dazzlingly comprehensive site managed by the University’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group that addresses many issues of CTS, in the library and beyond.

For even more information, check out the typing injuries website here . CTS isn’t the only thing that can happen from spending eight or more hours pounding away at a keyboard: there are numerous repetitive strain injuries, and this site addresses many of them.

Once you’ve taken some time to study the basics, you might want to move on to some of the sites devoted specifically to librarians and CTS. (A friend of mine once said that there was big money to be made in writing a book called Stir Frying for Librarians. Even though stir frying isn’t any different for librarians than it is for, say, certified public accountants, we just like things aimed directly to us!)

Right here on WebJunction, you can find an excellent primer about CTS and repetitive stress injuries, “Introduction to Ergonomics,” by Susan Tenby.

ErgoLib…Safer Library Computing is a comprehensive library-oriented CTS site. The site includes some very good basic tips that cost no or very little money to improve your posture and make your work day less painful. The site also includes links to many other useful sites, such as Michigan State University’s Ergonomics Information Center , and it also includes an extensive bibliography. The ErgoLib site has not been updated in several years but most of the links on the site are still valid.

A word of caution: when I started researching this column, I Googled “carpal tunnel syndrome,” and discovered a lot of quacks out there. Let the patient beware!

Here’s what I’ve been doing to ease my own CTS. I was lucky enough to have the help of Rhonda Burnaugh, who was then working in OCLC’s HR department and had specific education in this area. She helped me reset my work area. I lowered my chair so I could read my screen at the proper angle, and so that my elbows rested at a roughly 90° angle to my body. I added a wrist rest to the edge of my keyboard, and switched from my old fashioned optical mouse to a tracking ball mouse. That last step was probably the hardest to get used to, but it also provided the most improvement. I also moved the trackball closer to my body than I had my mouse, so that I wasn’t reaching so far.

And I sleep in those stupid wrist braces every night, to prevent backsliding during the night.

Compared to the occupational hazards my two grandfathers faced (one was a railroad cop during the Great Depression, and the other scooped highly explosive grain out of the holds of Great Lakes freighters), CTS seems trivial. Unless you’ve had it.

Good luck, AA, and follow your doctor and your physical therapist’s directions!

Dear Curious George:

Will this winter never cease? I am mentally exhausted by the endless gray weather that seems to have been hanging around my community since the Eisenhower administration. I fear that I am starting to take out my frustrations on my library’s guests. Just the other day, I spoke sharply to a child whose only offense was to leave a lollipop in a Dr. Seuss book. What can I do to get back my old fervor?

Seasonally Affected in Decatur

Dear SAD:

I share your pain. I grew up in Buffalo, where, as the saying goes, we had two seasons: winter and six weeks of bad skiing. Now I live in Columbus, where, from October to April, the sun is barely a rumor. As I write this response, the weather out my window looks like the set for a big budget presentation of King Lear, complete with thunder, lightning and floods. The sky is the color of an old mattress cover.

So how do we beat the seasonal blues? Assuming we are not about to fly off for two weeks at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, let us consider our options.

First, the Girl Scout cookies were just delivered, so we could break open a bottle of red wine and devour of box of Thin Mints. This is not recommended. The additional tonnage will carry your depression right into bathing suit season.

Or we could get the entire DVD collections of Lost, The X-Files, and 24 Hours, and just have a paranoia-athon. Again, not recommended. This time of year, you don’t need to feel that the government is as vindictive as Mother Nature is.

No, I am going to suggest that the best way to get over your blues is to get involved. There are so many ways to be active in the library community that it is an embarrassment of riches.

WebJunction provides many avenues for you to participate, through taking a course, adding your ideas and comments to the discussion boards, or gaining new insights through one of our webinars.

There are any number of library and computer conferences scheduled around the US this winter and spring. If you are attending the PLA Conference in Minneapolis at the end of March, please attend one or more of the programs WebJunction is offering. (If you can’t attend PLA in person, you might try signing up for the virtual conference.) Your correspondent will also be presenting at PLA on Saturday at 8:45 am, with Joan Frye Williams. Our program is titled “It Ain’t Necessarily So: Challenging the Assumptions of Legacy Librarianship,” and will take place in Room M101 at the Convention Center.

The key is to keep your mind busy even while getting enough exercise to prevent your body from slowly morphing into a pale version of Jabba the Hutt. And if that doesn’t work, where did you hide the Thin Mints?

George

This month we are trying an experiment with our long-running “I’m Curious George” column. As regular readers know, George’s pieces can often inspire reflection and occasionally lend themselves to group discussion. To facilitate such discussion we are posting the entire column here at BlogJunction. We’re optimistic that the “I’m Curious, George community will engage in a conversation right here in the blog comments. If this proves successful, look for more of our regular features published in BlogJunction. If it bombs, well, this is the web and we are supposed to try new things, right?

E-books Kindle Buzz

by George Needham

Dear George: When I was young, “kindle” was how we started a fire in the fireplace. Now, I see the name has been appropriated for yet another electronic book reader. I’m curious, George: What is it about e-books and e-book readers that make techies salivate? Don’t they realize that the good old paper book is the best possible technology for carrying information?-Passionate about Paper in Poughkeepsie

Dear 3P:

Before I address your question, full disclosure: E-content provider NetLibrary and WebJunction are both part of OCLC, and I work for OCLC. Second, I have a Kindle on order from Amazon for my personal use and to use in the workshops I teach. Finally, everything stated below is my personal opinion and not the opinion of OCLC or NetLibrary or WebJunction or the commissioner of professional football or the studio producing the movie contained herein.

That being said, many years ago I attended one of the first Public Library Association conferences where the keynote speaker was science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. He talked about writing a story in which he needed a high-tech device that was easy to produce on a mass scale, fairly indestructible, and compact, and that could hold vast amounts of information. Then, he said, he realized it had already been invented: it was the book.

“Wikipedia lists two dozen formats in its comparison of e-books, and that doesn’t even include Kindle. It seems that the woods are littered with dead e-book readers.”

Since that day, your faithful correspondent has watched the rise and fall of a score of electronic reading formats, and there was a time when I would have agreed with you. Wikipedia lists two dozen formats in its comparison of e-books, and that doesn’t even include Kindle. It seems that the woods are littered with dead e-book readers. As one writer said on the flickr site “ebooks kindle amazon” (run by WJ’s own Michael Porter), “The public library I worked at bought a ton of e-books and e-book readers back about, oh 8 years or so ago. A huge flop. I think they’re using them for coasters. Or to hold up bookshelves.”

I looked at several of the earlier technologies and decided they weren’t for me. The flickering screen, the short battery life, the onerous usage restrictions, and the lack of available content were all factors that discouraged me from using e-books.

“I believe we might be at the point where e-books move from techie toy to mainstream product.”

E-books have taken a beating in the courts of library and popular opinion. But one of the few advantages of being older than dirt is that I’ve gained some perspective. There seems to be a pattern to the adoption of these things. When a new technology is introduced, the initial manifestations may be bug-ridden, expensive, highly restricted in operation, and available in limited supply. A few people will become passionate advocates despite the flaws, a few people will become passionate adversaries despite the potential, and the vast majority of people will be blissfully unaffected. Slowly, the new technology may improve and become more acceptable to the vast middle group by coming down in price, becoming more dependable, and improving functionality. If it doesn’t, it disappears into the sunset, rightfully.

I believe we might be at the point where e-books move from techie toy to mainstream product. The E Ink has greatly improved readability of the electronic page. The battery life on the new readers is much longer than its predecessors. Amazon already has nearly 100,000 titles available for the Kindle, along with magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Are there huge holes in the offerings? Of course. Will I trash my personal collection of thousands of books in favor of replacing everything with digital surrogates? No.

But it strikes me that e-books could have a huge positive impact in several ways. First, there is inordinate waste in the current production of paper books, magazines, and newspapers. Millions of these items are printed and pulped every year without ever being read. Millions more clog landfills after they’ve served their purposes. E-books take this inherent inefficiency and environmental damage out of the system.

E-books could be a very effective distribution mechanism for high-demand items. I certainly would have preferred to put in my order for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and have it delivered directly to a Kindle than waiting in line at midnight at the local superstore to buy it. it would have also weighed about a quarter as much as the paper version.

“Another positive impact could be the e-book reader as a possible delivery tool for textbooks.”

E-books might make it possible for iconoclastic authors with views outside the mainstream of any publishing house to make their views known to a wider audience, and even make a living at it. This could, possibly, help keep the huge communications conglomerates from limiting access to the marketplace of ideas.

Another positive impact could be the e-book reader as a possible delivery tool for textbooks. When I see my grandson lugging a backpack full of textbooks home from school each night, I wish that he could have just loaded all that material to a 10-ounce reader and saved his back. It would also be possible to keep e-textbooks up to date on an e-book reader, something that’s not an option with paper books.

Despite this screed, I’m not totally sold on e-books yet. I need to start using my Kindle to know if it’s going to be something I can’t live without, like my iPod, or a tchotchke that sits on my desk and doesn’t get used, like my digital picture frame!

So all I ask is that you keep an open mind, 3P, and don’t write the technology off just because the early versions are clunky. That’s my beef with the gentleman who posted about the library that bought e-book readers eight years ago: a lot has happened in the intervening eight years! We don’t base our decisions on buying a car today on the shortcomings of the 1903 Stanley Steamer, do we?

Want a second opinion? Read William Lund’s of Brigham Young University review of the Kindle e-book reader.