Happy the man, and happy he alone

[venta]

Yesterday, I wanted a book on OpenGL ES (if that means nothing to you, then read it as "specific technical area relating to computer graphics"). Being the sort of person who would, if the option is available, rather buy a real book from a real bookshop than click buttons on Amazon I trotted into town. Oxford has two reasonable academic bookshops so I thought I'd be in with a chance.

I browsed around in Blackwells' terrifying Norrington Room, found a book about OpenGL (read: related area, but not quite right) and went over to the enquiry desk. The lady behind it was on the phone. She looked up at me; not wanting to menace, I stood back a little and gazed about while I waited. After a few minutes I look at her more directly, when I eventually caught her eye she said to her phone "Oh, I'll have to go, I have a customer."

She searched for OpenGL ES for me. She said there were no books on it. This surprised me. She told me she'd tried searching for the letters G, L etc independently, which somewhat confused me. However, there were no books to be had (unless I wanted a book on "GLI" - having no idea what she was talking about I decided I probably didn't), and I went away. I've always had excellent service from Blackwells before, and she somewhat disappointed me.

I went to Borders. They've moved their computing section down into the basement. Where Blackwells had had little helpful labels on their shelves to tell you where the different sections (say, "Graphics", or "Oracle") began, Borders just had shelves. With books on them. Wandering around, I completely failed to discern what their filing system was. It certainly didn't seem to be by topic. Books huddled together in little clumps trying to look coherent, but failing. Perl reference books nestled up to Dreamweaver for Dummies. I found books about Ruby on each of the four shelving units, some in the most unlikely company. I couldn't find anything that vaguely resembled a graphics section.

Over at Enquiries, I typed "Open GL ES" into the search terminal. No results. The girl behind the desk advised me that her terminal was better and searched for me. Yup, one book, OpenGL ES for Game Development. Now, game development's not really my thing, but I figured I'd like to look at the book to see how useful I thought it'd be. We walked over to the shelves, and it became increasingly apparent that the enquiry person had no more idea than I had where the actual book might be found.

I pointed out the lack of system. She told me that she was currently refusing to work in the basement for more than an hour as the aircon was broken, and thus she wasn't prepared to sort out the filing of the computer section[*]. She advised me to look on the internet and buy it there "from a dedicated computer bookshop". I asked if there was any logic to the books at all, so I could look in approximately the right area.

"Oh yes, it's mostly Microsoft over there, while this bit's more creative stuff. Like Photoshop."
"What I'm after is probably more likely to be with things like programming languages.[**]"
"Well, games programming will be in creative stuff. There's Dreamweaver."

At this point, I realised she wasn't going to be any help at all. I appreciate that to a lot of people "computer books" are an amorphous blob, and the categories maybe don't make a lot of sense. So I said great, thanks, I'll just have a hunt about myself.

She hung about, pointing out arbitrary books "There's MIDI. As soon as they fix the aircon I'll sort their computer books out, but not before". Eventually she left me in peace, I hunted for a while, then gave up and came home to Amazon.

It seems that - contrary to what I'd been told - there aren't a few books on OpenGL ES. There is currently just one, as mentioned above. A quick online search on Blackwells' network revealed it as well. Amazon let me flick through an electronic copy, and sold me a second-hand one for a tenner.

Real bookshops: nil. Amazon: one. I realise that displaying books to the public makes them harder to find than in Amazon's massive warehouses, but really... rubbish customer service just doesn't help.

[*] She had a point - it was pretty hot. I just don't think this is an appropriate thing to say to a customer.
[**] No, this isn't really true. But when compared to things like M$ and Photoshop it was a good first level approximation.

Comments

[uitlander.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm probably being stupidly naive here, but I'd have been tempted to see what the Bodl online catalogue listed, and then see if the book could be summoned from the darkest depths of whereever-it-is-they-hide-them-this-week.

OK, TBH I'd probably use the Cambridge online catalogue, and use it as an excuse to go over to Cambridge, have a day out and borrow it (its such a pleasure to have borrowing rights at a copyright library), but you know what I mean.

Would I be wrong to assume that the Bod is as hopeless at Computing books as it was at Archaeology (it had declined to take 90% of the subject books prior the the undergrad degree happening on 'space' grounds)?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I was only told I wanted this book at about 4pm, so probably wouldn't have been able to retrieve anything from the stacks til today. I foolishly assumed that I'd be home with my book from Blackwells by 5.

Also, I anticipate wanting the book for reference over a period of time so my own copy makes more sense.

I actually don't know about the Bod's policy on computer books (which live in the Radcliffe Science Library, not the Bod Proper). When I wanted them as a student the problem was more too few copies; I don't know what it's like now. I'm inclined to forget about the usefulness of a deposit library on the doorstep, though, so thanks for the reminder!

(I must investigate how to search the catalogue on the interweb these days; I believe OLIS has been shot in the back of the head and replaced with something friendlier.)

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I believe OLIS has been shot in the back of the head and replaced with something friendlier.

The replacement has been postponed again. More than that I cannot say, except not to get your hopes up.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I believe OLIS has been shot in the back of the head and replaced with something friendlier

Ha! *insane laughter*

Postponed indefinitely this time! But it will still be called OLIS, as it was before the current system too. But the program behind it will switch from GEAC Advance to VTLS or Virtua. Bet you really wanted to know that :)
The bad news is - no telnet version, which I like using.

[uitlander.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

TBH I was also thinking you could use the Bod to browse and select or reject any possible books you might find online. CUL lets me keep books for ~3 months on my MA card IIRC, which would probably cover most short terms needs, but not a reference book I wanted to keep.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind that Oxford doesn't actually offer all that much in the way of computing degrees(*), and so undergrads don't have much need for books about particular technologies... it probably has the lot.

(*) This is not intended as a slur on Oxford computation as such, just that they seem to take a very academic approach. There are other universities where you can turn up and do nothing but courses on 3d graphics, games programming, network architecture, web technologies, and what-have-you. Stuff that will find you a job the following year, but is out of date the year after that :-)

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Arrrg - well done you have successfully triggered a mini-rant :-)
I'm currently having problems with the Spanish degree system which is very vocational. The flaw would seem to be that the produced computingers ('tis a word) have done a small module on virtually everything (see the keywords on the CVs) but when actually required to do anything have vast holes in their knowledge up to and including actually being able to do anything with said language (XSLT being my current infuriating example).

I'd imagine it depends a bit more on the course than I am noticing so far or at least I hope it does.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I said it would get the a job, not that they'd necessarily be any good at it once they had it :-)

As they'll learn before they apply for their second job, there's a big difference between having read a book / sat a course about a programming language, and having used it in anger. Somewhere between those two lies the point where you can reasonably mention it on your CV under "other technologies".

Unless their XSLT course included a sizeable project with a practical purpose, there's no way they're going to (a) remember the basic syntax without prompting, or (b) know how to deal with the particular practical difficulties and gotchas of XSLT.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much of its entitlement to computing books the Bodleian takes these days, but for something up-to-the-minute like this the risk is that even if it's arrived, it may not be processed for months.

(In this case, it looks like the book venta found arrived at the RSL in 2005, but it's since been sent to the Cheshire salt mines, so it won't be available immediately.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

it's since been sent to the Cheshire salt mines

Presumably the library equivalent of transportation for hard labour.