George
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The George C. Hurliman Memorial Library Memorial Library Memorial Library Memorial Library
George is SWIL's backup library and storage space. It is currently located on Parrish Fifth, where it is known as George IV. To get there, take the nifty new elevator to what is called the "4th" floor, then go through the double doors that are near the stairs. George is the room on the left. SWILlies have unlimited access to the room as well as the stuff in it, which is fun to poke through.
History and Moves
It was christened George from inception, so that we could "hug it and squeeze it and call it George" (cf. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.) There had been a lot of conversations where people weren't clear on whether they should call it "the storage space", "the library", or "the SWIL room", given George's somewhat nebulous official function; Bhadrika claims to have suggested the generic name "George". It was christened Hurliman in honor of Eric Hurliman, a Swarthmore student who had recently gone on permanent leave. It was not originally christened C -- this snuck in at some later date, and is suspected to have been inspired by George C. Scott.
The first George, also known as the George Hurliman Memorial Library, or George I, was obtained after long negotiation with the administration by Neil Ottenstein in the mid-80's, and located in Hallowell basement (Perry lived in Hallowell 18 his Junior year, George lived in Hallowell 16, or possibly vice versa). Then, when Hallowell 16 (18?) was turned into housing in 1993, it was moved to a room on Tarble 3rd which was shared with CP&P (Career Planning and Placement - this later turned into Career Services), who initially wanted it to be kept as clean and empty as possible, so they could do interviews there. Then, in the early 00's, it was moved to Parrish 5th, in the room across from WSRN (Parrish 486). Then they demolished that, so George was moved down the hall to Parrish 471.
Every time it gets moved, another "Memorial Library" gets added to the name, as the new George is dedicated in "memorial" to the one that has just been dismantled. At some point it's supposed to get permanent housing in Tarble, but nobody knows when that will happen.
Recent George negotiations have gone through Tedd Goundie, and he's the person who's promised us a space in Tarble eventually. Tedd's job as Dean of Students has recently been taken over by Myrt Westphal (mwestph1), but nobody's really talked to her about any of this stuff yet. We are hoping that the next move will take place during the 2005-2006 school year, unlike the last two summer moves, so that people will be around to help.
Contents and Usefulness
George contains:
- Cordwainer rejects and duplicates
- a (woefully) partial SWAPA archive
- a (complete) BEM archive
- many, many duplicate copies of BEM (we've started handing these out at the Activities Fair)
- SWIL's presidential archives (add to these! make Jillian happy!)
- SWIL supplies for various events, mostly foam swords for the Pterodactyl Hunt
- the Book(s) of George, a notebook to which visitors and librarians may (and should!) leave notes
- random SWILish documents, such as photos and old prop
Chaos made a complete inventory of the non-book items in George in late 1998, but contents have almost certainly shifted over time. The last complete inventory of books in George was done in 2004, and is linked to from the Cordwainer webpage (http://www.swil.org/Cordwainer). Hunt supplies should be inventoried before and after the hunt - a reasonable place to keep this list is in the George notebook, or somewhere close by.
SWILfolk have unlimited access to George. The room is locked, but the key is in the little lockbox on the door, and anyone who wants to know the combination should simply find a president or other informed person. Since many of SWIL's supplies were purchased with Budget Committee money, our stuff technically belongs to the school, so anyone who wants can look at it. Anyone who wants should contact either the George curator or one of the presidents before doing so, and said contact person should take the person into George and let them look at stuff, and preferably not mention the combination to non-SWILfolk.
In the past, all presidents have had keys to George. Currently, we get keys for the George curator and Cordwainer librarian, since they're the people who need to go there most often. If there are problems getting carpet squares at appropriate times, don't be afraid to ask key central (keybox@cc) for another key -- though not too many more. Keys should be returned at the end of the school year to Key Central.
Curator of George
The curator of George has two duties. First of all, this person is responsible for making sure we keep George clean, so we don't lose the space, because then we'd be in serious trouble, since no one wants to store the carpet squares in their dresser. Second, this person is responsible for looking through George time-to-time and seeing if there's anything cool in there. It's often a good idea for the George curator to be the same person as the Loremaster, if there is a loremaster, and it's basically a job assigned to the current SWILlie self-determined to be most likely to go poking around the archives.
SWILfolk are not very good at remembering that George should not be a mess. They should be reminded of this forcefully at some meeting, and the curator should realistically go up to George a few times a month, plus after any SWIL event that uses supplies from George. (Pet peeve, can you tell? Messiness in George has been an ongoing problem recently.) Also, the George curator should go up once or twice a year while it's raining, to keep an eye on the ever-present ceiling leak. If the leak is in existence (probable), the curator should contact buildings and grounds. This will have no effect, so the curator should move all supplies onto the righthand 3/4 of the bookshelves.
Most of SWIL's supplies in George are kept on or under the bookshelves on the right wall of the room, in boxes. Ideally, these boxes should be sorted by function (presidential archives, bem archives, filkbooks and archives, 'dactyl hunt supplies, massacre supplies, general supplies, etc.) and labelled clearly, since it makes life easier. The bookshelves are notorious for falling down. If this happens, the curator should note a couple of heavy metal sword-objects being stored with the 'dactyl hunt swords. (er... are these still there?) The bookshelves will stay on the wall better if the metal cross-pieces are bashed into place several times with something heavy and blunt. The swords work really well for this.
Also, the curator should poke everyone who does things for swil that generate paper to donate that paper to the archives. Good candidates for this are paper swilnewses (the one that goes on the swilboard), prop, bem supplies, attendance lists and other stuff the presidents have. It might be nifty to add photos to the photo album occasionally. Plus, the curator should keep an eye out for anyone who wants to donate SWAPA collections, and label an issue of bem "george's copy: do not remove" and place it in the bem archives.
Past Curators
- Kendra Eshleman '95 (?)
- Melissa Binde '98 (?-06/1998)
- Chaos Golubitsky '00 (06/1998-06/2000)
- Qian Li (2003-2004)
- Jerome Fung '06 (09/2004-2006)
- Finlay Logan '08 (2006- )
