Geeks on Campus

So, I’ve moved over to the library on campus.  It’s actually a lot geekier job than you may think.  They use lots of interesting technologies and systems here.  If you think about the ways information is stored and retrieved and what students are expecting these days (online 24/7), you can see why a lot of technology is required.

Not convinced?  One thing that the library has in common with technology in general is the great number of acronyms.  Back when I was studying for my A+ and Network+ certifications some of the acronyms I memorized were ISA, IRQ, RAM, VGA, and my favorite, PCMCIA.  Since starting at the library I’ve been recording the different acronyms used so that I wouldn’t have to ask multiple times.  I’ve already recorded 46 acronyms in just three weeks.  Here is a small sample of those acronyms:

1. ALA:  American Library Association
2. ALADN:  Academic Library Advancement and Development Network
3. ALAO:  American Library Association of Ohio
4. APA:  American Psychological Association
5. CD:  Collection Development
6. EAD:  Encoded Archival Description
7. ETD:  Electronic Thesis & Dissertation
8. GSW:  General Studies Writing
9. HSRB:  Human Subjects Review Board
10. IACUC:  Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
11. ILL:  Interlibrary Loan
12. ILS:  Integrated Library System
13. ISBN:  International Standard Book Number
14. LTI:  Learning Tools Interoperability
15. TEI:  Text Encoding Initiative