Koans and Haiku for librarians and anyone who owns a PC

From the zen site, this hilarious collection (some of which are reproduced below). If only error messages were written by Zen masters!






Haiku for Windows
original source unknown

The Web site you seek


Cannot be located, but


Countless more exist.

Windows NT crashed.


I am the Blue Screen of Death.


No one hears your screams.

Stay the patient course.


Of little worth is your ire.


The network is down.

Serious error.


All shortcuts have disappeared.


Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Another gem - the laughing librarian proudly presents Koans for the Zen Librarian.
Some excerpts are:

The Zen Librarian said, "Reference service is like a man hanging from a rope by
his teeth over a cliff, with his hands bound to his sides and feet resting on no
ledge, and another person asks him for books about Enrico Fermi for a child's
school assignment."

As a student in library school, the future Zen Librarian witnessed an argument
between a professor and another student. The other student said that Internet
access in public libraries should be filtered, and the professor said that
unrestricted access should be provided. "The mind needs to be filtered," the
future Zen Librarian said to the other student. "The mind needs to be
unrestricted," the future Zen Librarian said to the professor. The professor and
student were both amazed.

The Zen Librarian searched for nothing on AltaVista and received 27,987,384
hits.

The young patron approached the Zen Librarian at the Reference Desk. "I
think I have figured out what the call number is for Alan Watts' The Way of
Zen!"
"Well, what is it?" asked the Zen Librarian.
"294.32," replied the young patron.
"No!" answered the Zen Librarian emphatically, returning his attention to the computer monitor. "What is the call number, then?" asked the young patron.
"294.32," replied the Zen Librarian. After the young patron
went away, the Zen Librarian elaborated, "But this is an LC
library."

(Above koan submitted by Curt Allred, Michigan, USA)

A student in the library computer room was trying to fix a computer by
turning it off and on. The Zen Librarian told him that he cannot fix the
computer by turning it off and on with no understanding of what is wrong. The
Zen Librarian then told the student to turn it off and on. The computer worked
fine from that point on.

(Above koan submitted by Mike Hoy, Arizona, USA)

Buddhism 2.0

I have been around on some of the bigger buddhism sites for a while (Buddhanet, Zen buddhism virtual library, etc), so it's no surprise to me that Buddhists (seemingly western buddhists in particular) are using Web 2.0 technologies to connect with information and each other. Silly, but I didn't realise just how many interactive blogs and groups around buddhism there are as well! - Livejournal, SecondLife, Blogger, wordpress etc....

Just like other remote groups, there are gains and losses with these I guess. You do lose something when a community does not know each other's names or locations or anything about their real lives!

Then there's podcasts and news sites devoted to Buddhism.

What I wonder is, libraries are starting to use web 2.0 technology to engage with their users or patrons, right... and to create spaces for people online in a parallel way to the physical spaces in a physical library... are these being done in a social way, or is it merely replicating explicit library services - in a kind of virtual reference & OPAC way? Which seems kind of limited.

How exciting would it be if libraries developed into places where these sort of interactions, online or physical, were hosted - a way of developing community that could extend from the impersonal to the personal. Public libraries are there not just to provide the information for their community, after all. Isn't there an expectation of the library helping to feed the growth of a community as well?

There is so much online activity and then you go into a public library and (at least where I live) it might as well not exist. These are two disparate experiences. For all I know the person whose blog I'm commenting on might be the person in front of me in the self-checkout queue. Isn't this an opportunity libraries should at least explore??

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