fandomhigh | Library, Sunday

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Library, Sunday

Evan really didn't want to think about today. He came in to the library with working in mind, thank you, and that was what he fully intended to do. There were books to sort, after all. Books, and... more books. It was a library, after all.

And then when he was done sorting books, he was going to sit himself down at the desk and go through a few periodicals, mostly about the island's past invasions and other such weirdness, to put out in a display for the people who were still new to the school. Last weekend, they might not have believed any of the crazy stuff that people were telling them about the place, but now, after a week of Fandom's kind of unique curriculum, they might be a little more receptive to all of the warnings, after all.

Heck, some of these things were even surprising to Evan. Inanimate objects turning into people? And pets, too? Evan was trying to picture Old Lace and Ozzy as humans, and his brain was sort of breaking in the attempt.

[Open!]

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There wasn't anything in particular, not really. He just wanted to see for himself. Miss Bowen has told him about the wonders of computers, and here he was.

Remembering his conversation with miss Rapunzel, he said: "The wikipedia." It was supposed to be a good thing.

And considering what miss Bowen had said, he added: "And cats." She had told them people in this time took an interest in looking for information on them on computers, so that might not sound strange.

See, Wikipedia, Evan could understand. That somebody who was obviously not from around this day and age wanted to look up cats actually had him struggling not to laugh. The corners of his mouth twitched a little as the computer finished booting up, and he made a reach for the mouse.

"Those are both pretty easy to find," he promised, giving the mouse a little wiggle and nodding at the screen to show the cursor moving. "See that little arrow? That's what we use to navigate with. When it's pointing at something, the computer knows that's what you want to access. And we move it around with this thing in my hand. We call it a mouse."

Presumably because it looked a little like one. Evan wasn't even sure about the reasoning behind that one, himself.

"A mouse?" Ichabod asked. "Is that supposed to be funny?" He poked the 'mouse' with a finger. It moved. The arrow on the screen moved. And yes, he had noticed his teacher's urge to laugh, and he didn't like being made fun of.

"So why would we want to move an arrow?"

"Computers have a lot of cute terminology," Evan explained, really the last person around here who would start outright teasing anybody for something they were ignorant of through no fault of their own. "That's a mouse, and there are things called cookies that you probably won't have to worry about very much. I can explain them later, if you like, but we'll probably stick with the basics, today."

Spam, on the other hand, he wasn't even going to mention. This guy really didn't strike Evan as the sort of person who had a lot of experience with mysterious canned meats.

"We move the arrow around to the little pictures on the screen." He pointed with his finger at the internet browser icon on the desktop. "Like that one. They're called icons, and each one represents something we want the computer to access for us. That one will take us to the internet, if we point the mouse arrow at it, and then tap - or click - the left button on the mouse twice."

"The internet," Ichabod repeated, slowly, and with some effort, moving the arrow according to instructions and pressing the button. The screen changed, and he made a slight jump again.

Evan was smiling again, but this time was more encouragingly, less amused.

"You'll get used to that," he offered. "It flashes from one screen to another a lot. Whenever you tell it to. Sometimes even when you don't, but that usually means something is broken."

Because computers.

"You've just opened an internet browser," he offered. "The page that's up now is a search engine... You type what you want into that rectangular bar and it will search for anything it can find about that topic. You click the rectangle, just once, so that the little blinking line is there. And then you use the keyboard," he pointed at it, "to type what you want to look up. When you're done typing, you press the key that says 'enter.' And if you need spaces between words, that's what the long, unmarked button at the bottom is for."

Everything was buttons. Everything.

"Why is it that everything here has buttons?" Ichabod asked, slowly typing 'C - A - T' and then enter.

"Because they're fast, I think," Evan replied, watching him type.

This guy must really like cats, huh?

"Fast, and almost anybody can learn to use them with little effort. Little kids can learn to use this stuff too. Or people who have difficulty doing things that require more fine motor skills."

He watched the page load, and then nodded at it as the results showed up. The very first link on the page? Wikipedia. And then some cat videos, and some pictures, and a bunch more links underneath, besides.

"We can kill two birds with one stone, here," he noted. "The blue lines there are called links. They're kind of like the icons we clicked on before, only you have to click them once. It looks like Wikipedia has a page about cats. So you can actually look at what it says about cats there, if you click on the link that says Wikipedia."

And then maybe he'd teach Ichabod about the random page link there. And then he'd be doomed forever.

Tell him about the random page link and he would have to be thrown out of the library at closing time.

But right now Ichabod's attention was all on the screen. No, he wasn't extremely interested in cats, but the amount of information suddenly displayed on the screen was truly a thing of wonder.
"This is remarkable! Is there a limit to what words I can look up?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Evan replied. "Though there might be some things you'll have difficulty finding in context. It's like cats... There are things that aren't actually cats, that are called cats. Machinery that people use in construction of buildings, or on farms, for example. And other technology, like CAT scanners, that are used in medicine, to make images of a person's body."

That's right. Cats had just gotten that much more complicated.

"You can look up almost anything on the internet that you want, from cats to music to history to maps. But, um, the library does have safeguards up so that you're not looking up pornographic images here."

Just making him aware! It was his duty as an aide!

Half of that didn't make sense, but in response to the last comment, Ichabod quickly said: "I assure you I have no intention to look at such things!"

But by now he was getting the idea and typed 'greek language' eyes widening a little as the result appeared on the screen. He chose 'ancient greek' and continued reading, leaning closer to the screen.

"Is there a way to capture this on paper for safe keeping?"

"There is," Evan replied. "We have a machine called a printer. It'll make copies of whatever page you're looking at on paper, and they'll be over there," Evan pointed at the printer, "when they're done. You just move the arrow up to there," he pointed at the right menu, "and click once, and then down to print..."

It took him a moment, but he went over the whole printing process. Selecting the right printer from the menu, typing in how many copies he wanted. Explaining that sometimes the printer ran out of paper or didn't work properly, and it was perfectly acceptable to come and ask a library aide for assistance with that.

Nodding at the instructions, Ichabod listened intently, then said: "Thank you for your time and patience. It is much appreciated."

[night!]

"You're welcome," Evan replied brightly, giving Ichabod an encouraging smile. "If you need anything else, I'm right over there at the desk. I'm Evan."

[Night!]

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Library, Sunday

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