1982 BGGS Magazine

LIBRARY REPORT 1982 has been another hectic and productive year in the Library . Already in the last six months over one thousand new books have been added to the extensive resources of the Library . One of the highlights of this year has been the Classics dis- play in conjunction with Queensland University. The various displays provided great insight into the past for one and all. Once again the School was asked to contribute a miniature garden for the Chelsea Flower Show held in August. Last year, the School provided a miniature garden of lichen and moss entitled "Pilgrim's Progress" while this year was in the form of a Commonwealth Market Garden. The theme for this Year's School Day, "Unity and Com- munity" is providing a diversified scope of displays from the cellular level to our neighbouring planets. All sections of the School community are combining to produce the display. Throughout the year, the Library community directed by a committee chaired by Miss Gibson have been organising fund raising in the School to buy a new photocopier for the students. The old one is reaching the end of its useful life and has earned retirement after 195,000 copies in two and a half years. The Library could not provide the services to the School community that it does without the media representatives, willing helpers, the Library Staff and the Audiovisual Staff. Their contributions are invaluable to all who utilise the

LUBARSKY'S LAW OF CYBERNETIC ENTOMOLOGY: There's always one more bug. COMPUTER REPORT

This time last year we had settled down with the computer system supporting three terminals in the computing classroom, and with most of the bugs eliminated from the system all 3 terminals were operating on most days. This year has seen a vast increase in the number of students eligible to work on the computer system:- ! 05 Years I I and 12 Accounting, I 5 Year 12 Mathematics II, a' II Year 8 (currently 155 girls), all Year 9 (currently I 58) and 75 Years I I and I 2 Extension Education Activities. The present Year I 0 did a course on Computer Awareness last year so with very few exceptions everyone at Girls' Grammar has had some opportunity to become acquainted with our computer. With the perceived demand, particularly from Accounting, the system now, with the generous assistance of the Parents and Friends, is supporting 8 terminals . In order to ac- comodate this change the operating system had also to be changed and parts added to the computer for attaching the extra cables from the terminals. One advantage of the new operating system is that marked cards can be processed at the same time as students are working on the terminals. Again, some bugs were encountered with the change of operating but these have largely been eliminated and we now wait im- patiently for the arrival of extra memory for the computer which will speed up the response time. Another vast improvement (by courtesy of the Parents and Friends) has been the replacement of the small tables, with all their cluttering legs, on which the terminals sat, by handsome full length benches with hidden supports, constructed by the school carpenters, Mr C. Greig and Mr R. Vogler. For the future- by this time next year l anticipate there will be more changes perhaps more dramatic than this year. As other subject areas find classroom use for the computer demand will grow. There is talk of expanding to 20 terminals but any expansion, such as we have already had, is not just a simple adding on of more lines. The computer itself has to be expanded to accommodate the extra lines and unless memory is also dramatically increased, response time becomes frustratingly slow. But all these problems and costs are worthwhile because of the positive attitude of almost all the students who are given the opportunity to become familiar with one of the latest technological developments.

Library facilities. Kathryn Redman Library Senior

PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB REPORT This year Wendy Lees and Josephine Thomis took on the roles as Photography Club Presidents and first-hand assistants to Mr Walsh. Plans have been discussed, frequently, to improve our premises, but somehow we never got down to puttying up the cracks, and our major achievement was the hanging of a new washing line for the drying of photographs. Despite the spiders and dust, we all enjoyed our Monday lunch-time gatherings in the Dark Room and the more experienced and courageous of us even exercised the privilege of collecting the key and enjoyed unsupervised access to the Dark Room. When help was needed, however, Mr Walsh was always there with friendly advice, and it is to him we owe our thanks and also our fond memories of this last year in the Photography Club. 43