1 00:00:01,430 --> 00:00:02,639 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: Good morning. 2 00:00:02,639 --> 00:00:07,419 Can you please introduce yourself, tell me what you do and who you are. 3 00:00:07,419 --> 00:00:08,830 BILL RICH: OK. 4 00:00:08,830 --> 00:00:11,200 My name is Bill Rich. 5 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:21,289 I'm a Professor Emeritus at Ohio State, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace 6 00:00:21,289 --> 00:00:22,710 Engineering. 7 00:00:22,710 --> 00:00:40,320 I am also in the Chemical Physics program here, but I'm interested in 8 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:52,989 high energy lasers, reentry plasmas, rockets, that kind of thing, and do some research in 9 00:00:52,989 --> 00:00:55,780 this area now. 10 00:00:55,780 --> 00:00:58,570 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: Alright. 11 00:00:58,570 --> 00:01:01,950 So, let's start early in your life. 12 00:01:01,950 --> 00:01:07,130 What were some of your early experiences with reading, and how did you first start using 13 00:01:07,130 --> 00:01:09,000 the library? 14 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,630 BILL RICH: OK. 15 00:01:12,630 --> 00:01:18,850 I couldn't read until I was six years old. 16 00:01:18,850 --> 00:01:22,860 I learned to read in first grade. 17 00:01:22,860 --> 00:01:31,610 I can remember the first words I learned to read, they were the first page of the, you're 18 00:01:31,610 --> 00:01:37,970 too young, but, the first page of the Scott Foresman readers which were pervasive throughout 19 00:01:37,970 --> 00:01:47,010 the schools in the United States when I was six years old, Dick and Jane, and on the first 20 00:01:47,010 --> 00:01:52,630 page of that reader, the teacher had a big reader in front of the class, and we all had 21 00:01:52,630 --> 00:02:02,010 little readers, first Dick had his head upside down in a basket of fall leaves, and the words 22 00:02:02,010 --> 00:02:10,479 underneath were "Look, look," and those days, you were taught initially by word recognition, 23 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:19,879 no phonics, so "look, look" were the first words I learned to read in September of 1943, 24 00:02:19,879 --> 00:02:33,319 OK, there you are, but there were a lot of books in our household when I was growing 25 00:02:33,319 --> 00:02:45,480 up, and reading was encouraged, and outside of school, I liked to read comic books, a 26 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:54,230 lot of them, and got interested in classic literature. 27 00:02:54,230 --> 00:03:03,609 There was a medium then called "Classic Comics," later "Comics Illustrated," which would be 28 00:03:03,609 --> 00:03:15,040 big pictures of big comics of the classic books, and somewhat abbreviated, very abbreviated 29 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:21,370 for, for kids, and I was interested in sea stories and all those things. 30 00:03:21,370 --> 00:03:31,909 I read things like "Treasure Island" and even "Moby-Dick" in the "Classic Comics" version, 31 00:03:31,909 --> 00:03:35,209 and sort of hooked me. 32 00:03:35,209 --> 00:03:42,900 Then I read more serious books, and, I don't know how much further you want me to go into 33 00:03:42,900 --> 00:03:44,329 that, the usual kid stuff. 34 00:03:44,329 --> 00:03:50,810 "Hardy Boys" was a series, and, as I grew older. 35 00:03:50,810 --> 00:04:00,400 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: So, so, you mentioned your interest in classic literature, and also your 36 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,379 interests in archaeology and collecting books. 37 00:04:03,379 --> 00:04:10,199 How has your use of the library fostered these interests throughout your life? 38 00:04:10,199 --> 00:04:13,590 BILL RICH: OK. 39 00:04:13,590 --> 00:04:30,020 Well, I began by using school libraries a lot, and my father was mildly interested in 40 00:04:30,020 --> 00:04:38,990 archaeology and he had popular archaeology books in the house, and this fascinated me, 41 00:04:38,990 --> 00:04:50,400 and I would check books out of the, out of the school library on archaeology, and the 42 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:56,229 sort of thing, and that interested me. 43 00:04:56,229 --> 00:05:07,180 And, frankly, looking at classic literature, was fostered by a parent, both parents really, 44 00:05:07,180 --> 00:05:15,400 but my father was a good guide to this sort of thing, and I began reading a lot of books 45 00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:24,669 on history as well as archaeology, and you can, I can remember certain, formative books 46 00:05:24,669 --> 00:05:32,720 when I was growing up, like out of the high school library in the 8th grade, or I was 47 00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:41,469 in a combined junior and senior high school in Alexandria, Virginia. 48 00:05:41,469 --> 00:05:57,159 And, oh, my parents, my father, my brothers-in-law were all in the military, and I became interested 49 00:05:57,159 --> 00:06:06,139 in war histories and that sort of stuff, and I had a huge collection of model soldiers 50 00:06:06,139 --> 00:06:14,080 and that sort of stuff, but I can remember in eighth grade, finding Churchill's history 51 00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:18,460 of the Second World War, and this just seemed fascinating to me. 52 00:06:18,460 --> 00:06:25,580 So I read all six volumes of the thing, at a rather early age, and, that kind of contemporary 53 00:06:25,580 --> 00:06:30,870 history and military histories I found real interested for a really long time. 54 00:06:30,870 --> 00:06:37,759 Still do, sort of. 55 00:06:37,759 --> 00:06:48,069 And then, read, oh science fiction became hugely popular when I was in high school in 56 00:06:48,069 --> 00:06:55,159 the early 50s, and this is sort of the glory days of science fiction. 57 00:06:55,159 --> 00:07:04,259 Isaac Asimov had just begun to publish and Heinlein and people like that, I would always 58 00:07:04,259 --> 00:07:16,740 read Astounding Science Fiction magazine, and became interested in space travel and 59 00:07:16,740 --> 00:07:19,259 rocketry from reading science fiction. 60 00:07:19,259 --> 00:07:27,500 Sorta helped me decide that I wanted to learn more about rocketry, actually. 61 00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:33,409 But a lot of this, again, a lot of the books, I didn't buy many books at that time, they 62 00:07:33,409 --> 00:07:44,340 were almost all library books from both public libraries and the school libraries. 63 00:07:44,340 --> 00:07:52,639 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: So, continuing to your current research in rocketry and aerospace engineering, 64 00:07:52,639 --> 00:07:59,450 how, how does the library currently help you, help you supplement your education and your 65 00:07:59,450 --> 00:08:03,650 research in these areas? 66 00:08:03,650 --> 00:08:08,969 BILL RICH: Oh, OK. 67 00:08:08,969 --> 00:08:21,719 The, I like to, I've always, one major thing are, are books that the science and engineering 68 00:08:21,719 --> 00:08:31,849 libraries at OSU generally will have, and I'll want to check the books out. 69 00:08:31,849 --> 00:08:36,140 I would prefer to have the books. 70 00:08:36,140 --> 00:08:52,920 As a matter of fact, this is grossly overdue from OSU libraries right now, but [puts down 71 00:08:52,920 --> 00:09:06,300 book] we submitted an article a couple of years ago on a new type of gas laser, and 72 00:09:06,300 --> 00:09:14,740 the reviewer, who I know, kept referencing his book where he has a review article. 73 00:09:14,740 --> 00:09:20,029 [taps book] I felt the least I could do was check the book out of the library and read 74 00:09:20,029 --> 00:09:21,910 what he said, alright. 75 00:09:21,910 --> 00:09:23,089 But it's been very useful. 76 00:09:23,089 --> 00:09:26,230 I've kept it here, that's why it's overdue. 77 00:09:26,230 --> 00:09:29,240 But, also journal searches. 78 00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:34,570 A lot of my work, we will go back into past journal articles. 79 00:09:34,570 --> 00:09:45,730 It is a nice thing to have hard covered journals available in the library. 80 00:09:45,730 --> 00:10:00,019 More and more, these days, some of the principal journals are available online. 81 00:10:00,019 --> 00:10:08,990 Not without the help of the OSU libraries, many of these journals will go back now, way 82 00:10:08,990 --> 00:10:19,100 back, and they have gotten online copies, but only if OSU or somebody pays the subscription, 83 00:10:19,100 --> 00:10:29,610 and through OSU, it's possible to find journal articles going way back on my computer here. 84 00:10:29,610 --> 00:10:34,180 Not otherwise, but this is an enormous strength. 85 00:10:34,180 --> 00:10:41,490 First of all, you don't have to high yourself over to the library all the time. 86 00:10:41,490 --> 00:10:48,490 Although it's an enormously useful thing, particularly when you're looking at books, 87 00:10:48,490 --> 00:10:55,180 to just browse at books in the same subject category, it's sort of unbeatable, and most 88 00:10:55,180 --> 00:11:07,509 of the people in my group here, the Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics group, do that from time to 89 00:11:07,509 --> 00:11:08,509 time. 90 00:11:08,509 --> 00:11:13,230 But, we still use the libraries a lot. 91 00:11:13,230 --> 00:11:21,000 There's an aside here, which is just my book collecting and book preservation interests. 92 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:30,850 I became, I've become aware in various places I've been, but it's also true at OSU, that 93 00:11:30,850 --> 00:11:40,610 we have an excellent collection of bound journals going back more than a hundred years for some 94 00:11:40,610 --> 00:11:44,820 of these journals. 95 00:11:44,820 --> 00:11:54,060 There are classic papers in science in some of these journals, like the famous, you know 96 00:11:54,060 --> 00:12:03,360 this, the famous Watson and Crick paper on DNA, its two page letter to the journal Nature 97 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,959 in 1953. 98 00:12:06,959 --> 00:12:12,519 Now, that's a very valuable book collector's item. 99 00:12:12,519 --> 00:12:18,310 I have seen in many libraries where these bound journals are still available on the 100 00:12:18,310 --> 00:12:28,220 open stacks, that the pages like that have been very carefully razored out, and I'm all 101 00:12:28,220 --> 00:12:35,110 for access, but not for that reason, and I have been responsible for some journals like 102 00:12:35,110 --> 00:12:36,110 that. 103 00:12:36,110 --> 00:12:43,300 A photocopy or Xerox copy of that particular journal has been made on the shelves, the 104 00:12:43,300 --> 00:12:51,980 other is in Rare Books and Manuscripts, that includes Watson and Crick, I have, oh, the 105 00:12:51,980 --> 00:13:06,360 19-3, I think it's 19-3 Einstein paper on special relativity in Zeitschrift Physik, 106 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:11,550 when I was at the State University of New York. 107 00:13:11,550 --> 00:13:17,720 That, those pages were razor bladed out of the copy there. 108 00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:25,720 OSU will have those, have a duplicate, a facsimile available on the open stacks now. 109 00:13:25,720 --> 00:13:31,750 And that's a good thing, for all sorts of reasons, OK. 110 00:13:31,750 --> 00:13:41,641 But again, from time to time, I will use things like that in classes, engineering and science 111 00:13:41,641 --> 00:13:50,170 students should know how some of this knowledge was acquired, and things like that are extremely 112 00:13:50,170 --> 00:13:54,660 useful, I think, and it's part of education. 113 00:13:54,660 --> 00:13:56,699 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: Alright. 114 00:13:56,699 --> 00:14:02,399 So, looking forward, what does the future hold for your literacy, and how will the library 115 00:14:02,399 --> 00:14:05,720 continue to engage you in your literacy development? 116 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:19,879 BILL RICH: Well, in the same ways, now I'm a fairly serious book collector, and rare 117 00:14:19,879 --> 00:14:30,720 books and manu-, and this is not directly connected to my profession in aerospace engineering, 118 00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:41,610 but I use rare books and manuscripts in their collections like every second week at least, 119 00:14:41,610 --> 00:14:58,009 OK, and books there, I'm interested, oh what's the recent thing, sea stories, I wrote an 120 00:14:58,009 --> 00:15:02,019 article on sea stories. 121 00:15:02,019 --> 00:15:13,290 I was interested in Robert Lewis Stevenson and "Treasure Island", and I consulted the 122 00:15:13,290 --> 00:15:24,350 bibliographies of Stevenson in Thompson Library recently for this, for this article, things 123 00:15:24,350 --> 00:15:27,339 like that. 124 00:15:27,339 --> 00:15:35,009 As far as my research goes, as I showed you, we still do this more and more, any current 125 00:15:35,009 --> 00:15:50,800 reference, I will look it up on the OSU catalog system and look at the computer version. 126 00:15:50,800 --> 00:16:06,569 Having said that, this may be a function of age, I've had a heck of a time reading serious 127 00:16:06,569 --> 00:16:17,310 technical stuff, scientific papers on a computer screen, particularly mathematics, where it's 128 00:16:17,310 --> 00:16:18,980 subscripted. 129 00:16:18,980 --> 00:16:23,490 I don't think it's really failing eyesight. 130 00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:32,319 I will print out even from a PDF file a hard copy and make notes on the hard copy and study 131 00:16:32,319 --> 00:16:41,259 from that, which again would be frowned upon if I took the journal out of the library and 132 00:16:41,259 --> 00:16:47,035 wrote notes in the margin of that, so, that's useful, and I intend to continue to do that, 133 00:16:47,035 --> 00:16:50,769 I don't know what else to say. 134 00:16:50,769 --> 00:17:00,870 Although, it's really true computer searches are hugely useful to, you know, do a computer 135 00:17:00,870 --> 00:17:11,350 search on a particular author for his scientific papers, and go through all that. 136 00:17:11,350 --> 00:17:24,650 In our own group, in violation of some of the copyright laws, but the, the group I started 137 00:17:24,650 --> 00:17:38,570 here, we call it the Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics Laboratories, but anyhow, we have a big website, 138 00:17:38,570 --> 00:17:48,300 and one part of that website is every journal paper and every review paper published by 139 00:17:48,300 --> 00:17:59,260 our group is accessible on the website, which, heck we wrote 'em, but nevertheless that's 140 00:17:59,260 --> 00:18:05,510 not quite within the copyright limits, but it's sure useful for people, because people 141 00:18:05,510 --> 00:18:13,340 want references to things or call, and you'll just give them the link to the website which 142 00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:18,620 is helpful to a lot of people, so we intend to continue to do that. 143 00:18:18,620 --> 00:18:25,240 That's not quite the use of the library, isn't it, but anyway (laughter), it's what we do. 144 00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:42,100 I can't imagine, I have to say, a bookless library, no matter, it's fashionable on some 145 00:18:42,100 --> 00:18:48,790 librarians and some speakers to talk of a bookless future. 146 00:18:48,790 --> 00:18:56,420 I have my doubts about that, and I don't think it'll happen. 147 00:18:56,420 --> 00:19:03,690 ISAAC MCDERMOTT: Well, thank you, Professor Rich, for delivering your narrative. 148 00:19:03,690 --> 00:19:12,440 Your story's been very intriguing in opening the perspectives of professors, like you, 149 00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:18,670 in the development of literacy education and the use of libraries. 150 00:19:18,670 --> 00:19:19,770 BILL RICH: Well, thank you, Isaac.