Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00789)

Replying to Ann

>Keith:
>>And while we are on impurity, did anyone attending summer school hear
>>that computers are being pushed by the Kern people, leading to  Olcott
>>and possibly Adyar invaded by the impurity of the organs of cyber-space,
>>against the will of some our leader possibly.    Maybe the 'impurity"
>>will create a ferilization and release from the sterility of the past.
>
>While I was not in summer school this year, for various reasons, this is
>the story I remember from last year.  I was told Dorothy Abbenhouse hated
>computers so much that she banned them from Olcott.  When John Algeo took
>office as president, they began to pop up everywhere in that wonderful old
>building.

I recall that there were quite a few computers at Olcott when I was there in
mid 1989, Dorothy being the President then. One up in the secretary's
office, Lynda Jo Pym (education officer) had one; there was one in the
library, accounts had one, and there was at least one over at the TPH
bookshop. Dorothy probably did hate them, but they were there and being
used. I did some work with some of them myself for quite a while.

>The library is in the process of moving from the card catalog system to
>having all the titles stored in a computer database, but typing all those
>titles is slow and there is a staffing problem right now.
> ... Anyone have anything to add to this?

The data entry phase is often the slowest and biggest piece of work in 
a database project. It'll be great when it's done.

Contrary to the impression some of the locals might give, Jocelyn and I
thoroughly enjoyed our time at Olcott and made more than a few friends whom
we still often remember. We were there 3 and a half months and found it a
quite remarkable centre of theosophically-inspired action and energy. The
foibles? Yeah, we were aware of them but that didn't stop us loving their
owners.

Murray
Member TI and the TS in NZ