[Oe List ...] For Marge at 85

[Gordon Harper]

Well --

In addition to the many good things people are being cajoled into saying 
about you, Marge, one thing that strikes me is how much yourlife has 
been at the center of making critical resources available to all of us. 
We've been onquite a technological journey--and it's one that you've 
helped us takeas a community.

In the late sixties, I remember we had the image of the briefcase 
libraryand those precious few essential books we'd be able to pack in it 
and carry with us to our next assignment.  Given my own considerable 
literary holdings, I always found that a terrifying image of radical 
detachment.

In the seventies, you and Phil fomented a giant leap forward for us, 
based on that portable microfiche reader and library of cards you 
created for it. Now wehad scores if not hundreds of our key documents, 
able to be read (albeit dimly on those awful screens) with the twist of 
a dial on a mechanism that could, like the briefcase library, be carried 
in one hand.  Iremember my envy of those who were able to pack one of 
those with them as we left Chicago en route to our global postings.

But you didn't stop there. In the early eighties, personal computers 
burst upon the scene, and suddenly we found ourselves gifted with the 
Golden Pathways CD.  You and your team produced an unbelievably rich 
compilation of what we'd done over the previous twenty years--and there 
it was, all on a slim and shiny disc, at our finger tips and the click 
of a mouse.  Another quantum jump for all of us that you helped make happen.

Again, here you are, nearly thirty years after that, still at the heart 
of our now vastly expanded archival collections in Chicago. You're the 
one likely to respondwhen any of us requests a copy of some item from 
those rows of file cabinets.  Beyond that, you're at the center of a 
team using the latest web and Internet tools to make those materials 
widely availableto future generations.  Talk about a sustained commitment!

So, thanks, Marge, in the midst of these technological revolutions, for 
all the ways that you've drawn on them to contribute so much to our 
common life.

You also give the lie to that adage about old dogs.  Blessings, and a 
happy 85th --

Gordon and Roxana
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