{"id":1383,"date":"2009-09-29T15:34:28","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T23:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nnlm.gov\/pnr\/dragonfly\/?p=1383"},"modified":"2026-01-27T15:41:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:41:25","slug":"mab_tech","status":"archive","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/mab_tech\/","title":{"rendered":"A Technology Timeline of Maryanne Blake\u2019s Library Career"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>1980 \u2013 In library school I thought:  \u201cWhy do I have to take a class in computing?  I am going to be working with people, not machines.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>1982 \u2013 As a trainee at the VA Medical Center in Washington DC learning to search MEDLINE was challenging, and FUN.  The Texas Instruments Silent 700 with built in acoustic coupler printed the results on a roll of thermal paper while ripping along at 300 baud.  No more searching through multiple volumes of Index Medicus.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 316px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Texas Instruments Silent 700 with Acoustic Coupler*\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/images\/dragonfly\/texassilent700.gif\" alt=\"Texas Instruments Silent 700 with Acoustic Coupler*\" width=\"306\" height=\"214\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Texas Instruments Silent 700 with Acoustic Coupler*<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1983-4 \u2013 I remember ELHILL. So many databases, so little time: MEDLINE, AVLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, POPLINE, CATLINE, SERLINE\u2026<\/p>\n<p>1985 \u2013 Moved to Seattle at the same time as NLM\u2019s automated interlibrary loan request and referral system, DOCLINE, came into existence.  Hurray &#8211; no more ALA ILL forms!<\/p>\n<p>1986 \u2013 Grateful Med was introduced by NLM.  Who will ever teach all those health professionals how to do end-user searching of MEDLINE?  And who will explain the pricing structure for doing a search?<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Grateful Med Disks\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/images\/dragonfly\/gm_floppies.jpg\" alt=\"Grateful med 5 1\/4 Disks\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grateful Med 5 1\/4&quot; Floppy Disks<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1990 \u2013 MEDLINE on CD-ROM came to the Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Library.  As a librarian there I was proud that we had the first CD-ROM tower in the medical center.  We thought we were cutting edge.<\/p>\n<p>1992 \u2013 I joined the NN\/LM PNR as the Outreach Coordinator and became the person who was going to teach all those health professionals how to do end-user searching of MEDLINE and will explain the pricing structure for doing a search.<\/p>\n<p>1992 \u2013 The first NN\/LM PNR presentation was a talk about the Internet to OHSLA in Eugene, Oregon.   Of course I had to figure out what the internet was before I talked about it.  Thanks Kathy Murray and Peggy Burt for all your teaching and hands-on demonstrations before that talk.  I couldn\u2019t have done it without you.<\/p>\n<p>1993 \u2013 I taught my first Internet class for librarians at PNC\/MLA in Portland, Oregon with Leslie Wykoff from OHSU.  We titled it \u201cDown the Rabbit Hole\u201d because it felt like at every turn you would meet strange and wondrous creatures like telnet (and Hytelnet), FTP, Archie, Veronica,  and of course Gopher.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 372px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Early Cloud Computing\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/images\/dragonfly\/cloudcomputing.png\" alt=\"Early Cloud Computing\" width=\"362\" height=\"343\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early Cloud Computing<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1993 \u2013 HLIB-NW, \u201ca discussion list created and maintained by Maryanne Blake (blakema@u.washington.edu) and Michael Boer (boerm@u.washington.edu). It debuted on a NorthWestNet host in November 1993, with 80 charter subscribers.\u201d  It\u2019s still going strong today.<\/p>\n<p>1994 \u2013 The RML hosted the PILOT Connections Project in the Pacific Northwest, connecting some hospitals and their libraries to the Internet and the World Wide Web.  Marcy Horner, one of the participants said that PILOT stood for \u201cPeople In Lots Of Trouble.\u201d  All those librarians were Internet pioneers \u2013 Marcy Horner, Edean Berglund, Steve Rauch, Susan Long, Susie Holt, Judith Bendersky, and Cheryl Goodwin.<\/p>\n<p>1995 \u2026 \u2013 Web browsers I have known and loved: Mosaic, Lynx, Cello, Opera, Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer (multiple versions), Mozilla, Firefox and now Safari for my Mac.<\/p>\n<p>1995 \u2013 Michael Boer taught a class to librarians on how to make their \u201cfirst home in HTML\u201d and I discovered the power of creating web pages.<\/p>\n<p>1996 \u2013 Internet Grateful Med (IGM) provided a user-friendly, Web-based interface to many NLM databases.  And access was FREE to anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.  Was I glad I didn\u2019t have to explain Grateful Med pricing structure to people at conferences where the NLM and the RML exhibited? You bet!<\/p>\n<p>1996\u2026 \u2013 The last paper issue of the Supplement, NN\/LM PNR\u2019s newsletter was published.  Electronic issues, sent via email, had been produced since 1994.  Renamed the Dragonfly in 1998, the newsletter got \u201cblogged\u201d in 2005. RSS feeds anyone?<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Dragonfly, a gift from Dolores Judkins\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/images\/dragonfly\/dragonfly.jpg\" alt=\"Dragonfly, a gift from Dolores Judkins\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dragonfly, a gift from Dolores Judkins<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1997 \u2013 PubMed, IGM\u2019s rival, provided a Web-based, user-friendly way to search MEDLINE and other databases in NLM\u2019s Entrez retrieval system.  How do I explain the difference between IGM and this?<\/p>\n<p>1999 \u2013 September 30, 1999, a sad day. Direct public access to ELHILL was no more.  Goodbye \u201cStop Y and eng (la).\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"The Red Book aka the ELHILL Bible\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/images\/dragonfly\/elhill.jpg\" alt=\"The Red Book aka the ELHILL Bible\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The &quot;Red Book&quot; aka the ELHILL Bible<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1999 \u2013 Google came on the scene to challenge Alta Vista and Yahoo as a search engine.  In eleven years \u201cgoogle\u201d has become a verb and health professionals tell me they just \u201cgoogle it\u201d when they need health information.  Scary.<\/p>\n<p>2001\u2026 \u2013 September, 2001, IGM bit the dust.  PubMed is going strong with numerous redesigns; another one is coming soon (October of 2009 they say).<\/p>\n<p>2009 &#8211; And the changes keep coming \u2013 Wikis, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, screencasts, YouTube, cloud computing, the list goes on.  I feel fortunate that my colleagues here at the PNRML and medical librarians around the Pacific Northwest, and indeed around the country, are embracing the changes.  As a matter of fact they are at the cutting edge of many of these trends in technology.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Caputo, thank you for great job you did leading me into the world of computers and technology back in 1980.  I\u2019m hooked!<\/p>\n<p><em>*Thanks to Richard at www.xmission.com for permission to use the photo of the TI Silent 700<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1980 \u2013 In library school I thought: \u201cWhy do I have to take a class in computing? I am going to be working with people, not machines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383","post","type-post","status-archive","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22063,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions\/22063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}