THE LIBRARY SWEATSHOP REVISITED

What’s a reader to do? Ron Kelley has converted me from a “casual library patron” into a no-longer-innocent beneficiary of slave labor! I’m sorry to see that he has no real solutions to offer except, perhaps implicitly, to raise wages.

I don’t have the answer either, but I’d like to offer a morale booster to those laborers in the bleak “technological library environment” Kelley describes: You are nurturing a miracle!

ORION, the computerized catalogue of all the UCLA Libraries’ holdings, is an incomparable tool for the searcher, be s/he casual or otherwise. ORION’s ability to locate within seconds the book you’re seeking--and often dozens more in the same subject (or author) area--is simply breathtaking.

To all those dungeoned workers, I can only say, “Please . . . carry on!”

EDWARD C. BRESSLER MD

LOS ANGELES