[WEB4LIB] RE: Floppy Disk is Not Accessible, Not Formatted, or Not Recognized by Windows

[Louise Alcorn]

I have to agree with Brendan.  We've just had to shrug our shoulders when patrons have problems.  Well, *first* we have them try another machine.  All too often, the drive itself has been mangled by some patron with a loose floppy tab, which came off in the drive and tore the insides to shreds.  I now have an amusing collection of these mangled pieces of thin metal salvaged from inside the drives.  I plan to make a mobile for my office...

If the floppy won't work on *any* machine, we ask them if they saved it anywhere else (rare!) and give them a gentle warning about depending on a single storage medium.  We provide some network space for *temporary* saving--until they can get a diskette or jump drive and copy it.  This has been a great boon, because if a floppy drive at one station doesn't work, they can save to the network drive and try at another station.

We, too, are trying to get CD burners, and we already provide a USB port on most machines for jump/thumb drives.  This is in part because we have a lot of patrons doing HUGE PowerPoint presentations, which won't fit on a diskette in any case.  NOT an easy thing to explain to patrons, btw.

My favorite thing is when I see a young woman, Gucci bag in hand, pull her unprotected floppy diskette out...from where it has been resting next to the bag's magnetic clasps.  <sigh>

I, too, will be perfectly happy when diskettes go the way of 5.25" floppies.  

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Louise E. Alcorn     --    Reference Technology Librarian
West Des Moines Public Library
4000 Mills Civic Pkwy
West Des Moines IA 50265
(515) 222-3573      louise.alcorn at wdm-ia.com
http://www.wdm.lib.ia.us

>>> "Brendan Boyle" <BBoyle at EBPL.org> 02/16/05 04:35PM >>>
Floppies are just not reliable.  In addition to the frustrating "do you
want to reformat it now?" prompt there are patrons using old floppies
(retrieving info from the WEB) who are quite surprised when the disk no
longer works.  Magnets can erase data, plastic covers can wear out,
metal sliding parts can get bent and stuck inside a drive, etc.

I now tell people to back up their files by emailing them to themselves
at a free email account.