Library offers computer training classes

You’ve asked for it … the Delaware County Dis­trict Library delivers!

Dur­ing the past few months, dozens of library cus­tomers have asked us if we could present com­puter train­ing classes.

Cer­tainly, our skilled, tal­ented and knowl­edge­able librar­i­ans and library staff are the per­fect can­di­dates to teach com­puter classes. We spend hours every day on com­put­ers, find­ing books and DVD’s using the library’s online cat­a­log, search­ing sub­scrip­tion data­bases to answer cus­tomers’ ques­tions, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with you through email.

The library staff orga­nized a Com­puter Train­ing Com­mit­tee to develop a cur­ricu­lum of classes that will be offered many times at all loca­tions. The first class, “Com­puter Basics” is today, March 16, at 2 p.m. at the Ostran­der Branch, 75 N. Fourth St. Using the library’s lap­tops to cre­ate a com­puter class­room, the instruc­tors will present a hands-on intro­duc­tion to the com­puter, includ­ing a mouse tutorial.

This class will be repeated on Sat­ur­day, March 23, at 1 p.m. at the Pow­ell Branch, 460 S. Lib­erty; Wednes­day, March 27, at 1 p.m. at the Delaware Main Library, 84 E. Win­ter St.; Fri­day, March 29, at 1 p.m. at the Orange Branch, 7171 Good­ing Blvd.; Tues­day, April 9 at 7 p.m. at the Ostran­der Branch; Fri­day, April 12, at 1 p.m. at the Delaware Library; and, Mon­day, April 15, at 1 p.m. at the Orange Branch

begin­ning April 17, the library will also offer hands-on class on the Inter­net and email, where you can learn to set up an email account, browse web sites and use a search engine.

Classes are free and open to the pub­lic but pre-registration is required since class size is lim­ited. For more infor­ma­tion, call the library at 740–362-3861, or log onto www.delawarelibrary.org.

Does C-3PO stand for anything?

Accord­ing to Star Wars Char­ac­ter Ency­clo­pe­dia, C-3PO was named after a post office which is located at ref­er­ence C3 on a map of cre­ator George Lucas’ home­town. And, R2-D2 is an abbre­vi­a­tion of “Reel Two, Dia­log Two.”

Why are sailors’ coats called “pea coats?”

Even the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary is uncer­tain about the ety­mol­ogy of “pea coat.” Lin­guists have suc­cess­fully traced back the nat­ural evo­lu­tion of “pea coat” from the syn­ony­mous term “pea-jacket,” but then the ety­mol­ogy gets a lit­tle fuzzy. The pre­vail­ing the­ory sug­gests that pea-jacket emerged from the Dutch com­pound word pij­jaker, which fur­ther derives from the Mid­dle Dutch word pij, refer­ring to coarse woolen cloth­ing worn by sailors.

It cer­tainly seems log­i­cal that the term for a seaman’s coat would have orig­i­nated in the Nether­lands, but com­pet­ing the­o­ries argue that the sim­i­lar­i­ties are merely due to chance. The U.S. Navy claims that the coat came first and the name came after. Tai­lored from a heavy, hard-wearing blue twill fab­ric known as pilot cloth and abbre­vi­ated to “p-cloth,” the coats nat­u­rally came to be called p-jackets and even­tu­ally pea coats. A British cloth­ing mer­chant named Edgar Cam­plin is also cred­ited with the inven­tion of a coat for petty (non-commissioned) offi­cers of the British Navy — a “petty coat,” or “p. coat” for short; how­ever, this claim lacks any his­tor­i­cal evi­dence beyond the clothier’s own testimony.

Where is the “Whiskey Cap­i­tal of the World?”

Dufftown Scot­land, located on the River Fid­dich, is the home of sev­eral Scotch whisky dis­til­leries. It pro­duces more malt whisky than any other town in Scot­land; in fact, a sign­post on the way into Dufftown declares it the “Whisky Cap­i­tal of the World.” The largest and best known of the many sur­round­ing dis­til­leries is the Glen­fid­dich dis­tillery that dis­tills Glen­fid­dich sin­gle malt Scotch whisky.

This pro­lif­er­a­tion puts it on the famed Whisky Trail, which also includes Keith, Tom­navoulin, Mary­park, and Tom­intoul. Other dis­til­leries in Dufftown include Bal­ve­nie, Dufftown, Glen­dul­lan, Kin­in­vie and Mort­lach. Check The World Almanac for addi­tional information.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Mar 15 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.