george is swil's backup library and storage space. it is located in a room on tarble 3rd which we share with cp&p. george contains: cordwainer rejects and duplicates, a partial swapa archive, a bem archive and many, many duplicate copies of bem, swil's presidential archives, and swil supplies. i made a complete inventory of the non-book items in george in late 1998, but contents may have shifted over time. once (if) i finish this guide and put it in a three-ring binder, that will probably go into george too.
the curator of george has two duties. first of all, this person is responsible for making sure we keep george clean and don't upset cp&p, since they could take the space away from us, and then we'd be in serious trouble, since no one wants to store the carpet squares in their dresser. second, this person is responsible for looking through george time-to-time and seeing if there's anything cool in there. george curator is usually the same person as loremaster, if there is a loremaster, and is basically a job assigned to the current swillie self-determined to be most likely to go poking around the archives.
swilfolk have unlimited access to george, afforded by a key placed in the swil locker (#42, combination 3-21-15). since many of swil's supplies were purchased with budget committee money, our stuff technically belongs to the school, so anyone who wants can look at it. anyone who wants should contact either the george curator or one of the presidents before doing so, and said contact person should take the person into george and let them look at stuff, and preferably not mention the key in the swil locker to non-swilfolk.
currently, there is an exception to this. the swarthbucklers, swarthmore's fencing club, own a fair amount of fencing equipment, including foils and helmets. they practice in upper tarble, and it's not good for their equipment to be carried outside during the winter. they have been unable to get storage space of their own in tarble, and their foils don't fit in the tarble lockers. so, we decided by vote in fall 1999 to let them store one box of foils in george, on the side of the room farther from our shelves (so they're not in our way). we should keep in touch with whoever is running swarthbucklers (it's currently scott price '00, but he's graduating) to make sure they don't disband and abandon their foils, and to make sure they're accessing george responsibly. also, swilfolk shouldn't play with the foils.
in the past, all presidents have had keys to george. currently, we get keys for the george curator and the cordwainer librarian, since they're the people who need to go there most often. if there are problems getting carpet squares at appropriate times, don't be afraid to ask key central (keybox@cc) for another key -- though not too many more. keys should be returned at the end of the school year to key central.
the george curator will have an official contact person in cp&p. when the curator becomes a new person, that person should e-mail the cp&p contact to inform them of the change. the current cp&p contact is patricia trinder (ptrinde1@cc). basically, cp&p should have an e-mail address for someone in swil who is currently responsible for making sure george is not a mess. swilfolk are not very good at remembering that george should not be a mess. they should be reminded of this forcefully at some meeting, and the curator should realistically go up to george a few times a month, plus after any event that uses supplies from george. (pet peeve, can't you tell? messiness in george has been an ongoing problem recently.) also, the george curator should go up once or twice a year while it's raining, to keep an eye on the ever-present ceiling leak. if the leak is in existance (probable), the curator should contact buildings and grounds. this will have no effect, so the curator should move all supplies onto the righthand 3/4 of the bookshelves.
most of swil's supplies in george are kept on or under the bookshelves on the right wall of the room, in boxes. ideally, these boxes should be sorted by function (presidential archives, bem archives, filkbooks and archives, 'dactyl hunt supplies, massacre supplies, general supplies, etc.) and labelled clearly, since it makes life easier. the bookshelves are notorious for falling down. if this happens, the curator should note a couple of heavy metal sword-objects being stored with the 'dactyl hunt swords. the bookshelves will stay on the wall better if the metal cross-pieces are bashed into place several times with something heavy and blunt. the swords work really well for this.
also, the curator should poke everyone who does things for swil that generate paper to donate that paper to the archives. good candidates for this are paper swilnewses (the one that goes on the swilboard), prop, bem supplies, and attendance lists and other stuff the presidents have. i have plans to put a photo album in george next year (find me and beat me up if i haven't done this yet), so the curators should also look for photos of swil activities to put there. plus, the curator should keep an eye out for anyone who wants to donate swapa collections, and label an issue of bem ``george's copy: do not remove'' and place it in the bem archives.
as a note of clarification, there is currently a director of student activities, davirah timm-dinkins (dtimmdi1@cc). although swil has had george since long before davirah worked at swat, she does know about it, and she is the person through whom we have official permission to use the space.
By: chaos golubitsky '00, hannah schneider '00 -- Last revised: 18 January 2000