Case Study #1

For case study #1 Gil at first misheard the assignment instructions. So, as usual, he started off down the wrong path. Gil has an interesting history with paths. This path, being the one that he is currently traversing in this retelling of what actually happened, led him to prior knowledge of diagramming systems. He even took a class that focused nearly entirely on diagramming a system. Gil enjoys this type of work. Wrestling the abstract into concrete. Concrete prevents it from moving around so much. Something about the big picture. Systems diagramming reminds Gil of something he read about in a class he took in college called Literary Criticism and Theory. Structural analysis identifies the main characters in a story and plugs them into a preconceived plot structure that is designed around a conflict occurring--conflict is necessary. Similarly systems diagramming places characters and their interactions into a schema. Since case study #1 is descriptive, Gil only had to inhabit the form of a library patron and ponder the visible forces at work in his library. In another act of imagination he inhabited the form of a library employee, and in his final act of imagination inhabited the form of a book. Rather he inhabited the forms of many books as he could not decide what shelf might provide the best view. He ended up being a top shelf reference book (The Oxford encyclopedia of British literature) looking out the window. As a book he wanted to be important but mostly left alone. So after inhabiting the patron, the staffperson, and the material, he set about diagramming their relationships. Since he had a hard time accounting for all the time he spent looking out the window from the top shelf in the reference section, Gil decided on using the nature of the transaction between the parties to define the relationships. His diagram, of which he is quite proud, is actually not what the assignment instructions called for.