Virginia Tech librarian describes communication problems
A Virginia Tech college librarian (who was working at his library's reference desk when the shootings started) in an e-mail sent to friends after the shooting, talks about how difficult it must have been for school officials to let students, faculty and staff know about the events.
I watched from upstairs, marveling at how many people were still outside, and some in the building who hadn't heard anything. Communication of the event was very much a case of who had a cell phone or wireless device before the bandwidth got constipated. (The campus web server soon crashed, taking down a big chunk of web-based email capacity with it.) I don't know how instructors in class were informed of the events, since the emergency phone message system goes to office phones, not personal ones. With MP3 players taking the place of car radios, I'm not surprised that people in transit across campus would not have heard the newscasts.
11:58 AM ET | 04-17-2007 | permalink
