Stephanie Mastocciolo writes:
When Staples High School said that the deadline to submit senior baby pictures to the yearbook was the next day, I said to myself, “I have hundreds!”
Then I read the specifications of what and how to submit, and felt lost.
Of course I had plenty of recent ready-to-download-and-send photos of my daughter’s toddler and teenage years. But I remembered that all of our actual baby pictures from 2008 are stored on CD-ROMs.
Remember these?
So I turned to the younger generation: my children. My puzzled and confused high schooler and middle-schooler) asked, “CD what?!” They could not help.
Having recently moved to a new home within Westport, our old desktop computer was still in a box somewhere.
We all use laptops. None has an external CD drive.
The deadline was near. All I had was a CD, and some physical photos in family albums. The instructions specified “no low resolution pictures of a picture.”
I thought the Westport Library must have a CD drive, where I could upload my picture to send to the yearbook.
I drove over with an hour until deadline, and headed to the computers. All I saw were USB ports.
I walked over to the reference department. Michelle Fleisher listened to my problem, then sprang into action.
Help!
She didn’t know if she could help. But she called to find answers.
Within minutes, a man appeared — with an external CD drive. He said I could sign it out, to take home.
Michelle insisted we try it right there, and connected the device. She walked me through each step.
I am not the most technologically savvy person. But I learned something new.
I want to thank Michelle. She not only answered a simple question; she also offered patience, a friendly attitude, and a willingness to assist, teach and guide me.
She went above and beyond. I submitted my child’s baby photo in the correct format, on time — and was even able to store all my images to an updated digital folder, for future use.
Saved from a CD — and submitted on time.
Thank you, Michelle. The Westport Library is lucky to have you!
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I am currently employed at our local library in Cedarville, MI. Yesterday the same thing happened! A patron came in with a CD. It contained pictures and data from the heart attack he recently had in Mexico. He wanted to down load the contents of the disk to something he could give his local physician. We checked all the computers and lap tops and all but one (eureka!) we have one! It also had a port for a thumb drive. Problem solved!
Michelle is a problem solver! And wonderful asset to the library — and this community! Thanks for sharing!
Your story just made my day! We keep a external cd drive for similar reasons. So glad you worked out a solution. The picture is cute as can be!
The “photo department” at CVS can access images stored on CD, USB drives and maybe floppy disks.
Isn’t technology wonderful? It didn’t seem that long ago when 8 track players became obsolete, then CD’s. I’m waiting for the day when our brains become obsolete…..I know AI is working on that.
Great story and darling photo; I’m glad it made it into the yearbook!