Reply to LO19908
On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, AM de Lange wrote:
At contributed on an interesting thread. I hope to find the time to share
my thoughts with you on this item. But for the moment I will only give my
reaction on the following, which reminds me of another experience:
> It reminds me of something else. During my recent visit to some countries
> in Southern Africa, we had to fill in forms galore at the border posts.
> One form even required information such as the names of parents and
> grandparents! Worst of all, at one border post the completed forms of at
> least the past decade were stacked on shelves and shelves along the walls.
> The border post was too far away in the bundu to remove these forms to a
> "better civilised" place. But yet the hungry "paper monster" had to be fed
> with great precision.
In 1979 my wife, young son and I arrived in Brazil for a period of more
than 2 years lecturing at the University of Rio Grande do Norte, we had to
pay a visit to the police office for registration. During that visit we
had - apart from a lot of other paper work - to put our fingerprints on
special forms. During this process we asked where these fingerprints were
used for (because we got the impression that there were no computerised
databases for analysis). The answer was evidently: "Por indentificacao"
(for indentification). After finishing this fingerprint business, a fresh
set of new cards were taken to repeat the process of taking fingerprints.
And even a third time! When we asked again what the purpose was to have
three sets of fingerprints of each person, the answer was: "Por mais
indentificacao" (for more identification). We had a laugh, and still this
expression became in our family a often used expression. When we left
Brazil in 1981 the new government had installed a special ministry for
"desburocraticacao" (anti bureaucracy). I don't know if this ministry was
successful, I hope so.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>