Free Fire Engine Dead by Sheila Connolly Page A

expectantly—apparently he’d run through the set piece. “Sounds fascinating, Nicholas. I do have a few questions. For a start, is this a proprietary system? Does Penn have any claim to it?”
    He shook his head. “No, this is mine. I’ve developed it on my own time. I’ve used some items from the Penn collections for a test run, but my supervisor has been aware of everything I’ve been doing and has had no objections. I’ve been aboveboard with him and with the department.”
    I found that emphasis curious. Was he protesting a wee bit too much? And if his software performed as well as he claimed it did, would his superiors be reluctant to see him go? “Does that mean that the Society would be your guinea pig, so to speak? Your first full test of a major collection?”
    He had the grace to look slightly sheepish. “Well, yes. But I know it works on a smaller scale, and ramping it up shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “You do know the scope of our collections? How would you prioritize your activities?”
    He nodded. “I’m well aware of what collections the Society holds—I’ve always been interested in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania history. In my opinion, new and recent acquisitions here should take precedence, but as I understand it, those have slowed over the past few months?” I guessed that he had followed the news.
    “Yes, that’s true, and acquisitions may remain slow for a bit. I think that segment should be of a manageable size and would be a good place to start. But what approach would you use for converting earlier catalogs?”
    “I’d start with…” Obviously I had punched the right button, and he demonstrated that he had done his homework well. Nicholas knew our collections, their strengths (mainly in quality) and their weaknesses (in how we had tracked them—or hadn’t—over the years).
    When he stopped for a breath, I broke in. “I’m impressed. But I have another question: do we have the technology in place to implement all of this? The hardware or software or whatever? Because you have to know that money is tight, and we can’t afford to replace a lot right now.”
    “I can minimize the computer storage required, and as long as you can upload…” And he went on. And on.
    An extremely knowledgeable young man, clearly. But would he fit in here? “Nicholas, obviously you know the technical aspects of what you’re working on, and it sounds as though you could do a lot for us. But this is a small place, and most of us are here because we love history, one way or another. Does that appeal to you? Are you a collector, in any sense of the word?” I guess I was asking if this would be just a job for him, or something more.
    He seemed to get my drift. “As you can see from my résumé, I majored in history as an undergraduate. I’ve spent years trying to integrate methodical analysis with the vagaries of recorded history—you know, trying to correlate different contemporaneous reports of a battle, say, and see if I could arrive at some sort of consensus truth about what really happened. You might say I’m fascinated by historic minutiae, but at the same time, I’m skeptical of any individual report, absent corroboration. I suppose in layman’s terms, what I think I’m trying to do is to computerize history.”
    I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. “Okay, one last question. You know our previous registrar had begun to update our records in our recently acquired software program. Can you integrate what he had accomplished into your own system? Because I’d hate to lose all that time and effort.” Not to mention, I’d hate to erase Alfred’s last contribution to a place that he had loved.
    “No problem. I can write a transfer protocol that would…”
    I’d heard enough. Nicholas was clearly qualified, and he appeared to want the job, for reasons I found more or less credible. He might be a stereotypical computer geek, although better dressed and more articulate than many I had