worldcat.org rocks 100 best

100 best first lines from novels as suggested by American Book Review

worldcat.org list for 100 novels with best first lines created by Andy Havens of Worldcat.org

notes on teh merger

I got a compliment yesterday in the Life Sciences Division meeting.  The division head said he had heard the university librarian say she was pleased with my progress and that our experience is serving as a model for other libraries being affected by the New Service Model(tm).

I’m just lucky, I think.  I have managed to make lists and, thanks to my librarian insisting, be very specific about priorities and  measurements.  When you are moving one collection into another and interfiling 20,000 additional items into a collection of 165,000 you have to be very careful about shifting so you don’t have to move the collection more than once.

update

It’s finals week here at the U, and this has been a really freaking stressful spring. I have honestly meant to keep everyone updated on my adventures in planning a library merger. Actually, I am part of a team and I have to say that one of the most important things if you are going to have a chance at being successful in a major library project is teamwork. The other is communication.

My main tool for staying sane is li….

[I discovered that I had not only not posted this, but I had not even finished the word "lists"]

networks

http://ericschnell.blogspot.com/2008/04/cern-open-sourced-web.html

Happy anniversary to the world wide web…

LOL

“I just kittened my breakfast,” kitten spluttered, giggling.

http://www.toondoo.com/View.toon?param=215968

Annoyed Librarian

More and more I sympathize with the Annoyed Librarian.  The end of the semester looms (less than three weeks until finals).  The deadline for closing the library that is going to merge with my library looms).  The end of the fiscal year looms.

There are too many librarians in various snits who want to prove something to someone in the administration or whathaveyou and they want to prove it at my expense.  I may cry.  I may have a nervous breakdown and take from now until fall semester off as mental health leave (we actually had a staff member do that during the last SNAFU involving librarians and moving collections.) I may say f*ck it, I’m not in charge and do the job that I am paid for and nothing else.

extra hands

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2008/04/llb-poll-extra.html

Results of a survey:  Which one place in the library would you put extra hands?  My choice: technical services, without a doubt.

censorship

Databases aren’t very useful if terms are disallowed.

I love shelfcheck

Who is a librarian

*sigh*

I have worked very carefully to nurture my student assistants. I want them to enjoy the job as well as performing to standards set both by the main library administration and by me. I make every effort to reward good performance. (I even keep the candy jar filled with chocolate.)

Most of the time I have no complaint.  However, I can’t say that about today.  It is not only the end of Spring Break, it is Easter Sunday.  The library is open from 1-10pm.  I sent out an email to the students on February 28 stating that the library would be open and they would be expected to find subs if they couldn’t work.  I repeated this several times.  I knew that one student wouldn’t be back (lucky thing got to go to Italy for break) and I figured that the student who got viral pneumonia and missed two weeks of class before Spring Break was questionable.

I wasn’t particularly happy, therefore, when I got a call from the Grad. Assistant saying that she was all alone. So, I came in at 1:30 and here I sit.  Haven’t heard from either the young man who was supposed to be here from 1-5, nor from the young woman who was supposed to be here from 5-10.

We have barely a handful of patrons…Tony (the GA who came in at 5) could handle the place by himself.  That isn’t right and, who knows, we could get hit with a wave of users later in the evening. (Don’t laugh, it could happen.) I could go to my bi-weekly D&D game and enjoy myself.  Instead, I’m working on things for the upcoming week…it will make my life easier.

I am going to speak sternly to the students who didn’t show up.  There’s not a whole lot else I can do.  I can’t ground them.  I can’t fire them (I could, but that would punish me more than anyone else).  I guess it’s time to pull out the cast iron bitch boss persona and raise a little hell.

*sigh*