Cat's eyes, pilot programs

Sophie's had something funky going on with her eyes, some sort of infection. I took her to the vet today to see what it is and what they can do about it. The vet says she has conjunctivitis. He gave me some ointment with erythromycin in it that I have to apply to her eyes three times daily for two weeks.

It's gonna be a fun two weeks, but her eyes will thank me for it when we're done. I have no idea how she caught this. Maybe it's leftover from being out in the Big Bad World before we met? I don't know. Delilah never had it.

That presentation I mentioned yesterday went really well. A lot of people were interested, which was a nice surprise. I was expecting screams of rage. We did get some people who didn't like the idea we had, but about 90% of the room agreed that now that we've seen whether this thing we're attempting can be done, it's time to test it out. That way we can decide whether it should be done. The task force is now going to design and run a pilot program with a few interested campuses. Part of me is excited. Part of me is saying, "Oh great, more work."

Favorite part of the whole day: calling the taxi to take me to the vet's. The dispatch operator asked how many were going and I replied,

"Just me. And a cat in a carrier."

"Okay," he said. Then to himself, in that voice people use when they're writing things down (I pictured a clipboard): "One person, one boxed cat."

Modeling my new backbone

I went down to pick up the next piece of a project I'm working on for my old boss. Waiting on the cart for me were way more items than what I agreed that I would take at one time (and I've emphasized that to them quite a few times already). They do this all the time. They're supposed to pull between 40 and 60 reels of microfilm (I've told them repeatedly to try aiming for 50), and for the third time in as many weeks they had over 60 waiting for me to take away. A couple of weeks ago is was 115. Today it was 88.

I used to just take the reels, reiterate that I wanted between 40 and 60, and think ugly thoughts at them as I dragged stuff back to my cubicle to work on it. Part of me wanted to do it again today, but I stifled that impulse. If I kept letting them get away with this, pretty soon there would be over 100 reels on that cart again. I should know that, having worked with them so long. They push. You offer one of something, they ask for two. Give 'em an inch, they think they're rulers.

Dammit, I set a limit for a reason. I do have other things to do.

I asked my old boss what she wanted me to take, the 63-reel long title (three over my limit, but that's okay because it's an entire title), or the 25-reel long title and the first 35 reels of the 63-reel long one. She looked surprised.

"Well we don't like splitting runs up if we can help it..."

"Okay, so the 63-reel one."

"Well, but we have a list we're going by and we don't want to confuse the students doing the pulling."

They're already confused, I thought. They can't even count to sixty.

I went to the folder with the list in it and flipped a few pages.

"Next title is 37 reels long. I'll take the 63 reels today, and then Thursday I'll take these 25 and that 37-reel title."

She agreed, but I don't think she was happy. I used to have "Welcome" written on my back in 15 languages. I think she expected me to roll over and play dead. I'd said something to my supervisor and the head of my department at my annual review a few weeks ago along the lines of needing to grow a spine where these people were concerned.

Looks like it's starting to happen.

Sneaky

About a minute and a half after starting work this morning, I gave myself a wicked paper cut on the tip of the middle finger of my left hand. Oh, it's gonna be a good day. After running around with my finger in my mouth for a bit (don'tbleedonthebooksdon'tbleedonthebooks) I finally located a band-aid and slapped it on the wound.

Shortly after that, my old supervisor popped up outside my cubicle and attempted an ambush. It started with desultory conversation about what I was doing (viewing microfilm), and then moved on to this:

"I was going to ask [my supervisor], but thought I'd run this by you first to see what you thought. [A librarian from another section] usually looks after our desk when we have staff meetings and trainings, but he's on sabbatical right now. We were wondering if you and [my fellow refugee] would be interested in doing the desk for us. I mean, I could get one of the students to do it, but ..." and then she trailed off, looking at me expectantly.

"I have so many things going on right now, I just don't think I can take that on too," I lied, sending up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for Malory's warning.

"Oh. Okay. I just thought I'd ask." And then she vanished.

After she left I tracked down my colleague to warn her of a possible sneak-attack. She hasn't been approached yet. At her suggestion I emailed my supervisor (who's out today) to let her know, just in case those people try to do an end-run 'round us and "seek permission" for us for something we don't want to do.

Here's the thing: if the situation were reversed and someone approached one of my old supervisor's employees with an offer like that without checking with her first, you'd hear her screams of rage from as far away as Pittsburgh. Sneaky little mumblegrumbleumph.

D'you think it was an omen, which finger got the boo-boo?

Throwing down the gauntlet

Our facilities guy here at work is so very full of himself, bless 'im. He just a few moments ago strutted by our cubicles saying to one of the librarians who was walking with him:

"I've been snooping around facilities for over twenty years. There's nothing you can hide from me that I won't find."

After he was safely past, we all started laughing.

"I dunno," I said. "Sounds like he just issued a challenge, doesn't it?"

We're half-jokingly thinking of hiding something in here to see if he can find it. Lana suggested we stash a toaster. Toasters got banned from the building a few years back after burnt bagels in one or another of the break rooms set off the fire alarm twice in one month. Lots of people in here still pine for toast.

Best part? Shortly after making that claim he asked to the room at large, "Hey, where's George [last name deleted]?"

So apparently we can hide George.

A far too common scene at work

There's an elevator lobby on the first floor of the library. It has four elevator cars in it, two on one wall, two on the other. They face each other. On each side of the lobby, installed between the two elevator doors for that side, is a button that controls three of the cars. The fourth car is on its own circuit with its own button. I have to go past or through this lobby at least six times a day, and usually on at least one of those passes I witness the following:

Patron, aged twenty-something, probably a student, walks over to one of the elevator buttons and presses it. It lights up. So does the one on the other wall. Patron then stands facing the elevators doors that flank the button he just pushed and waits for the car to come.

A car arrives, but on the other side of the lobby (which is maybe 15 feet wide). The elevator goes "Ding!" The lights on the call buttons go out. The patron looks up, looks left and right at the closed doors in front of him, puzzled. The door of the car on the other side of the room starts to close. Still looking at the doors in front of him, the patron hits the button again. Door on the car across the lobby flies open again. Elevator goes "Ding!" Light goes out.

Button. "Ding!" Button. "Ding!" Button. "Ding!"

Oh, for the love of....

"It's behind you!" I call as I walk past. I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm living in a British panto.

Patron turns around, sprints to the waiting elevator, gets in just before the door closes. Another twenty-something patron comes into the lobby, presses the button for the elevator, and stands facing the doors that flank the button she just pushed...

Future of the world, these kids. I don't mind admitting that sometimes I'm a little scared.

Finally!

I know the date says Wednesday. I've been writing this in bits and pieces all week. It's Friday, March 2 now, and I'm finally ready to post this.

Around 5 pm Monday I finished the Underground Newspapers project I've been whining about since last May. I was so happy, I almost whipped of my shirt and ran around the office, a la Brandi Chastain.

Almost.

Now that I’m done, I can look back and pick out some of the highlights and oddities. Well, no, face it Vee, the whole collection is one big oddity. But I digress:

Favorite titles (Based solely on the title of the publication. I didn't stop to read most of these):

The Anemic Traveler: the newsletter with poor circulation; Bandersnatch; Bi-Weekly Blah-Blah; Borrowed Times; Come Unity (which sounds like "community" if spoken aloud); The Buddhist 3rd Class Junk Mail Oracle (also known as The Barking Rabbit) -- which later changed its name to: Great Swamp Erie Da Da Boom; The Distant Drummer; Fertilizer; A Four-Year Bummer; Good Morning Teaspoon; Great Speckled Bird; High Times; In Arcane Logos; Kompost; Kudzu; Lux Verite; Mile High Underground; Oscar's Underground Ghetto Press; Protean Radish; River Courant; The Son of Jabberwock; Twentieth Century Anonymous; Witzend

Something in the water?

California likes oracles: From 1966-1968, groups in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Larkspur, California all decided to produce newspapers called "The Oracle."

And the midwest likes kaleidoscopes: During the seventies, groups in Omaha, NE, Madison, WI, Milwaukee, WI, Oshkosh, WI, and Chicago, IL were all publishing papers called Kaleidoscope.

Proof that "anarchy" and "chaos" aren't necessarily synonyms:

Freedom: the anarchist weekly -- published weekly from 1947-1960, had a little bobble from 1961-1963 where they went to three times a month, and then weekly again until 1975. Wow. And I can't remember to call my Mom once a week.

Probleem vooruit:

Any title in this set that was in a foreign language (be it Spanish, Greek, Hawaiian, Navajo, Finnish, Dutch…) was destined to have incorrect index entries.

The moment when I knew this thing had taken over my life and warped my thinking:

The title was "Broken Barriers," out of New Orleans. The index listed the issues thusly:

Volume 1 in 1975, vol. 7 in 1976, vol. 11 in 1977, vol. 3 in 1978? What? I stared at the entry for a little while, and a scene played out in my head.

First, let me explain. This collection was organized by year, then alphabetically by title, and then photographed. What's that mean? Well, look at the entry. Issues for this one title are scattered throughout the collection. The whole index is like this, all 1000+ titles in it. I think there were two reasons things were done like this: 1) newspaper degrades fast; and 2) these were publications of independent presses, and might not be printed with any regularity. They could (and did) sometimes go years between publishing issues. Waiting for a "complete" volume was not a good idea.

Since the issues were filmed in different years, I think it's safe to assume that filming wasn't always done by the same person. I also suspect that the photographer filled out a chart as he/she went along, reporting titles, volume and issue information, and dates. This chart was then transcribed into the index by a typist somewhere else in the building. The typist had no contact with the photographers whatsoever, and had to believe that what was on the chart was correct. With me so far?

Okay, now here's how I saw it happening:

My guess was that volume numbers for this title uses roman numerals, and the issue numbers are regular ones. Photographers for reels 178 and 200 recognize this, and write "1" and "2" in whatever place on the chart they need to. Unfortunately, the photographer for #2 has crappy handwriting, and his/her "2" looks like a "7" to the typist. Photographer for reel 229 either needs glasses or doesn't know roman numerals, and he/she records II as "11," so that's what gets transcribed into the index. Photographer for reel 261 recognizes "III" as "3," writes that. Typist sees that on chart, shakes head at the vagaries of independent/alternative presses (1,7,11,3?), and dutifully enters "3" into the index.

I go to the film reels, sure that each issue for volumes "7" and "11" are going to be "Volume II." I am right. I am momentarily triumphant; and then very, very frightened of myself.

The Parting Shot:

All the way at the end of the title portion of the index (three pages from the end, to be exact), there's an entry for Xex Graphix:

This looked like trouble, so I saved it ‘til last. It turns out the Xex Graphix is a publisher of comic books, and these entries were each titles in their own right. I needed to make 12 records just for this entry.

Cataloging microfilmed versions of comic books. Never thought I'd be doing that.

But now I’m done. I have yet to decide how to celebrate. I think I’m going to bring in some baked goodies as a thank-you to my coworkers for putting up with the muttering, weeping, and shouts of outrage that leaked out over my cubicle walls. Not to mention the occasional conversational bludgeoning they’d take as I’d corner one of 'em and jabber on and on about my horrible project until their eyes glazed over.

I wonder what I'm going to be given next. There is a project around here somewhere with my name on it, I'm sure of that. As it was pointed out to me yesterday, the reward for a job well done is usually more work. I hope they come up with something soon. I've been wandering around since Tuesday morning, time hanging heavy on my hands. It's weird not having "that #@$! microfilm project" around, driving me crazy. It's been the bane of my existence for ten months. Now I almost miss it.

Almost.

Blogging remotely

For a number of reasons, the main one being that my desktop machine is on its last legs, I bought myself a laptop last week. It has a hard drive twice the size of the old machine, a wireless card, a 17-inch monitor (the main selling-point, really. Yes, it's heavier than most others, but I have all sorts of room on the screen! I consider that a fair trade), and this nifty little camera above the screen. I can use it to take pictures of myself, but I can also flip it round and take pictures like the one to the left.

This is the room I'm blogging from at the moment. It's my favorite place in the library. Before the renovation (back in the late nineties), it was the Maps library and was just jammed full of map cases, with a section in the back that had tables similar to these. No lamps, though. Then the football coach donated a huge chunk of money to the renovation project, so they turned this room into an old-timey looking reading room and named it after his family. Those brass and green glass lamps house electrical outlets and laptop ports in their bases. The ports were used much more frequently before they installed wifi in the whole building, but it's still a pretty neat idea.

You can't see it very well (the camera only has 1.3 megapixels to it, and was definitely made to take very close-range pictures), but the trim near the ceiling is a series patterns in plaster-- the largest one has been painted red and gold. Back when this was the Maps room, all of those fantastic little details were all painted the same color as the wall. I was so happy to see this room finally get treated the way it deserves. It's in the oldest part of the building, and one of the few places that hasn't been hacked apart or partitioned off into smaller, pokier rooms.

Well, that's about it for now. I just wanted to try out my camera and my wireless card. I suppose I should pack everything up and go get myself some supper before it gets much later.

Early American Advertising

I was evaluating the quality of some microfilm owned by the library where I work, to see whether it was necessary to keep the duplicate reels we'd just found. It turns out both copies are good enough that we can give the extra set to one of our sister libraries in the building, provided they're interested.

The title in question is Porcupine's Gazette, published in Philadelphia from 1797 to 1800. Amid all the news about the war in Europe, lists of ships arriving and departing, and public notices of various types, there are some very funny and creative advertisements. Here's a front-page ad that ran for most of March 1798:

Winter Morning's
Soliloquy!!!

"To shave? or not to shave? That is the question --
Whether 'tis better for a man to suffer
The grisly beard to grow upon his chin;
Or cut it off at once?
To shave with ease! to clear the stubbled face --
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.
To shave with ease? to shave! --
Perchance to tear! -- aye, there's the rub! --
For while we shave the thick rough hairs away,
The Razor's edge will pluck them by the roots;
Or check'd turn inward on the tender flesh :
Then trickles down the blood,
And the sharp pain smarting the face,
Makes cowards of us all! --
But who would bear those rubs and ghastly cuts,
When he himself, might his quietus make, with

HOPKINS's NEW INVENTED
STROP AND COMPOSITION?

Hail! Philadelphia! Hail South Third-St. No. 65, hail!
That makes my beautiful face, both clean and fair!
Hail those whose names are underwritten, --
Equally renowned for attention to customers--
HOPKINS's original Vendors!

And then a list of business names and addresses.

There was no change of font between these ads and the regular news items. I stopped to read things here and there throughout the run of the paper, and sometimes I'd get almost halfway through an advertisment before I'd catch on. For example, one item read like a letter to the editor but turned out to be a testimonial for cough drops. Before trying these little wonders, the writer had been coughing, wheezing, and having pains in the chest (the word "martyred" was used at one point. The symptoms as they were described sounded a lot like pleurisy, or maybe asthmatic bronchitis), but now they were cured! Amazing!

And I thought modern advertisers were sneaky.