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Pegasus Librarian Posts

I Love Catalogers

Published by Iris on Monday, February 25th, 2008

I just spent 20 minutes with a student hunting down the album number of a particular jazz album that was released last year. Lord’s Jazz Discography didn’t have it (the album is too recent to be included), Amazon didn’t have it (preferring to list only their own unique identifier, the ASIN number), the artist’s site didn’t list it (preferring to link to Amazon for all album information… For Circular Reference, see Reference, Circular; For Reference, Circular, see Circular Reference), and the recording label didn’t list it in their catalog either.

Then, just as we were deciding between giving up, going out to a music store and just looking at the album itself, or emailing the artist (who’s young and new and would probably do anything for a student who mentions studying the artist’s work in college), I remembered catalogers and the wonderfully meticulous work they do. Surely somebody has this album in their collection, and surely some cataloger has already done this hunting for us.

A quick WorldCat search brought up the album, and sure enough, there it was! Not only the album number, but also the recording and release dates… just sitting there waiting for us. O Frabjous Day! Catalogers ROCK!!

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Mourning My Do Nothing Day

Published by Iris on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

This week was pretty incredibly stressful, the kind of week that makes me set my sights on the weekend and promise myself that I’ll be able to spend most of one whole day just curled up on the couch Continuous Partial Attentioning myself through movies, a book, and my friend the internet.

In fact, nearly every Saturday I try to take the day to recharge my spent batteries. I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to, and I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to. It’s a Do Nothing day. If I’m to be a happy and productive member of society, I need these Do Nothing days, and I need them every single weekend.

But alas, just because I need them doesn’t make them possible. It was a sad day when I agreed to direct the campus handbell choir because they rehearse on Saturdays, but usually a 2-hour interruption of nothingness won’t kill the effects of the rest of the nothingness. And fairly frequently I’ll work on projects that I just can’t get done while I’m at work, but that don’t take a whole lot of brain power. But I try to think of these as minor interruptions of the Do Nothing day. The day still exists, it’s just spiced up a little.

Unfortunately for me, today I’ll be squeezing all the important weekend tasks into my Do Nothing day (handbell rehearsal, dishes, meal planning for next week, grocery shopping, laundry, paying bills, … you know the kinds of things) because tomorrow will be full of choir rehearsal and choir performance from 7am to 11, and Sunday reference from 1 to 10pm. I could almost cry.

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Comps Day

Published by Iris on Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Seniors here have to complete a Comprehensive Exercise (a senior thesis or similar project) commonly referred to as “comps.” Each major has it’s own rules and deadlines, but today was Comps Day for Econ majors. It was so fun to see them going up to the printer to collect their impressively long papers with impressively long titles and just glowing!

Most of these kids haven’t slept in about 3 weeks, they’ve been stressed to the hilt producing a paper that’s several times longer than anything they’ve ever produced before, and their graduations hang in the balance over this one project. But today they’re bursting with so much joy and so much pride that they just spontaneously come up the desk, show me their papers, and say, in wonder, “This is my comps!”

So between finding information about Korean assimilation into Japanese corporate culture, sussing out good starting points for a paper on the effects of globalization on education in inner-city Chicago high schools, and a whole bunch of citation questions for one class that has a project due tomorrow, I got to congratulate a steady stream of dazedly ecstatic Econ seniors and promise them that yes, they’ll be even happier tomorrow after they’ve eaten something and slept a little.

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Total Eclipse of the … Moon

Published by Iris on Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Last night it was my regular night on the desk and as the lunar eclipse became more and more complete, I joined the growing crowd standing out in front of the library and gazing skyward. Somebody kept a “T minus 4 minutes to total eclipse” countdown going. Somebody else kept making up new words to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Another little group was trying to explain the phenomenon to two of their friends (who were confused about whether we were moving or the moon was… I kid you not).

Little by little, most of the people in the library ended up gathered in front of it, hopping up and down to keep feeling in our legs and simultaneously cursing the sub-zero weather and blessing it for the clear view it gave us of the eclipse. Faculty, staff, and students laughed and talked to people they’d never met, and one student turned his camera away from the moon and onto the cluster of eclipse-watchers.

Of course, once I’d seen the total eclipse, I had to return to the desk. Some may think that it was because of my well-developed sense of duty and service… but they’d be wrong. It was because I’d lost feeling in my face and thought I’d better warm up before testing the length of time it takes skin to frost bite in -10 degree temperatures.

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