UFOs (Ubiquitous Findable Objects)

Apparently, I share a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with Peter Morville. I didn't make it all the way through the article when I got stopped by that. I find Morville interesting, even though his ego, as seen through Web4Lib, seems enormous. Maybe I do better with the interpersonal sensitivity? I'll never think of myself as a scientist. I'll fall on the art side of the library-science-or-art? debate most likely. Thank god it's not a very sharp sword to fall on. Maybe because I rely on intuition to find objects? Seriously. I do better walking up to the shelves and making a stab than I do trying a subject search in Millenium. Of course, by the time I have found THE subject heading and then narrowed the results to our tiny fragment of holdings, enough time has elapsed for the patron's kids to drag them off to a far distant corner of the children's room. Book will probably not be findable. Our shelves are in parlous order, and apparently no one marks items missing on any regular basis.

Working with a small slice of libraryland is very different than working in a hulking behemoth of 3 million volumes. I have been weeding reference. How interesting! We own barely anything on countless subjects (3 shelves on serial killers, though), but we keep ELDERLY medical directories. Egad. I keep thinking how much nimbleness matters. Not just speed, but grace. For those of you not acquainted with my real world manifestation, nimble and grace are not the first descriptors you would assign me. But I like to think that nimbleness of mind will make up for it. I am REALLY hoping to gain insight into our implementation of Millenium's mind soon. Because as good as my intuition is, I can't track all the UFOs.

I finished The Good Wife by Stewart Onan last night. I really liked reading an interior novel across 25 years. Maybe it's just my age. Plus the setting. I have driven through Owego, New York at least a thousand times in my life. It's on the back way from Binghampton (and points south) to where I lived from ages five to eleven. My sister, who qualifies as a good wife indeed, still lives there. Today is her husband's funeral. So, as so often happens, my reading was tinged with outside things that no other reader can likely experience. But the poverty and boredom of a rural area, plus the change over time from a culture around hunting season and football to chain stores and TV seemed well-drawn to me. I don't know how it would affect another reader. Too close for comfort here.

My posts have been few and far between, I know. Apologies, sweet readers. I have little free time to blog. Or read at all. It is killing. Note that I did not go back to bed for an extra hour on this, my late night at work. I almost miss the intense boredom at MFPOW, as that is how I got involved with blogs in the first place...they've started a blog at MNPOW re: their electronic resources. Not a single comment on it. Should I be the first to try and start a conversation, or wait until I pass probation? Hmmmmm.

Hangin' and bangin'

When I was little, I liked to hang upside down on a chair, feet in the air. I mean for like hours. I'd forgotten, but my brother recently reminded me, and said he'd wondered what I was thinking about. I remember liking the difference in perspctive. If you just looked at the ceilings like floors, our house looked like the interior of a space shipe a little, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think I still like to find those other points of view. Right now, I am trying to wrap my brain around The Clock of the Long Now. Now there's a new perspective. Time and responsibility. The impact on centuries. I like what it does for book budgets. :)

I had an intensely insistent/realistic/whathaveyou dream last night. One of those ones you think you've woken up from, but you fall right back into it in moments. I found an email in my Outlook account that I wasn't supposed to receive. (Shades of something?) It said I was being transferred from my branch to a collection development position at HQ. I was up part of the night worrying about how the staff whould handle it, and would I have time to finish reorganizing my predecessors' files, and what about the new magazine shelves? And the lake and the ducks! I swear I woke up the Boyfriend to discuss, but he claims no recollection. Even in my sleep, I was telling myself that I don't even know how to login to Outlook Web Access at MPOW. Aside: Much as I loathe Outlook, it's kind of a relief that they have it, since I do KNOW it. Tiny bit of gratefulness.

I've been pretty conflicted about the new job. I HATE driving 25 minutes to and fro. I KNOW that it is a minuscule commute compared to many. But I don't even like cars. I was late leaving on Saturday morning, and there I was screaming down the freeway in the Prius doing over 80 m.p.h. Unthinkable. Because I haven't internalized the schedule yet. It does keep changing. It's kind of the reverse of MFPOW. I am in that situation where I have ideas, I can see areas for improvement, but there are so many other areas where I lack knowledge, that I am afraid to do anything. But I guess the dream helped clarify that I am ok on my main roles: the staff, who have had too much transition of late; organizing and administering the paperwork; making the collection and the facility meet the needs of the community; and admiring the lake and the ducks at every opportunity!

Well, it does keep me busy. I have nary a moment at work to read Web4Lib or LISNews (note: URL change par excellence) or my Bloglines...what to do? I do not wish to moulder!

PS I have no idea why a slider bar is clinging to the middle of this post I keep hoping it will go away. If it doesn't, could someone lend me a clue why this is happening and/or how to fix?

Still searching...

Here's the previously-discussed picture. Confusion still reigns with Millenium. I am now scheduled for training in December. By then, I must have figured it out on my own or there's just no excuse. Meanwhile, I gave myself the treat of a little Marion Chesney, The Miser of Mayfair. 167 p. Short and tart. Fluffy but not meringue. Now I'm on to more serious things.

Searching but not finding

I am getting Dewey back. Not to two or three decimal points (except in art), but general centuries and decades and even some years. Five years away and I felt completely fogged in last week, but now it's beginning to make that imperfect sense. I like the fractures and crevices and canyons, though some of it is just to scratch our heads. I often bill myself as the librarian who can't remember authors or titles or call numbers. I can find them. But it is quicker if I can just walk to the shelf. I can't wait to really know my new collection. Some of this is my desire for a sense of mastery. I like to be good at my job. I will be.

I wanted to put up a picture of the lake next to my library, but I can't find my camera. Here's a pic via Google. I think it is old, as the gazebo roof is not that red, and I don't see any of the desert willows that are all around. I couldn't find anything more current. Which brings me to today's topic: Millenium by Innovative.

I do not want to sound too crabby/picky, even if that is my nature. Here I am, just the most cursory training in a new-to-me ILS, and I am stubbing my toes, and getting tripped up wildly. In front of the customers. Title and author searches work fine. I can limit by location easily. But the subject search is soooo weird. I don't know what we own, and I don't remember the precise Dewey number for birds of prey, for instance. Today, I tried for books on the venus fly trap. I got lots of listings for books on the planet Venus. Put the phrase in quotes, same results. Flytrap gave me bupkiss. I ended up doing a title search on flytrap. That worked. But it was pathetic.

I can't do keyword searches any better than title. I try putting an author's last name and a major word in the title. Don't do that. Retrievals are just incomprehensile. Using the "advanced" keyword to do fielded searching is cumbersome, and doesn't seem to work either. There must be a better way! Which is why I am reading the Millenium page at home though I am tired...will have to report back.

Oh, another addition to the great unfinished books of 2005: A Long Way Down. IMac is being sluggish so I won't link. I know it was supposed to be humorous. I just wasn't getting the jokes. Sigh.

The first day of the rest of my life...

OK, mission accomplished. I went to work yesterday as a branch librarian. In the newly purchased car, driving to work (a very novel experience for this city girl) with the navigator telling me how many miles to my next exit (only two freeways, TG), I considered how for me, yesterday was my real California beginning. Not that my personal life is unimportant! But I've been on something of an extended honeymoon, for chrissakes. Which is kind of weird, all by itself. The adjustment period was good, as I can't imagine coping if I'd started two weeks after I got here.

Anyway, my new MPOW is downright cushy. Lovely facilities, lots of staff, supplies, acquisitions budget stuffed. It's a little hard to believe it's a public library. My staff greeted me with flowers and a cake. The Friends vice president almost hugged me. I am very welcome. They don't know me, of course, but still, it was nice. I spent most of the day with the acting branch librarian, a temporary appointment who has been on loan for several months. Right there, the difference between library administration's was apparent. At MFPOW, the vacancy would have been vacant for months, and the staff and public left to cope. They even have substitutes for the support staff. My former head of support staff would think she'd died and gone to heaven.

I did spend a little time on the reference desk, and learning Millenium. So refreshing to learn a new ILS--it has been quite a while. I placed four holds (only one for myself). I made a point of getting a card early on. Priorities. Plus I really helped a patron looking for historical fiction. My depth of knowledge was far superior to that of the other two librarians there. So that eased a little of my fears about reader's advisory.

Oooh. I fisnished The Last Days of Dogtown. Not a bad read, but kind of precious. A lot of telling how wonderful a characer was, without showing. I still haven't figured out why the main character was the main character. I am jaded. Off to get ready for work!