Not too much time today. I’m deep in the thick of stuff at work, getting new machines ready for the next semester, weeding the English literature collection, working on the new library website. Plenty to keep me busy. What’s weeding, you ask? Well, besides being something I was forced to do as a child, involving plants, gloves and plenty of gnats, weeding refers to keeping a library collection tidy. Basically what I’m doing right now is weeding for condition. I’m looking over the collection (Library of Congress Call Number: PR) and checking each book to see if it’s damaged, defaced (DON’T WRITE IN LIBRARY BOOKS, PEOPLE!) or just plain old and ugly. If it is, then I look up the check out statistics in our database: check and see how many times the book has checked out and when the last time it checked out was. If it’s not seeing much usage–especially recent usage–and it’s in crummy shape, then VOOP! Out it goes to the Donation shelf (after being removed from the catalog, of course). I’m not sure when the collection was weeded last, but it’s in dire need of it. The shelves are too full down there, and there are some downright scary books. Poor things. Lots of books from the 1800s, which–while they might sound like potential E-bay specials–really aren’t that much use when they’ve been used and abused by a library for over 100 years. Have a moment of silence for them, then let them go.
Anyway. Now you have a slice of insight into some of the stuff I do at work. Yes, I actually enjoy this sort of thing. I’m crazy like that.
And for all you people who want to do something interesting for a few minutes, here’s a link to something completely unrelated. See if you can tell where all these people’s accents are from. I got an abysmal 17 points. Really bad, for a linguistics major. Sigh. I fail. How did you do?
That’s a fun little test. I got 24 points. I would have answered one more correctly, but I second guessed myself. I had an easier time with the non-native English speakers.
Yeah–I would have been a fair bit higher, but I kept second and third guessing myself. Sigh. I ought to be more decisive.