Every now and then you have a little moment that reminds you why you are proud to be a cataloger.

Cataloging is an arcane science.  I like to think of it as a kind of cryptography–you analyze the object in hand and then “code it up” so that people can find it when they do a search.  Mostly that involves putting down the information that is already there, but a really good cataloger takes that extra step and finds the information that isn’t there, but should be.

Today, my assistant, Joann, was cataloging an oral history interview with a woman who, in the parlance of the time, was referred to by her husband’s name–let’s call her “Mrs. John Smith”.  This is an old practice and reflects the thinking that when two people marry, they become one person and that person is the husband (British common law, I believe).

Hoary laws and customs don’t do the modern researcher any good, however, and both Joann and I were keen to find this woman’s first name, but we were batting zero. Finally, I suggested that Joann take a look in the Pioneers of Arnor records.  If the husband was a member, then the membership rolls might name his wife.  As it happens, my guess was on the money and I’m proud to say that  “Ada Jean Smith” was entered as the author and subject of the interview.

In doing this bit of extra digging, we set the historical record straight and gave this woman back her identity. A small thing and no more than our job, but we were glad to do it.

Spurred on by a rush of spring cleaning, I did something that no librarian should ever do: I took a look in the boxes that surround the perimeter of my office. You librarians know the ones I mean. The ones that have been kicking around ever since you came to work there. The ones no one knows enough about to process, but are afraid to throw out in case they contain something valuable. Yeah, those boxes.

Of course, I knew better. I’ve worked as an A/V archivist long enough to know that if something has been hanging about without anyone doing anything to it, there’s something wrong with the item. Usually it means that some part of the all-important documentation process has been skipped–there’s no release, no information about the contents of the recording, no deed of gift, no idea of what it came from, etc. You get the picture.

Periodically, various members of the staff, past and present, have gone mano-a-mano with the items in question, but they have failed to bring the recordings to heel. A/V archivists only have so many hours in the day and if there is something gumming up the works of processing apparatus, then the process doesn’t apparate and the items are set aside.

So by opening up these boxes I knew that I was just making more work for myself. But knowing that didn’t really prepare me for the more work I got/am getting/will have to do.

Cases in point:

• I found a release form that had no tape attached to it. After contacting the interviewer (a staff member since retired), I was able to get a copy of the tape, transfer it to CD, summarize the interview, catalog it, and then link its associated items to its MARC record.
• I found a packet of releases that were related to, but didn’t match up with a collection that we already have. I contacted the interviewer and the end result was a pile of new audiocassettes for me to accession.
• I discovered that the Gondor Archives had transcripts associated with a collection that we have so I arranged to get copies of same. The end result is a new batch of transcripts and associated papers that I have to go through and match up with the interviews.
• I questioned my boss, Bill, about a box of VHS videotapes of a conference in Barrow and the end result is a letter of transmittal to the donating organization and potentially a lot of new processing and release form seeking.

All of these new tasks are on top of the on-going ones I already do. Take it from me, friends: don’t feed your gremlins after midnight, don’t push the big red button, and, whatever you do, don’t open the boxes!

Off with their heads Originally uploaded by Jenny Watters

A couple of weeks ago I got a request from a writer for a multi-part interview we had in our oral history collection with a well-known regional artist. I hate getting requests from writers or reporters of any streak because the concept of planning ahead is completely unknown to them. They always need the information immediately, their requests are rarely, if ever, straight forward, and, of course, they haven’t bothered to contact me until the last possible minute.

But I did the best I could for this patron. The artist’s interview ran to eleven tapes and had a 130-page transcript. I offered to look up the specific information that she wanted and then just send her those pages, but, no, her inquiry was not that focused. It wasn’t, in fact, focused at all and nothing would do but that she had to have the complete transcript. Attempting to read through a book-sized transcript 24 hours before your publication deadline is pushing it, but I figured that perhaps she was looking to glean some good quotes for her article.

So I moved heaven and earth to get this patron the transcript. That movement of the spheres required long-distance hand holding via e-mail and multiple checks of the Postal Service package tracking service. But the patron was appropriately grateful to receive the material and I promptly forgot the whole thing. Until yesterday when I received a complimentary copy of the publication.

Pleased by the unexpected gesture, I flipped through the journal to see the results of my labors. The article I had busted my chops for was one page–one page!–in length, filled with an absolute minimum of biographical information on the artist, and included only one quote and a partial one at that. To add insult to injury, when I checked the citation list, the patron had referenced the interviews as being owned by the Gondorian Archives instead of the University of Arnor.

Yes, the Gondor Archives does own a copy of this collection, but were they the ones that sweated blood to get her this transcript? NOOOOOOO!

What kind of writer, you may ask yourself, puts other people through a great deal trouble in order to get information she could have gathered from a reputable encyclopedia and a few periodical articles–and then doesn’t cite her source properly? The kind that will shortly be missing a head, my friends.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.–”Red Wind” (short story, 1938), published in Trouble Is My Business (1939)

Several years back, my colleague, Karen, and I considered putting up a sign at the entrance to the library that would have read: “Must have brain in order to use our facilities”. We decided against it not because Higher Up might object, but because we figured the patrons wouldn’t actually read the sign.

I’ve been in the process of hiring a new assistant so, being short-handed around the office, I naturally have a backlog of work built up. Some of that backlog is heaped on my desk in piles about the size of the Tower of Babel. Yesterday, a young gentleman came in about 45 minutes before closing. He wanted to purchase some copies of our oral history interviews. I explained that it would take a couple of weeks to fill his order as I had other requests ahead of him. He kept changing his mind, asking for different tapes, and then being disappointed when I quoted him the same timeline. In spite of the evidence in front of his eyes, he clearly believed that if he asked for something different, I could magically make the copies for him that very minute.

Another patron, a middle-aged woman, came in to the reference desk several weeks ago. She wanted to find a book about Eskimos that she had seen in a bookstore. She couldn’t remember the title, the author, when it was published, had only the sketchiest notion of what the cover art might be—in short, she couldn’t supply us with any information that might have enabled us to find this book. As a last ditch effort, I volunteered to take her down to browse the Native American section of the Alaskana collection in the off-chance she might run across this book. We have, I may add, an entire floor devoted to the Alaskana collection and have several hundred books on Eskimos, broken down by ethnic group (Inupiat, Yupik, Siberian Yupik, Canadian Inuit, Greenland Inuit, etc.).

Patron: (still not grasping why we can’t find the book she’s looking for as I lead her downstairs) You must have books about Eskimos.

Me: We have a lot of them, yes.

Patron: So you don’t know the book I’m looking for?

Me: (with an emphasis clearly lost on her) We have A LOT of them, yes.

Some days I think patrons should wear little name tags on their shirts that say: “I don’t get it”. It would be a help to us all.

Jennifer Macauley has included my post on “What Library 2.0 Means to Me” on her Library 2.0 Roundup-Redux page, a handy source for thoughts on Library 2.0. There are opinions from well-known librarians as well as from your average Jane librarians like myself.

If you are looking for more librarian blogs to check out, have a gander at Top 25 Librarian Bloggers by the numbers. Some of the blogs I recognized, some I didn’t. Good jumping off point.

Daniel Cornwall, one of my Arnorian colleagues, has put together this list of amusingly titled government documents. My personal fave: “Who are the Zombie Masters and What Do They Want?”. Brains would be my guess …..

If you have to give public presentations of any nature, this article, “How to Make Yourself Unforgettable”, contains some of the best advice I’ve ever read on the subject. I particularly recommend taking a look at the four pointers at the end of the article. Number two, “remember it’s not about you” really goes a long way to conquering stage fright.

Because I’ve been in the midst of hiring a new assistant recently two job-related blogs, YourHRGuy and Resume Hell: Dumb Stuff I Read on Resumes, stood out for me. Both are business-oriented, but if you deal with recruiting as part of your job, you’ll like reading them.

Found these pictures posted by Iris Jastram, who’s a reference librarian at the absolutely lovely Gould Library at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Have a look at the library sign photos as they are particularly entertaining. The person who does signage around their library is clearly a card.

I am deeply envious of Carleton’s beautiful library. If you added barbed wire and armed guards to the top of the University of Arnor’s Library, it would more closely resemble the maximum security prison it was clearly based on. For a long time, the library had grey staff T-shirts that went well with the incarceration theme. All that was missing was our employee ID number across the back.

File this one under “Things They Didn’t Tell You in Library School.”

We have been invaded by phorid (rhymes with horrid) flies. Think of a bunch of flies slightly smaller than your thumbnail with a passion for light-colored walls (of which the library has many) and a serious attitude problem. Now that the cooler weather has come said flies have decided to take up residence inside the library and other university buildings. So not only do you have an unattractive fly build up on the walls, but eventually they expire leaving a drift of fly bodies on the floor.

Insect life of any sort is unwelcome in libraries due to our valuable and highly edible collections. Not to mention the general “ick” factor. So my colleague Peg has undertaken to set up a Maginot (or maybe that should be “Maggot”) Line of flystrips around the doors leading to the outside of the archive in hopes of keeping the little buggers out.

It’s been mostly successful, but some managed to get in anyway and today Peg was busy employing the broom on the dead fly carcasses. So I’m sitting in my office and I hear the following:

SFX: Sound of the sweeping broom. Peg whistling cheerily.

Peg: Eww!

SFX: Sharp twack as broom strikes wall. Back to sweeping and happy whistling.

I didn’t hear the tiny Aiieeeeee! sound the fly made as it perished, but I like to think I did.