Back again...
I think I'll just stick with that theme since it seems that I'm going to be out more than I'm in for a few more weeks. I usually only have this much out-of-office time in June when I'm attending CARLI spring forums and trying to use up vacation time to avoid losing it.
Fortunately, I was able to catch up with most of my e-mail and NMRT business on Thursday, so I've gotten some actual work done today.
I solved an SFX/Serials Solutions mis-match problem that J and B reported late last week. Thank goodness for CARLI's documentation pages!
J (a different J) had some questions about creating new POs in Voyager. That required fiddling with OCLC to make it work on his computer (It's always something!), and we actually managed to write documentation as we went along rather than just talking about how we ought to do that.
Now I'm hanging out in the archives room while a community member peruses one of our many Lincoln-related books. 150 years ago today, on the first day of Chanukah, General U.S. Grant issued an order to expel "Jews as a class" from certain areas of the war zone--that would be the Civil War--as part of an attempt to cut off the black market sale of cotton. Lincoln was called upon to reverse the order, and he did so. You can read more here. We own a book of that contains "a cross section of sermons and essays both written and delivered by America's Jewish spiritual leaders marking the life of Lincoln from the very weekend of his murder to the first decades of the 20th century." (More info and source of quote)
I'm hoping to get back to the office in time to clean up a bit of my mess that's accumulated as I've run in and out the past few weeks and maybe even to get back into sorting through the various carts and piles of books that have been sitting around for months (or, in some cases, years).
I'll be in for a couple of hours on Wednesday for the library Christmas party, and then Mary and I will finally have a day to work together on Thursday.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Things have been fairly quiet with Emily on vacation.
I'm keeping busy, though, getting oriented to virtual spaces, organizing and testing my usernames and passwords, and gearing up to start wandering the stacks. 'Cause I'm new, so I get to.
I got my picture taken for the directory today. That's always a nice thing to have behind one, if one is the opposite of photogenic.
This morning I helped A. with a couple of finishing touches needed to get ILLiad working through SFX. Emily had done the main groundwork for the setup, so all I had to do was change a setting, and in the end, tweak a URL.The SFX 'node' seems fine now, albeit with one weirdness that is tiny -- but not minor, because it's a quirk that happens right after one has created an account. In other words, it's a little curve ball for new people. Eeeeexcellent. Because really life is just smooth sailing into foreverness if one can confuse people right out of the gate. A. seems very interested getting that straightened out. Good on her.
I also discussed the Voyager 'Problems' list with J. That was a little bit fun. I like a clean 'Problems' list. We'll talk to Emily about its potential usefulness. Or perhaps he will on his own.
And I now have admin privileges for the desktop computer. It was theoretically functional yesterday as well, but I needed to re-boot for it to take effect. Which I thought I had done at least once, but oh well. Anyway, now I'm working on setting up my Oracle instance/access.
Oracle setup is proving to be a bit tricky this time around, despite the number of times I've done it in the past. This time it's not an 'upgrade'; and since some components appear to already be on the machine, it doesn't look quite like an 'install from scratch, either. The distinction matters. And yet some of the stuff that's already there is missing important connectivity elements. Also, we're running Win7 -- an environment in which I've not yet installed Oracle (although I do have the instructions handy). So I'm imposing upon our happy consortium for help. (Their documentation does say to bug them in such a case as my own.) I am psyched, because now that I can log in as admin, I will have the power to actually follow their instructions. Right now all I have to do is wait for them to get back to me.
At lunchtime I took full advantage of the Bookstore's 'Customer Appreciation Day', and purchased a couple of campuswear items, since we also do that thing that many other schools like to do, and wear jeans and a campuswear top on Fridays when classes are in session. I appreciated the opportunity of a discount. And I had a sandwich, some fruit and a brownie. They were celebrating, and socializing. A pretty cool event, I think.
This afternoon a telemarketer phoned asking for our former Director, and hung up when I told her that individual was no longer here. I always think such callers must be up to something, because I'm pretty sure Emily the Tech Services Adventuress did not inherit the phone extension of the former Director. Although perhaps she did! Who knows? Anyway, it was odd. Two jobs ago my predecessor's stalker phoned looking for her. I fear I was not helpful in that case either. There are limits, even for librarians.
xoxo
Mary
(I just heard a thing on NPR about signing off 'xoxo' in email messages. Who would even do that. Seriously. But it sounded like some people do.)
I got my picture taken for the directory today. That's always a nice thing to have behind one, if one is the opposite of photogenic.
This morning I helped A. with a couple of finishing touches needed to get ILLiad working through SFX. Emily had done the main groundwork for the setup, so all I had to do was change a setting, and in the end, tweak a URL.The SFX 'node' seems fine now, albeit with one weirdness that is tiny -- but not minor, because it's a quirk that happens right after one has created an account. In other words, it's a little curve ball for new people. Eeeeexcellent. Because really life is just smooth sailing into foreverness if one can confuse people right out of the gate. A. seems very interested getting that straightened out. Good on her.
I also discussed the Voyager 'Problems' list with J. That was a little bit fun. I like a clean 'Problems' list. We'll talk to Emily about its potential usefulness. Or perhaps he will on his own.
And I now have admin privileges for the desktop computer. It was theoretically functional yesterday as well, but I needed to re-boot for it to take effect. Which I thought I had done at least once, but oh well. Anyway, now I'm working on setting up my Oracle instance/access.
Oracle setup is proving to be a bit tricky this time around, despite the number of times I've done it in the past. This time it's not an 'upgrade'; and since some components appear to already be on the machine, it doesn't look quite like an 'install from scratch, either. The distinction matters. And yet some of the stuff that's already there is missing important connectivity elements. Also, we're running Win7 -- an environment in which I've not yet installed Oracle (although I do have the instructions handy). So I'm imposing upon our happy consortium for help. (Their documentation does say to bug them in such a case as my own.) I am psyched, because now that I can log in as admin, I will have the power to actually follow their instructions. Right now all I have to do is wait for them to get back to me.
At lunchtime I took full advantage of the Bookstore's 'Customer Appreciation Day', and purchased a couple of campuswear items, since we also do that thing that many other schools like to do, and wear jeans and a campuswear top on Fridays when classes are in session. I appreciated the opportunity of a discount. And I had a sandwich, some fruit and a brownie. They were celebrating, and socializing. A pretty cool event, I think.
This afternoon a telemarketer phoned asking for our former Director, and hung up when I told her that individual was no longer here. I always think such callers must be up to something, because I'm pretty sure Emily the Tech Services Adventuress did not inherit the phone extension of the former Director. Although perhaps she did! Who knows? Anyway, it was odd. Two jobs ago my predecessor's stalker phoned looking for her. I fear I was not helpful in that case either. There are limits, even for librarians.
xoxo
Mary
(I just heard a thing on NPR about signing off 'xoxo' in email messages. Who would even do that. Seriously. But it sounded like some people do.)
Monday, November 26, 2012
Back after 10 days away
I'm playing catch-up, of course. Apparently checking my e-mail once a day while I'm not working but ignoring most of the messages doesn't really help much.
I finally booked my travel for ALA Midwinter. Cyber Monday didn't help much on that front, but I suspect prices will go up substantially tomorrow, so it's better than waiting any longer.
I have several thousand dollars to spend on collection development. Psychology is always easy. The rest tend to be tougher.
I'm working 3 days this week, and then I'm off until December 13th. That'll be 13 days away from the office. Three of those days, I'll be without internet access. Since I don't have a smart phone, and James' grandparents live in an area where I doubt 3G would work anyway, it's the way it is.
Goals/Tasks for the week include:
*Figuring out an easy way for Heidi to do the staff-side work of Shelflister. The student part is easy, fortunately;
*Finishing up 1st half collection development;
*2 Academic Affairs luncheons--a fun one on Tuesday for the holidays and a less-fun one on Thursday as part of an e-books round table;
*reviewing more gift books for Hal. I suspect we'll be creating a new dungeon backlog before it's over, though;
*and getting through the first half of the appraisal process with Kathy.
I finally booked my travel for ALA Midwinter. Cyber Monday didn't help much on that front, but I suspect prices will go up substantially tomorrow, so it's better than waiting any longer.
I have several thousand dollars to spend on collection development. Psychology is always easy. The rest tend to be tougher.
I'm working 3 days this week, and then I'm off until December 13th. That'll be 13 days away from the office. Three of those days, I'll be without internet access. Since I don't have a smart phone, and James' grandparents live in an area where I doubt 3G would work anyway, it's the way it is.
Goals/Tasks for the week include:
*Figuring out an easy way for Heidi to do the staff-side work of Shelflister. The student part is easy, fortunately;
*Finishing up 1st half collection development;
*2 Academic Affairs luncheons--a fun one on Tuesday for the holidays and a less-fun one on Thursday as part of an e-books round table;
*reviewing more gift books for Hal. I suspect we'll be creating a new dungeon backlog before it's over, though;
*and getting through the first half of the appraisal process with Kathy.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Welcome to Friday!
Well, the squeaking of the Emily-wheel* has yielded results. Emily has let me know that ITS has addressed the question of the voicemail branch with twigs -- or would that be twigs-with/of-branch, or branches-of-trunk? Whatever. As I construe things, it's now been configured in such a way as to (maybe) not dump our callers anywhere likely to disorient them too badly, and we do have access to the shared voicemail box. If I'm wrong, E will set me straight. Hm. I should probably get a lesson on the telephone-machine. I know how to call out, and could guess at how to fetch voicemail -- have no clue how to tell whose voicemail box has messages...
That was a little interlude of me talking to myself.
Re. Publisher X. Fasten your 'living vicariously'-seatbelts, Readers: Emily cc:'d me late yesterday afternoon on the email message she has sent to our distributor, driving a stake through the subscription in question. It wasn't personal.
Who won? Discuss...
As long as I'm chatting about e-resources: We had a haunting issue with a couple of e-resource packages whose links were broken in a couple of contexts, but were transparently accessible in a couple of others. Between E & me we got it troubleshot and fixed between Wednesday & today. Since I'm so new I have no idea how long the problem had existed, or whether it was super-frustrating, or just kind of annoying; the main thing being that all is now right with that fragment of our world.
So. As mentioned before, I'm Emily's new half-time counterpart. I'm still crawling through network folders, aggregated databases, A-to-Z lists, SFX and SerialsSolutions, testing my logins, and wearing a pager a certain number of hours a week in case a patron should need reference/research assistance. (The first time the pager goes off, I will probably have at least 16 heart-attacks.) Ramp-up activity is not super-intense, maybe on account of the approaching holiday. I'm guessing that a deadline -- of which I am blissfully ignorant -- is looming for me to produce something really complicated. If I miss such, I'm sure I'll hear about it, get it done, & move on. heh
I think I'll crawl around the Microsoft Access tables/queries/forms/reports, now.
Maybe The Chicago Manual of Style and the mouse are done falling into the recycling bin for the day.
I want a cookie.
xoxo
Mary
*Please do not confuse with Catherine-Wheel, which is a completely different kind of wheel, and also a 90's indie-band.
That was a little interlude of me talking to myself.
Re. Publisher X. Fasten your 'living vicariously'-seatbelts, Readers: Emily cc:'d me late yesterday afternoon on the email message she has sent to our distributor, driving a stake through the subscription in question. It wasn't personal.
Who won? Discuss...
As long as I'm chatting about e-resources: We had a haunting issue with a couple of e-resource packages whose links were broken in a couple of contexts, but were transparently accessible in a couple of others. Between E & me we got it troubleshot and fixed between Wednesday & today. Since I'm so new I have no idea how long the problem had existed, or whether it was super-frustrating, or just kind of annoying; the main thing being that all is now right with that fragment of our world.
So. As mentioned before, I'm Emily's new half-time counterpart. I'm still crawling through network folders, aggregated databases, A-to-Z lists, SFX and SerialsSolutions, testing my logins, and wearing a pager a certain number of hours a week in case a patron should need reference/research assistance. (The first time the pager goes off, I will probably have at least 16 heart-attacks.) Ramp-up activity is not super-intense, maybe on account of the approaching holiday. I'm guessing that a deadline -- of which I am blissfully ignorant -- is looming for me to produce something really complicated. If I miss such, I'm sure I'll hear about it, get it done, & move on. heh
I think I'll crawl around the Microsoft Access tables/queries/forms/reports, now.
Maybe The Chicago Manual of Style and the mouse are done falling into the recycling bin for the day.
I want a cookie.
xoxo
Mary
*Please do not confuse with Catherine-Wheel, which is a completely different kind of wheel, and also a 90's indie-band.
Hi! I'm Mary...
Hi! um. again.
I'm Mary, Emily's new counterpart. Emily has more toys here than I do, but hers are surrounded by family photos I didn't want to post without her permission, or move around too much -- so no full panoramic phone-shot of toys today. If you use your imagination, Emily's are to the left. And yes, she also has a Librarian Action Figure -- but she also has a super-awesome ray-gun. Which, sadly, I do not.
It's nice to be here. I'm on day... 4, I think. I was at an off-site meeting last Friday, so I'm not counting that because no one could really get me to do stuff, and I wasn't sitting at the desk, so wasn't orienting myself to anything much in particular.
I got birthday'ed today. I can't remember whether I've ever been birthday'ed at a job before. It was super-nice, and a total surprise. My real birthday isn't actually today, but look! :
!I'm pleased to be here on the blog, too. Next post is all about work. Yayy! Work!
Oh, and: It's super-lucky E mentioned that thing about Christmas Party plans being secret. I hadn't said anything yet; but man that could so totally have happened.
xoxo
Mary
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Just another manic...Tuesday?
Welcome, Mary, as an author on the TS blog!
Today's fun included a librarian's meeting. More discussion of whether or not to drop our subscriptions/package with Publisher X and still no resolution. Dropping it seems like the right thing to do, but there's some fear of political fallout with the new president starting January 1 and fears of ILL requests increasing more than they already have over the past year or so. The ILL piece is sort of a 'victims of our success' issue.
Finally did J's performance evaluation. HR never asked for a 90-day review for him, so the timing was weird, but I don't have to worry about it again until June.
Began planning for the library Christmas party. (FYI, Mary--All plans, except for the date and time, are considered TOP SECRET until the party. There's major competition to one-up the previous year's party.)
Heard back from ITS that they don't think we need access to our shared main extension, but only our individual extensions. Sent them (via Jeanne) text for a message to record and a question about how they're going to let us know if someone leaves a message on the main extension rather than an individual one.
ALA Stuff: Heard back from C that she's accepting the appointment to fundraising coordinator. Reviewed a call for proposals for the ALCTS CMS Pub Committee forum for Annual. At some point, I should be called on to review the Sudden Selector's Guide to children's materials. Not sure where that is in the publication process, though.
Today's fun included a librarian's meeting. More discussion of whether or not to drop our subscriptions/package with Publisher X and still no resolution. Dropping it seems like the right thing to do, but there's some fear of political fallout with the new president starting January 1 and fears of ILL requests increasing more than they already have over the past year or so. The ILL piece is sort of a 'victims of our success' issue.
Finally did J's performance evaluation. HR never asked for a 90-day review for him, so the timing was weird, but I don't have to worry about it again until June.
Began planning for the library Christmas party. (FYI, Mary--All plans, except for the date and time, are considered TOP SECRET until the party. There's major competition to one-up the previous year's party.)
Heard back from ITS that they don't think we need access to our shared main extension, but only our individual extensions. Sent them (via Jeanne) text for a message to record and a question about how they're going to let us know if someone leaves a message on the main extension rather than an individual one.
ALA Stuff: Heard back from C that she's accepting the appointment to fundraising coordinator. Reviewed a call for proposals for the ALCTS CMS Pub Committee forum for Annual. At some point, I should be called on to review the Sudden Selector's Guide to children's materials. Not sure where that is in the publication process, though.
Things to think about: Adding cost per download to the periodicals review lists.
Monday, November 12, 2012
A busy day
Today was my first half-time day without Mary at my side. I kept busy reviewing gifts that Hal brought over this morning and working on my collection development lists for the first half selection period. I also sorted through quite a lot of e-mail--I suspect that's going to be the new norm if I continue not checking it from home very often.
On the NMRT front, I reviewed and made some corrections to the minutes for the last Board meeting and got in touch with C. about her possible appointment to the Fundraising Coordinator role.
This is my long week, so I'll be back in the office tomorrow. I need to review damaged books and books containing outdated computer media for possible deselection.
On the NMRT front, I reviewed and made some corrections to the minutes for the last Board meeting and got in touch with C. about her possible appointment to the Fundraising Coordinator role.
This is my long week, so I'll be back in the office tomorrow. I need to review damaged books and books containing outdated computer media for possible deselection.
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