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.)
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