Campus is closing at noon today

I didn’t turn on my computer this morning. Ate breakfast, caught the bus, then as the bus slipped a little going up Main Street realized it was actually quite snowy. When I arrived at campus and went to People’s to get a coffee, there was a sign that said “Campus closing at 12″. I have a class which runs 11:15 – 12:05. According to the UM website, the campus is closing at 12 but faculty and staff evacuation begins at 11:00. However there is fine print which states an exception for faculty and teaching assistants who are scheduled to teach a class prior to campus closing. I would be quite happy to go home and read. As far as I can tell the Jones Library is open all day as well, which means there is no real reason to go home. The reading will have to wait until tonight! Although it has started to creep me out a little reading The Stand while I’m enrolled in a 300 student lecture where each day a new person is coughing.

100|Jozef or Joseph?

Testing the database for Obrebski was put on hold until today – end of last week became a mad rush for library jobs. Thursday I received word that I could start at the Jones Library AND was offered work hours with SCUA. I am excited to start testing the database, to see how it shows up in the HTML list by name, date, or subject as Rob set up, or if I need to tinker with the additional fields I entered. Trying to isolate which items need to be included in the database is a little tricky, as things like the abstract, blog tags and categories will most likely be stored in the blog posts themselves. However for at least the abstract, I am going to keep a field in the database for it as backup. Also, looked up Obrebski in LC name authority and it will be listed as Obrebski, Joseph, 1905-1967. No more Jozef/Joseph discrepancies.

Ah, the translated database html doesn’t code properly. Now I get to have some fun!

245

Today Rob copied an Access database form to put the Obrebski items into; the format was borrowed from another SCUA project with online representation. I see two purposes for this database.  First to have a static representation for the materials or items I choose to include in the collection – a backup if you will. Second, to have an automatically coded for the web listing of all the items in the exhibit (this was Rob’s handiwork). Next step is to put all of last semesters items into the database to make sure everything is concurrent before I move onto entering manuscripts. I also need to formalize the image sizes and contrast/color settings again now that I am more familiar with the range of materials.

Blast off II

Three weeks ago I applied for a cataloging position at the Jones Library in downtown Amherst.  Today I received the most amazing phone call … I got the job!!! I remembered back to when I organized the Quiet Library in my parent’s basement on a DOS database program.  It was fifth grade and the elementary school had just been expanded; my mom has a sensitivity to chemicals so she wanted to keep me home for a while – my first stint at homeschooling.  Sure, I spent my fair time playing Legos and on my bike with my brother but the real peace and productivity was in the basement, in the Quiet Library.  Every book in the house that I was allowed to sticker with a card pocket went in the catalog.  The collection was privatized however, because of my inability to enforce a return policy or late fines with the rest of the neighborhood.  Most importantly was the skill I found while on my own and have now come back to over ten years later for my livelihood.

The semester kicked off last week. I felt so thrust in after two weeks dog-sitting, staying away from home, staying away from my desk.  But now that everything is in full swing it’s more comfortable.  I’m continuing the internship with SCUA, diving into codes and standards to get the Obrebski digital exhibit up and running. I’m taking Cognitive Psychology, a seminar on consciousness and a lab in physiological psychology which ended up being a brain dissection class! The first two will complete my secondary major in psychology; the brain dissection lab is to fulfill my side interest in neuroscience.  My last full semester as an undergraduate student.  My Simmons College MLIS application goes in the mail this week. I was stumbling through my life-story of an essay but the doors have blown wide open today.