Arrived in Scooba

What a whirlwind couple of days! After a few flights (including one that left much too early from Los Angeles) I touched down in Mississippi, where it was only about 83 degrees. The weather has smiled on this endeavor! Meredith met me at the airport and we drove to Starkville where I met her husband and her cats. She had arranged for us to have dinner at a nice restaurant downtown with two other library directors and their spouses, and the highlight of the meal (besides the excellent company, of course) was the coffee makers that were brought out for dessert. They use butane heaters to boil water out of a lower flask into the coffee grounds in the top... Look up siphon coffee brewers, they're far too cool. I passed on coffee, but I did not pass on the Mississippi Mud Pie, which was delicious. We also had fried okra as an appetizer, which I tried because I want to be as open-minded as possible on this trip. I'm not sure I care for the squishy bits in the middle (it reminds me of eggplant) but the flavor was pretty good.
This morning we had brunch with one of Meredith's friends from her time at the Starkville Public Library. Kay has a beautiful house and graciously offered to take me in if I had problems with my cat allergies when staying with Meredith. Fortunately I was able to avoid adverse reactions, but it was wonderful to meet Kay. After that we went to the Golden Triangle Airport (where I was informed that they have three inbound and three outbound commercial flights per day) to pick up a rental car, then we drove to Scooba!
We stopped at the library because we were a bit early and scoped out the situation. I think Meredith was concerned that I would see it and running screaming into the hills, but I have no previous public library experience (besides as a patron at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library long, long ago), so I probably don't know enough to be worried. Most of the books acquired in the past 7 years have been cataloged, but having two different check-out systems running in the same location would be impractical, so they have continued to use check out cards for all the books. There were times when my fingers started to itch because I wanted to rearrange some of the sections, causing flashbacks to my days at Book Soup. I restrained myself, however, since it would be silly to rearrange the shelves without having the rest of the books, which are in Union awaiting cataloging.
After assessing the situation at the library, we drove to East Mississippi Community College, where the Dean has so kindly allowed me to inhabit one of the on-campus cottages for a couple of weeks. These student housing units are meant for four people, so I have an overabundance of space (and beds!), central air, and a washer and dryer. There is a cafeteria in the student center where Meredith and I had dinner, and it seems that the only other people on campus at the moment may be the football players. And the campus police.
Tomorrow I'll be going to the main branch library in Union, where I will be doing some of the cataloging. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone there and getting a better feel for the software they use. I've looked at the backside of the online catalog, but there's nothing like seeing another person in action to really get a good idea of how something works.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go turn down the air conditioning. I'm so used to not having it in my apartment that the prolonged exposure is disconcerting.