Cataloging: Day 4

Today's observations:
It's reassuring to me that librarians everywhere have the same panicked reaction when the internet goes out. It happens occasionally at the Huntington because our network was assembled from twigs, chewing gum, and spit until recently, and there's usually a chorus of expletives when it occurs. There were no expletives when it happened today in Union (someone may have exclaimed "oh, sugar!") but it still brought library work to a grinding halt. Except for GiGi, who was Brodarting like a champ in the back room. She seemed to be unphased by the situation.
I appear to have caught up with the cataloging though, because after I finished the cart of books that I brought in from Scooba yesterday morning I was kind of at loose ends. Due to a hilarious misunderstanding there are far more books that need to be cataloged than Meredith thought there would be, but because this discovery was so last-minute she hasn't had time to weed the newly discovered books. Weeding is an important process for every library (except the Huntington, because we are special and don't get rid of things), and it's better to do it before cataloging, otherwise the work that goes into creating records is wasted. Tomorrow I'm meeting Rita at Scooba in the morning where we will pack up as many of the remaining uncataloged books as we can and load them into the KNRLS library van to bring back to Union. Meredith seems to think this will take a long time, but I have confidence that my experience boxing up returns for Book Soup will aid me in this endeavor.


Titles cataloged today: 50

Titles cataloged total: 263

Audio entertainment during the drive: JoCo Looks Back - Jonathan Coulton (cont'd.) ; Rubber Soul - Beatles; Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie

New Southern discovery: When a confronted with a person from an exotic locale (e.g. Los Angeles), it seems to be common for Mississippians to make their accents extra thick. The barista in Philadelphia yesterday, after hearing where I was from, went deep drawl on his "How ya like Miss-uh-sippa?" I found out later that he is actually from Denver, but has been living in the state for a couple of years. Apparently there is a performative aspect to being Southern. Shocking, I know.

Something I miss from California: Seeing other cars when driving. Just kidding! It's been a long commute from Scooba to Union, but there are almost no cars are the road whenever I've been driving. I tried to describe the 5 at it's widest to the Dean at EMCC and his eyes kind of glazed over. He doesn't like how busy it gets in Starkville and Jackson, so Los Angeles traffic might just make his head explode.