Had we but world enough and time

A day of both unexpected progress and unforeseen setbacks.

That scary paper I was wrestling with? I sent a long email with lots of answers to the academic’s questions, and he is happy. The paper itself doesn’t need any further redrafting before its public debut. Result

Manage to send a few more emails by way of information literacy liaison. Most of the computing staff are away anyhow so no great hurry except that I would like my tasklist to major in black rather than red tasks.

Go to a rather confusing-yet-enlightening meeting about the summer school that is not the proper summer school but involves all the subject areas and and doesn’t have a name. The session I will be running for it is uncannily similar to the one for ‘proper’ summer school. Needless to say everyone wants to camp out in nice library teaching room for the duration of the entire fortnight-long performance. Explain at least six times that I can only take 25 students at a time…

Our local public library no longer has a complete set of British Standards. This is a major blow since they are our backup and we are currently between e-resources! “Oh bother” said Pooh.

Update the freshly minted library portal pages with the new Shibboleth URLs. Great phone call from an engineering colleague: ‘Amanda, what’s this thing beginning with S that I can’t pronounce?’

On Topic

Just made a trip to the vending machine for Topic and Bounty bars for two of us. My excuse is that I have just drafted the longest email ever in response to an academic colleague’s 5 very searching questions on a paper I had drafted on information literacy within his School. You know these documents that cause major headaches at the time, come back to bit you after a month or two, and then still have to be redrafted before The Big Meeting where a wider group of people get to tear said document to shreds or else overlook it entirely? It’s that kind.

Just about to resume contacting staff re information literacy sessions for next semester. I would normally have done this by at least the end of June, which confirms my susipicion that I am running at least a month behind myself. Considering sporting a false moustache and trilby so as to pass through hostile crowds of neglected colleagues unseen… why do I always bump into the very person whose thing I’ve been studiously ignoring?

Get very excited when a Revalidation candidate contacts me and asks whether I can look through a draft submission. My first one so it will all be a bit experimental. Fortunately I know the Revalidee (Revalidant? Revalidator?) in question so we can hopefully engage in helpful conversation about the work.

I can see a few square inches of desk so things must be on the up slightly. Also made it to the gym at lunchtime and felt a lot better. Endorphins ahoy!

Back at Chateau Quick, we are regular visitors to the vet, mainly with one kit but tonight with the other one after a disturbed night of cat hoiking. Suspect her of munching small FBCs (Furry Bone Crunchers) in the farmland at the weekend. Recreational viewing is on the cards for tonight: video of last night’s Olympic dreams, which I am loving from the comfort of the sofa; Private Practice, as the RT put it - ‘for those who didn’t think Grey’s Anatomy was sexist enough’; and this week’s DVD of choice, the 1980s TV version of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Considering going into counselling after seeing Douglas Adams’s bare bottom in episode 2. Mind you, a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster would just slip down round about now…

Till next time, keeeeep surfing…

Whoops there goes my teddy

Portal pages that won’t play nicely…

Emails and papers where I have no idea what I want to say or how best to say it…

Pouring rain… sandals that let it in…

Suppliers who quote you one just about affordable price and then charge you an evil money-grabbin’ lyin’ cheatin’ one instead…

Desks that turn from orderly to messy in the blink of an eye…

These are a few of my least favourite things

Queen of all I survey

This afternoon I find myself all alone in an open plan office normally occupied by eight people. Much ringing of phones this morning derailed my every train of thought. All quiet this afternoon though. Just the hammering of my own stiff little fingers.

Tomorrow I begin a week of spiritual refreshment at the CLAN gathering Christian conference in St Andrews. There will be visting speakers, worship bands, probable need for wellies and an abundance of Fudge Donuts. So expect a week of silent retreat from the blog!

The importance of critical friends

Today’s devastating news is that my best Library Liaison Officer is relinquishing the role as he is starting a new secondment. What made him such a good LLO? Well, it was the responsiveness - you could guarantee he would respond to any consultation about a new or changed resource; he would come to any event or meeting laid on; he would be straight on the phone if he spotted any sort of problem with e-access. Even better, he got the budget spent on the nose and in a timely fashion. Am trusting his boss to seek out a suitable replacement! Academics who can cope with librarians and find some sort of shared language are to be cherished.

FOI is being a pain this week, with lots of folk on holiday, making it difficult to keep track of everything. Just received a very all-encompassing enquiry which could go round a dozen different houses internally. The joy of it…

Elsewhere in the office, colleagues are wrestling with e-resource usage statistics. Why is stuff so hard to count? How to explain seemingly random changes in usage?

But back to the portal updates…

Fantasy food and disappointing data decisions

Survive another early start and a meeting. Do a few of the jobs that were scribbled postits etc cluttering up my desk.

Spend lunchtime with colleagues fantasising about the comfort foods we would like to be eating. Settle on boiled eggs with soldiers. Pancakes with maple syrup and cream also feature. Leaves actual lunch of Edam, pitta and tomatoes looking rather pathetic.

Afternoon spent pegging away with the portal pages and firming up my objectives for 2008-09 with my line manager. It’s gonna be a long and full year, folks.  Discuss staff development which is a novelty as most of my out of the office time is spent developing other people - good to be reminded that I can be developed too!

Distraught to discover that Bristol Biomedical Image Archive will be no more after 31st July. I really liked this little resource and used it for teaching e.g. ethical use of images. Now I will have to rejig everything. And what happens when I need a copyright cleared portrait of Leptothrix?

Aaaaaahhhhhh

<nonsense>

As a child, I used to frequent East Ham Swimming Baths, usually in the company of a particular friend. The cafe did a mean cup of Horlicks and would sometimes inexplicably give you more than one cup each and only charge you the usual price. We developed all manner of conspiracy theories about this and used to work out devious methods and superstitions to guarantee the extra portions. (Incidentally this young friend and I also developed conspiracy theories about something called ‘trick bombs’, otherwise known as any old piece of junk found on the street or on Wanstead Flats, the local dogwalking haunt.) This is what happens when children are over-exposed to Marxism at a young age

But I digress. My point is that the same experience applied to my day of struggling to migrate portal pages. The web editor has a mind of its own. I have to fiddle with the HTML, then with the Editor, then back to the HTML, in order to correct the size of the section headings. When I do things in a certain bizarre order, eating pistachio nuts, humming the 1812 overture and stirring my Diet Coke widdershins, it sort of works out.

Met with one of my preferred company reps today, talks plain English, has personality, responds to your emails and doesn’t inundate you with spam, you know the kind. Also met with the PGCHET programme tutor. It’s getting complicated as I am now both a student (reluctantly) and a tutor (less reluctantly) on the PGCHET course. Not quite sure how I’m going to fit it all in next year…

…but I will have to try and fit it in due to the grand Objection setting extravaganza whereby I commit myself to 6 impossible things over the course of the year, or else get thrown off Tay Bridge. Am thinking of blowing objections/-ives list up to A1, laminating, wheeling on every week so I can laugh at what I haven’t achieved. Much as used to take place on the Friday Night Armistice back in 1997 with Labour’s election promises (anyone remember - the lovely Armando Ianucci and friends?)

Ooh and we had our 3rd Book Group meeting. Charlotte Mendelson declared generally enjoyable, good writing although most of the characters drove us batty. Am glad to be an only child. Next month we are reading Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Hey, can anyone out there recommend any good Big Finish Audio Doctor Who titles for my holiday? It’s a month away but I am desperate for the break already and half the fun is in the anticipation of specific pleasures…

</nonsense>

Operation tumbleweed

Yes, a fairly quiet weekend followed by a surprisingly quiet day at the office. Got in stupidly early to start my week of Opening Duties, important business of switching on monitors, unlocking group study rooms etc. For a fleeting moment I remember that I work in an actual library with books and users.

Rest of day spent hammering keyboard into submission: lift the corner of the covers on the FOI mailbox, tucking it all back in again safely; spend hypothetical money on e-book wishlists; working out where actual money has been and will be spent e-resources-wise, for purposes of Horrible Report dreams up by sadists who know I am innumerate; tangle with HTML and capricious portal editor in the labour of Hercules that is the migration of virtual library web pages.

An early night, methinks - need to be fresh for another early start tomorrow and more importantly for the third manifestation of the Abertay Book Group, who will be discussing Charlotte Mendelson.

In case of emergency remove wrapper

Begin the day in stunning fashion with an Emotional Outburst at team meeting. More leaky washing machine than Trevi fountain, but still. Has generally been a fragile week as deadlines pop up like so many roadblocks. Funnily enough there are physical roadblocks around the campus too - it took me an extra 10 minutes to get to a meeting with an academic colleague as I was thwarted on no fewer than 3 of my chosen routes.

Springcleaning the e-book collections. Mapping out information literacy input for the Health Science programme. Generally doing lots of fiddling with spreadsheets on the basis that If It’s In A Document It Must Be Under Control.

And this afternoon I have the very last teaching session of the academic year - MSc Biotechnology stduents are girding their loins in readiness for the dissertation phase. Not expecting a crowd but you can guarantee at least one student will have come to all of my previous sessions and at least one will have been to nothing at all ever.

And what will we do tomorrow night with no Doctor Who? An excellent time to dust off your Peter Jacksons and settle in for some quality epic fantasy viewing.

Diod enjoy Lab rats last night, particularly the use of the Dean’s name plaque as Toblerone storage and the concept of powering batteries using lemons; also the setting of Come On Eileen to the tune of O Come All Ye Faithful… wish academic institutions were quite as cosily lazy as that!

DEFINITELY deserve chocolate today…

Bad librarian: no biscuit

I see I have been playing hooky for a whole week. Mea maxima culpa. I am a bit of a tease in the Web 2.0 world - a Facebook chat here, a few Flickr photos there - more commitment issues than the Doctor. Incidentally, I have been shamed into posting again by a Nameless CDG Member who reads it entirely for the DW content. Nice to know I have a role in life…

So, what have I been up to in the last week?

• Working. I do have to do some occasionally. It’s all heads down as we panic and rush to achieve silly numbers of tasks within unrealistic deadlines. Wrestling with HTML on the new library web pages.
• Attending the CILIP Equal Opportunities Panel. Lots of talk about the forthcoming positive action scheme. Shame the pilot will be in London - could be years before it filters up to Scotland. And round here I pretty much count as an ethnic minority.
• Reading: Diana Wynne Jones - Deep Secret (great fantasy convention setting); RED magazine (for the train journey); Charlotte Mendelson - When We Were Bad (for Book Group).
• Getting rejected from a job interview I went for. Boo. They kept me hanging on for a full week. I was special but not special enough, it would appear, despite my attempts to connect with them on a higher plane by discussing Murakami.
• Horseriding with colleagues - this was the IS Ride-out #4. I was assigned to the affable Max, who put up with my blatant incompetence charmingly and stopped for only a few snack breaks.
• Watching Prince Caspian. Georgie Henley couldn’t be more perfect as Lucy. Susan’s lips are alarming. Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep stole all our hearts.
• Watching the Doctor Who finale. What could be better than David Tennant? MORE David Tennant. NAKED David Tennant.  Alternate reality Doctor with no commitment issues. I am a cheesy whatsit and I loved the team round the Tardis console (only they should have let Jackie drive). Davros fantastic and looking evilly hot in his leather doo-dab. Red Dalek rocked. Altogether satisfying end to a surprisingly strong season.
• Watching Doctor Who #4 in The Invasion of Time. Worst ever Sontaran with bucket for a helmet and holes for his un-made-up eyes to see through. Not enough Leela (action wise not flesh wise!) and totally implausible romantic end.
• Watching the tennis. Federer vs Nadal. Nice. Add them to the two David Tennants and it’s fantasy soup. Oh dear, better be careful I don’t get filtered for bringing the world of blogging into disrepute.
• Trying to catch my breath after the first trimester of Presidency, quick scan to see what’s coming up and what I should be doing.

This afternoon I get to set objectives with my line manager. Rather hoping they bear some actual relation to my job and are not just baubles plucked from the Principal’s Christmas tree. They have to be SMART. Which as far as I’m concerned is just one step away from SWOT and PEST and a mere hop, skip and jump from a hey nonny no. Where’s Blackadder when you need him?