What's Cooking?

Moi!

At least I was broiling under the hot sun yesterday, as I saw the Dodgers take on the Nationals. It was an exciting game! The Nats jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Brad Penny, considered the ace of the staff, had a really bad day. A parade of pitchers followed him to the mound, some to pitch only a third of an inning.

The boys in blue staged a remarkable comeback, as the game was tied at 9-all when I left. (I was feeling the effects of the sun, and I ran out of room on my scorebook :) ) I learned we won in the 12th inning on a sac fly by Shea Hillenbrand which enabled Jeff Kent to score. Jeff did a true belly-flop a la Pete Rose.

Meanwhile, back at the library, we have had our Polaris integrated library system up for about a week and a half. We have begun cataloging and inputting item records. The routines are similar to what we were doing in our old system, but will probably be quicker and more streamlined once we can set up a workflow.

I had a two-hour shift on the reference desk. Someone was supposed to work with me, but evidently wasn't available. Fortunately, traffic was very light. I don't know when the public schools are back in session (my gut feeling is Tuesday after the holiday), but some people are doing assignment-type homework.

One more day, and it's a long weekend!

TGIF!

It's been a long time between drinks, as the governor of North Carolina said to the governor of South Carolina - at least according to Robert Louis Stevenson. I hadn't realized it's been more than a month since I last posted.

The library is migrating to a new integrated library system (ILS). We were able to do this because the city's IT department no longer wanted to maintain our clunky home-grown system, and perhaps with some waving of a magic wand the library was permitted to do this.

I feel as though I've been getting mixed messages about this system. I'm also a bit leery of all the blanks in our databases - materials marked missing when someone input an incorrect control number; items that have been lost but never deleted; lack of an authority file, meaning that materials have not been cataloged consistently not only because the cataloging rules changed (there was a time when Mark Twain was entered under Samuel L Clemens), but subject headings changed. Ah well - we go live August 20. Film at 11.

The Dodgers went on a six-game losing streak, finally broken yesterday in Cincinnati. I did get to see a great game Saturday night, when we came from an 8-1 deficit and nearly pulled off a victory. My next game is Aug. 29, a day game vs. the Nationals.