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dream_labyrinthWell, so it is Valentine's Day.
For those who celebrate in any way, I hope you have / had a good one.
For me, it was a day like any other.
I got a SMS from Tobias, but I can't actually even pretend I care.
I didn't grow up with Valentine's Day. It just started some years ago, with the stores suddenly being swamped by horrid pink decorations between the equally horrid but less pink christmas and Easter decoration. My family isn't very keen on showing affections openly. Even if it had been traditional to exchange Valetines in school, I wouldn't have got anything, so it never really caught on for me.
My thoughts on the topic are similar to my ideas on Mother's Day: if you need a special day to remember to tell people you love them, are you sure you do?
Anyway, to give you a bit of an idea what I am actually doing at work, I'll give you a detailed update! Aren't you just dying to know?
The library is split into two parts: the actual military library, containing books covering everything from history to technology, and the public library part, which is intended to give soldiers something worth while to do in their spare time, so it's got novels and DIY books and self-help books and movies on DVDs and that sort of thing.
When I took over, the military library was shelved in closed stacks, seperated into three parts (or actually five): monographs, shelved by acquisition number ("monograph" is used in the broadest sense here. I had a 28 volume "monograph" just yesterday...), series, shelved by number, something that was called the textbook section even though it included everything the library happened to have in, say, more than three copies, while usually one copy was shelved either with the monographs or the series, depending on where it belonged. The two minor parts are the small publications, seperated into stuff that's thin and small and stuff that's thin and tall.
Only a minor part was in the library's computer system, mostly things were only searchable throug the card catalogue which was in a pretty disgusting shape, as cards were misplaced or hadn't been pulled when the book had been thrown away or got lost, that sort of thing.
I first re-catalogued the "textbooks. Most copies where thrown away as we absolutely didn't need them, some multiple copies remained, got recatalogued and reshelved.
Then I started on the series, going through them from number threehundred something, I believe, down to 1, throwing away what we didn't need, recataloguing, reshelving follwing the classification used by the German military library system.
After the series, I did the monographs, starting with 8200 something. I am now down to the 1600s - 1649, as of today (1649 happens to be a ten volume monograph, so it takes a while...)
A lot of the books have been given away to other libraries, sold or dumped. I think the library, all in all, had about 21000 books when I came here. Now it might be around 13000. The only one so far who misses books is my predecessor, who keeps whining about it. Though of course, apart from him nobody really knew what we had, as most people don't like browsing through a card catalogue, and he never let anybody see the books if he could help it.
His priorities went something like this:
1. Do not let anyone touch a book
2. The general and the colonels might touch a book, if they wash their hands.
3. My friends of the military association might touch a book, if they wash their hands and ask nicely.
4. Officers from the school might touch some books, judiciously chosen by me, if they wash their hands, beg on their knees and prove they need it.
5. Any soldier below officer's rank, any soldier of any rank not belonging to the school, the public must not under any circumstances even know that there are books.
6. The library must be locked more often than not.
It is ridiculous! I've heard stories that he refused to give books to people, telling them they were not available, when they were in the next room! Yet I can't say it was from a jealous love of books. Because in that case, wouldn't he have taken care of the books? But they are dirty and dusty and grimy, and sometimes I find bits of mortar from when the roof was redone and the ceiling got wet and fell apart about eight years ago.
He didn't care about the books. He didn't care about the people. I don't know what he actually did care about.
Anyway, so I have recatalogued, reshelved and resorted almost the entire library. I have made sure the opening hours are reliable, and have mde sure we're open longer than we used to. I'm trying to establish us as the place to go if you need information, or just have an extra hour to fill, or for some nice conversation.
This is what I want.
I want to look back in a year and say this is what I found, this is what I made of it. I want people to be able to come onto the base, ask the guard for the library, and be told where it is, not get a blank look and a shrug. I want every single soldier on the base to know us, to know where we are, and to come to us if they need information, and I want to be able to answer their questions.
My predecessor hates me. My captain panics. My minion resents me.
And you know what? I don't care. Because I do what I need to do.
For those who celebrate in any way, I hope you have / had a good one.
For me, it was a day like any other.
I got a SMS from Tobias, but I can't actually even pretend I care.
I didn't grow up with Valentine's Day. It just started some years ago, with the stores suddenly being swamped by horrid pink decorations between the equally horrid but less pink christmas and Easter decoration. My family isn't very keen on showing affections openly. Even if it had been traditional to exchange Valetines in school, I wouldn't have got anything, so it never really caught on for me.
My thoughts on the topic are similar to my ideas on Mother's Day: if you need a special day to remember to tell people you love them, are you sure you do?
Anyway, to give you a bit of an idea what I am actually doing at work, I'll give you a detailed update! Aren't you just dying to know?
The library is split into two parts: the actual military library, containing books covering everything from history to technology, and the public library part, which is intended to give soldiers something worth while to do in their spare time, so it's got novels and DIY books and self-help books and movies on DVDs and that sort of thing.
When I took over, the military library was shelved in closed stacks, seperated into three parts (or actually five): monographs, shelved by acquisition number ("monograph" is used in the broadest sense here. I had a 28 volume "monograph" just yesterday...), series, shelved by number, something that was called the textbook section even though it included everything the library happened to have in, say, more than three copies, while usually one copy was shelved either with the monographs or the series, depending on where it belonged. The two minor parts are the small publications, seperated into stuff that's thin and small and stuff that's thin and tall.
Only a minor part was in the library's computer system, mostly things were only searchable throug the card catalogue which was in a pretty disgusting shape, as cards were misplaced or hadn't been pulled when the book had been thrown away or got lost, that sort of thing.
I first re-catalogued the "textbooks. Most copies where thrown away as we absolutely didn't need them, some multiple copies remained, got recatalogued and reshelved.
Then I started on the series, going through them from number threehundred something, I believe, down to 1, throwing away what we didn't need, recataloguing, reshelving follwing the classification used by the German military library system.
After the series, I did the monographs, starting with 8200 something. I am now down to the 1600s - 1649, as of today (1649 happens to be a ten volume monograph, so it takes a while...)
A lot of the books have been given away to other libraries, sold or dumped. I think the library, all in all, had about 21000 books when I came here. Now it might be around 13000. The only one so far who misses books is my predecessor, who keeps whining about it. Though of course, apart from him nobody really knew what we had, as most people don't like browsing through a card catalogue, and he never let anybody see the books if he could help it.
His priorities went something like this:
1. Do not let anyone touch a book
2. The general and the colonels might touch a book, if they wash their hands.
3. My friends of the military association might touch a book, if they wash their hands and ask nicely.
4. Officers from the school might touch some books, judiciously chosen by me, if they wash their hands, beg on their knees and prove they need it.
5. Any soldier below officer's rank, any soldier of any rank not belonging to the school, the public must not under any circumstances even know that there are books.
6. The library must be locked more often than not.
It is ridiculous! I've heard stories that he refused to give books to people, telling them they were not available, when they were in the next room! Yet I can't say it was from a jealous love of books. Because in that case, wouldn't he have taken care of the books? But they are dirty and dusty and grimy, and sometimes I find bits of mortar from when the roof was redone and the ceiling got wet and fell apart about eight years ago.
He didn't care about the books. He didn't care about the people. I don't know what he actually did care about.
Anyway, so I have recatalogued, reshelved and resorted almost the entire library. I have made sure the opening hours are reliable, and have mde sure we're open longer than we used to. I'm trying to establish us as the place to go if you need information, or just have an extra hour to fill, or for some nice conversation.
This is what I want.
I want to look back in a year and say this is what I found, this is what I made of it. I want people to be able to come onto the base, ask the guard for the library, and be told where it is, not get a blank look and a shrug. I want every single soldier on the base to know us, to know where we are, and to come to us if they need information, and I want to be able to answer their questions.
My predecessor hates me. My captain panics. My minion resents me.
And you know what? I don't care. Because I do what I need to do.
