late night in the library

Today was a very busy & productive day in the library. Our workstudy students are getting trained & they worked their asses off today! As did Sherri & I, off course ... Sherry worked the early shift & I’m here until 11:00. We had an exciting start to our morning when Sherri restarted the circulation desk computer for the first time and then we had no idea what the password was to log it back on. Thanks much to Matt, the IT-guy, we got past that. All the reserves are processed and shelved. Most of the rest of the cataloging is done (minus some original cataloging, which I’ll get to eventually). We have an actual schedule for the workstudy students finally. We have a film schedule for the closed-circuit TVs, working with Dia the Registrar, and have located all the films she needs (or declared them lost). All the scanning is finished that we are doing on the ship. The ILS software problem finally has a solution. Not a long-term solution, exactly, but it’s working for now. We’re probably going to wait to do the migration until after Brazil. There was the huge hurry a couple of weeks ago to get the new software up and running before the students boarded, but now that we’re delayed, Sherri & I thought it best to just wait until things level out a bit before more technology-tumult. Kenny, the crew IT-guy (as opposed to Matt, the voyage IT-guy), also made a lovely alias for the catalog. Users just have to type "library" into the URL bar in any Internet browser and the new library catalog will come up.

One of the faculty asked me today if this job was harder than my real job. I said this job feels more like manual labor. I work 24 hours a day at my real job too, but that work is more mind-games … This is heavy lifting …

Students are checking out reserve materials like crazy. They are definitely reading. I sat outside for a little while this morning and there were students on the chaise lounges in bathing suits reading the Global Studies books. There are 9 people sitting in the library reading right now. That may not sound like a lot, but it actually accounts for nearly every seat we have. We’re doing big business in travel guides also.

Global Studies was really good this morning. We learned about the tectonic plates and geology & vegetation of Latin America. Having never really enjoyed science all that much, having that pretty high-level overview was very interesting and useful. Our group also had a really good discussion reflecting on experiences in Puerto Rico. Especially surrounding the issue of statehood. Students asked everyone they met whether they thought Puerto Rico should become a state. They had really interesting conversations with really interesting people and learned effectively that there isn’t a whole lot of consensus around that question.

A good full day all in all. 22 minutes and I get to go “home”. Here’s another thing I like about living on a ship: no commute.