slow slow slow

the internet access continues to be interminably slow. The good news is that this is really the first time we’ve experienced this. The bad news is that I am definitely experiencing withdrawal. I set my alarm for 6 am this morning to get up & use the internet before the students. I needed to pay my credit card bill & was not having any success over the last several days. It was making me antsy. They say the internet is speedy at 6 am and indeed it was! I just don’t want to have to do that so often. Several students were congregated in Purser’s Square at that early hour. Skyping, emailing, whatever.

Today was taco-day, which is pretty much the happiest day on the ship. When they serve tacos, we all jump for joy. That was lunch. Dinner was less exciting but we were still feeling pretty gratuitous from the earlier meal. The seas were calm today, so all in all a very pleasant day.

Not much other news. Sherri & I are weeding some of the videos. Many of the videos have no cataloging (just brief title records). I’ve cataloged all of the DVDs. We’re trying to decide which of the uncataloged VHS’s are actually worth cataloging/keeping. We’re starting to have trouble getting reserve books back, so we are becoming more consistent about delivering overdue notices. Still not charging fines though. Of today’s overdue notices, about 80% came back immediately. And a few were on the shelf not checked in … ugh. Destiny has a few issues worth complaining about, but on the good side, they have really nice & useful overdue notices that are totally easy to customize & run. And they create very nice “bibliography” reports which will allow us to spew out a list of videos (or anything else we need) which includes both publication info. and summary info. So, we will no longer need to keep two separate video lists: the catalog v. a more user friendly single list for the Intranet. Destiny will spew out a lovely list for patrons at the push of a button. We’ve also created a whole library homepage (through a normal web browser, not the clunky Intranet folder system) that has all of our general information (aside from just the catalog), with links to the catalog, the UVA databases, proxy configuration instructions, etc. We’re working on making sure that’s the page we promote everywhere. And, finally, we're back to taking shelf-reading more seriously, because the shelves are sadly very out of order. 'Tis all the library news that's fit to print.

We’re about to cross the equator again. On, tomorrow, the first day of spring. Seems that this convergence should be notable in some way …