Our September in the Stacks series of events and raffle are over. We’ve already announced the winners with some photos on our Facebook page; there are some big grins there!
Now: No vlog this week. I just finally had my computer upgraded to Windows 7 like the rest of campus -- it’s a long story that can mostly be chalked up to my own sentimentality for XP -- and the software I usually use to edit vlogs still needs to be reinstalled. That’s on my list!
In the meantime, I thought I’d actually write a book review for a change. Here goes. I hope my writin’ muscles haven’t atrophied too much by now.
The book I’m going to review: Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop.
I’m going to cop to something that a lot of people find weird for some reason: I love bees. They’re really cool animals. Not only do they make honey and sting stuff, but they also are responsible for making sure that a lot of the plants we eat on a daily basis -- from oranges to almonds -- manage to grow and produce the fruits and nuts that we all enjoy so much.
As Bishop notes in the book, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re cool; an old guy called Smiley down in the Florida Panhandle loves them. He loves them enough to have tens of thousands of them working for him, collecting pollen and nectar from various local plants ranging from watermelon to the rare, expensive, and difficult-to-get tupelo.
Although a lot of the book tells Smiley’s story, it’s really about the history of the partnership that’s existed between humans and bees for thousands of years. It offers an overview of different kinds of beekeeping techniques, some of which are still in use today after hundreds of years, and how this partnership’s evolved from chancing across the odd hive with its trove of honey in a cave or hollow tree to a multibillion-dollar industry that hums along behind our supermarket shelves.
Bishop’s style is kind of interesting; when she talks about Smiley, her tone turns kind of wry, as though she’s trying to tell a funny story without laughing. He’s a funny guy, definitely a down-home fella, and he reminds me of a few people I grew up with, a little rough around the edges, but a big old sweetheart who’s somewhat crazy.
But when she turns to the bigger picture of beekeeping history, things get a little academic. I found myself wishing every so often that she’d return to the Panhandle and the travails of harvesting tupelo nectar, which only becomes available for a two-to-three-week period in the spring. Then it turns funny again when she talks about her own experiences as an amateur beekeeper, even when she accidentally kills her first hive after a long winter. It’s a sad moment that kind of drives home the strange contrast between how important bees are to us in general, but relatively expendable as far as a particular individual or hive are concerned.
On the whole, I really dug this book! Although it focuses on our relationship with bees and how their everyday lives have become a major part of ours -- often without our realizing it -- it led me to think a little more about the mutualistic relationships our species enjoys with others, like dogs, horses, or cats.
In an oddly serendipitous incident, right when I was in the middle of this book, a friend invited me to a beekeeping workshop right here in Washington, DC! I know it sounds odd, but there are many small gardens and “farms” all over the place; this one was associated with a library and community center just a few blocks from Gallaudet.
It was pretty fascinating; a group of us stood around the hive and watched as the local beekeeper opened it up and pulled out a frame with its honeycomb and put it in a glass box for us to examine more closely. I remember most strongly seeing a young girl, a local who was involved with the center and the farm, standing right next to the hive. She was at the center of a cloud of bees, a scene that would drive most people I know into a flailing frenzy, but was completely at ease. The next generation!
Of course, the honey with brie on crusty bread that we had afterwards didn’t hurt, either. Good times.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Faces in the window
Phew.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
We're underway!
We survived without a scratch!
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
Friday, August 26, 2011
Welcome back!
So we’ve got a hurricane bearing down on us this weekend.
I have a tendency to downplay them; I grew up in Florida, where we get hit by these things pretty often. All a hurricane is is a lot of rain and wind, and it’s usually no big deal. You get some flooding, some deck chairs flying around, power lines falling, tree branches taking out roofs and car windshields, telephone poles getting knocked over …
Well, okay, it’s kind of a big deal. But the point is we have a hurricane coming!
All I can really say about that is: What can be prevented will be; what can’t be will be dealt with.
In the meantime, the new semester opens on Monday, come hell or high water (whichever happens first), and we will be ready. All the computers are in place with the latest images from Gallaudet Technology Services, the printers are humming along, the copy machines are ready and waiting, our database and e-books are fizzing and sparking away, and the books are as patient as ever.
Not a huge amount of stuff has changed policywise since the Spring semester; loan periods are still 4-6 weeks depending on your status and where in the collection (Deaf or General Stacks) you borrow from. Except for faculty, of course, who get the usual September-January-May due dates for loans from the General Stacks. Films are still 3 days, up to 3 per person borrowed at a time.
We’ve also changed how databases are accessed, hopefully in a clearer way. Check it out for yourself; head to our homepage at library.gallaudet.edu, find the “Find article databases” link in the “Research Help” box, and click on it. Any feedback? E-mail us at library.help@gallaudet.edu or me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu.
We’re also closed this weekend and will be for most of Labor Day weekend next week so you can enjoy a couple of days off from academic obligations before the semester really gets going! Our Thanksgiving hours have also changed, since, for the first time, there won’t be any classes Thanksgiving week. Check out our schedule for more information. If it resembles a Metrobus timetable fed through a shredder, my apologies; holidays can get funky.
Now, I’m going to wrap this up by burying the lede so far down it’d take a dedicated gravedigger to find it: We’re hosting a series of events in September in order to spread more awareness about the Library and the kind of things we offer the population of Gallaudet University, as well as tying in to this year’s Common Theme about freedom of expression. The kicker is that we’re using this as an opportunity to raffle off an iPad 2 and $100 gift certificates to Amazon.com!
Tickets will be available to Gallaudet students only. Sorry, faculty and staff! Nevertheless, here’s our main event page; check it out!
I have a tendency to downplay them; I grew up in Florida, where we get hit by these things pretty often. All a hurricane is is a lot of rain and wind, and it’s usually no big deal. You get some flooding, some deck chairs flying around, power lines falling, tree branches taking out roofs and car windshields, telephone poles getting knocked over …
Well, okay, it’s kind of a big deal. But the point is we have a hurricane coming!
All I can really say about that is: What can be prevented will be; what can’t be will be dealt with.
In the meantime, the new semester opens on Monday, come hell or high water (whichever happens first), and we will be ready. All the computers are in place with the latest images from Gallaudet Technology Services, the printers are humming along, the copy machines are ready and waiting, our database and e-books are fizzing and sparking away, and the books are as patient as ever.
Not a huge amount of stuff has changed policywise since the Spring semester; loan periods are still 4-6 weeks depending on your status and where in the collection (Deaf or General Stacks) you borrow from. Except for faculty, of course, who get the usual September-January-May due dates for loans from the General Stacks. Films are still 3 days, up to 3 per person borrowed at a time.
We’ve also changed how databases are accessed, hopefully in a clearer way. Check it out for yourself; head to our homepage at library.gallaudet.edu, find the “Find article databases” link in the “Research Help” box, and click on it. Any feedback? E-mail us at library.help@gallaudet.edu or me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu.
We’re also closed this weekend and will be for most of Labor Day weekend next week so you can enjoy a couple of days off from academic obligations before the semester really gets going! Our Thanksgiving hours have also changed, since, for the first time, there won’t be any classes Thanksgiving week. Check out our schedule for more information. If it resembles a Metrobus timetable fed through a shredder, my apologies; holidays can get funky.
Now, I’m going to wrap this up by burying the lede so far down it’d take a dedicated gravedigger to find it: We’re hosting a series of events in September in order to spread more awareness about the Library and the kind of things we offer the population of Gallaudet University, as well as tying in to this year’s Common Theme about freedom of expression. The kicker is that we’re using this as an opportunity to raffle off an iPad 2 and $100 gift certificates to Amazon.com!
Tickets will be available to Gallaudet students only. Sorry, faculty and staff! Nevertheless, here’s our main event page; check it out!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Vlog review of The Magicians
We had an earthquake yesterday! Things are fine here at the Library, although a roll of packing tape fell off a table in my office.
Anyway, this week's vlog, as promised:
The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
Anyway, this week's vlog, as promised:
The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Summer isn't over yet!
Mea culpa.
It’s been a long, busy week for everyone here at the Gallaudet University Library. The renovation of the former photocopy area proceeds apace; we finally finished it this morning! You can visit our Facebook page to see photos of the progress. All we need now is the new furniture.
Classes are starting just a week from Monday! We’re all suitably terrified but our game faces are on; not only are we doing the usual Library things -- setting up accounts for new students and returning students who’ve lost their ID cards over the summer, making sure all the books are in order, double-checking that our electronic resources haven’t dropped an IP address or two, tweaking our new public computers to make sure all the basics are available for students to use, planning our upcoming events, updating our class presentations, and putting together lesson plans, among many, many other things.
Lesson plans? Yup. I’m teaching a GSR 101 course for brand-new students. They’re so new I don’t think the packaging’s been taken off yet! I did the same thing last Fall, and am looking forward to doing it again -- hopefully with a little more experience and seasoning behind me this time!
Elizabeth Henry, on the other hand, is about to undertake her own big adventure! She’ll be teaching GSR 150: City as Text with Kathleen Wood, a professor from the English department (whom you can see in our Web story -- she appears right around 3:58). We’re all looking forward to seeing the fruits of their collaboration!
In the meantime, things have entered the calm-before-the-storm stage. Arrival Day and orientations for both undergraduate and graduate students are next week, and classes begin the following week. But right now, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun’s out, and there’s a mild breeze.
Next week, you’ll get a vlog and another update on what to expect if you’re walking through our doors for the first time since last May or, well, ever. We’ll have things like an event schedule, an exciting contest, fresh floor plans, and plenty more!
It’s been a long, busy week for everyone here at the Gallaudet University Library. The renovation of the former photocopy area proceeds apace; we finally finished it this morning! You can visit our Facebook page to see photos of the progress. All we need now is the new furniture.
Classes are starting just a week from Monday! We’re all suitably terrified but our game faces are on; not only are we doing the usual Library things -- setting up accounts for new students and returning students who’ve lost their ID cards over the summer, making sure all the books are in order, double-checking that our electronic resources haven’t dropped an IP address or two, tweaking our new public computers to make sure all the basics are available for students to use, planning our upcoming events, updating our class presentations, and putting together lesson plans, among many, many other things.
Lesson plans? Yup. I’m teaching a GSR 101 course for brand-new students. They’re so new I don’t think the packaging’s been taken off yet! I did the same thing last Fall, and am looking forward to doing it again -- hopefully with a little more experience and seasoning behind me this time!
Elizabeth Henry, on the other hand, is about to undertake her own big adventure! She’ll be teaching GSR 150: City as Text with Kathleen Wood, a professor from the English department (whom you can see in our Web story -- she appears right around 3:58). We’re all looking forward to seeing the fruits of their collaboration!
In the meantime, things have entered the calm-before-the-storm stage. Arrival Day and orientations for both undergraduate and graduate students are next week, and classes begin the following week. But right now, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun’s out, and there’s a mild breeze.
Next week, you’ll get a vlog and another update on what to expect if you’re walking through our doors for the first time since last May or, well, ever. We’ll have things like an event schedule, an exciting contest, fresh floor plans, and plenty more!
Friday, August 12, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
