This post was brought to you by the letter

Well, *oming into work today was TOTALLY worth my time.

I was running late anyway, whi*h always starts off the day on a high note. And then I hurry in and get settled at my desk. I try to log into Millennium (our library *atalog program). At whi*h point I find out that the letter * on my keyboard is no longer working. Just one letter. Arbitrarily the letter *

(Have you figured out whi*h letter it is yet?)

You might think that you *an get around using this letter. And I was able to do so through one rather strenuous and stilted sounding email sent to my *ampus te*h support desk. (An email that has not been responded to yet. Sadly I had to resort to a follow up phone*all. That always makes me feel like a te*hno-phobe who *an’t even send an email for help. But really, I just *an’t get a response.) Anyway. You *an get around using the letter *. For a while. I don’t spend a lot of my work day writing about animals (*ows, *i*kens, *rusta*ians, *anaries) or pie flavors (*o*onut, pea*h, *herry, *ho*olate). However, it is a useful letter.

In fa*t, not having use of the letter * has shown me that it is a*tually the unsung workhorse of the alphabet. You *annot re*eive, pro*ess, or *orre*t anything without the letter *. I *annot sear*h for book titles – whi*h is most of what I do all day long. I either sear*h for books online to pri*e quote or pur*hase. Or I sear*h our library *atalog to see if a book is on the shelf, lost, or *he*ked out. YOU try using a library *atalog without the letter *!

And of *ourse, as I figured out five se*onds into my morning, I *annot log into most of my programs or internet vendor *he*kout *arts without the letter *. But I don’t work entirely on the *omputer all day, every day. I do have other a*tivities, I mean, tasks. So what else do I do?

I pro*ess invoi*es. Blast! Not only *an I not spell pro*ess or invoi*e without the letter *, but I *an’t log into Millennium to do so. Neither has the other half of my shipment arrived. I thought it would *ome yesterday afternoon. It didn’t. And this morning’s mail delivery *ame and went with no new boxes of books for me. I *an’t pro*ess new books if there are none here to pro*ess.

So I sort through the latest build-up of *atalogs. It is my job to sort and route relevant book and media *atalogs tot ea*h individual librarian for the subje*ets that they sele*t and pur*hase books for. It is a little tedious, so I usually put it off for a while. And after the holiday, I really anti*ipated a huge sta*k to have to re*y*le . . .er . . . *arefully sort and route. Of *ourse I don’t just toss half of them on sight. Why do you ask? Hmmm, strange. There are relatively few *atalogs. Ok, so that only took five minutes. I know, I will re-do the display! There is a bulletin board outside my *ubi*le. I use it to post interesting multi-subje*t *atalogs. So everyone *an see them.

So I set up a display of independent film post*ards, fliers, and *atalogs. I also usually send an email to the librarians when a new display goes up. But how to do so without using the letter *? I de*ide to use an * instead (as I have also *leverly done here as well). I add a P.S. to let them know that I am not really trying to *urse at them all through inter-offi*e email. Good thing the group email address for the library staff does not start with the letter *, or I would not have been able to pull it up.

Now what? (Fingers drumming on the table top.)

Am I really dead in the water with 5 ½ hours to go? And how on earth did I fill up the last 2 hours? Oh yes, *hasing down the helpdesk for a new keyboard. That still hasn’t arrived. I *ould *all ba*k and offer to pi*k it up from them myself. But I really don’t want to *all and pester them again and be that person. My whole day has ground to a halt all be*ause of one stupid, little key, one 1.5 *entimeter square pie*e of plasti*. What do I do for the rest of my day?

I guess I will write a blog post. You all don’t mind going without the letter *, do you?

Gene Yang at Cal

Tonight I am going to go a book reading hosted by Cal Berkeley. The guest is Gene Yang. I am very excited. I will tell you all about it when I get back.

If you are in the area, check it out.

booksbooksbooksbooooookssssss

I have processed 230 books today. I am done.

Good Morning!

Just look and see what greeted me as I as prepared to leave for work this morning.
















Did you get a good look? No? Well here is another view just in case.

















Nope, nothing stolen.






















Just broken for the sheer fun of it.

And to think, I worried about not bringing out a towel in order to wipe off my frosted windows.

Library Humor

Since I am so busy and productive on Friday afternoons, I found this blog. Ah, me.
http://lovetheliberry.blogspot.com/

Changes

Maybe it is because it is fall. Maybe because I am approaching the next decade mark in age. Maybe it is just me. But change is in the air.
I like change. Which is strange, given the basic description of my personality. I have a lot of public and personal anxieties. Change, generally, is rather hard for me to embrace. I find it difficult to learn new things. Changes in location leave me feeling homesick for things I can't quite pinpoint.
And yet I crave change. I WANT to to learn and try new things. I even want to move to new places. So I find I am often jump into something new, reel from the shock and absolute, shattering terror of facing something I have not done before and making eye contact with people I have not met before. But over the last ten years I have been following whatever it is in me that promises that I need to keep trying.
So what does that mean for you, blog reader? Well on the cosmetic level it means that the books in my LibraryThing widget will be changing (when I can face tackling the challenge). Yes, unbelievably, I already have and will continue to whittle down my book collection. Independently and now together, my husband and I have been moving towards wanting less stuff. And that has translated to a lot of old paperbacks going to the used bookstore.
Never fear. We will probably always have a few too many books. And I still need to get and get rid of the ones left at my mother's house (I haven't forgotten them, Mom!). We have kept favorites, or ones I know I will read in the next year. But now I will have a shelf that is available for rotation. I will most likely still buy books from the local bookstores. But then they will go back out when I am done with them.
What I am hoping is that this fresh outlook will migrate to the rest of my apartment. That we will get rid of all sorts of junk that is nice, but not necessary. I doubt that I will ever reach this point. But having breathing room - or a coat closet with only coats - would be nice.
And maybe a little more time for more regular posts . . . We'll see.

Oh, how I have grown

Back in high school and early college I worked at a small used bookstore. I applied for the job on the recommendation of Emily and Jenny, my two best friends who already worked there. And yes, it was exactly as awesome as it sounds. Since I have a penchant for old 1970’s era science fiction, paperback mysteries, and the kind of Erma Bombeck books and even YA fiction that most people read once and then get rid of – this was an ideal job for me. Yes, it was a little like an alcoholic working at a bar. I cannot tell you how exponentially that job affected my personal book collection – even accounting for the owner’s “customer first” policies regarding newly acquired books. For the most part, I had access to all sorts of terrific used books.

But occasionally there were specific titles we did not have. As an almost entirely used book store that relied on trade-ins for most of its new inventory, our selection was limited. It was a small store and the owner liked it that way. But it meant that chance determined whether or not we had a specific title on a particular day.

So my friends Jenny and Emily and I would all pack into a car and spend a Saturday afternoon trolling the other used book stores in a 50 mile radius. This was also just as awesome as it sounds. (As you can tell, we were some of the most popular kids at our high school.) But whether or not any of these stores had a specific book I wanted also depended on chance.

Around that time I began to hear radio advertisements for an online used and out of print book retailer: Alibris. In the mid-to-late 1990’s online booksellers had began to move in on the market. When I first heard the ads, the company was still new (It started in 1998. Yes I was finishing high school. Do your own math.) I remember going online and looking for titles that I hadn’t been able to find anywhere else.

I was very excited to locate a copy of a (very indulgent, very silly) gothic called Storm House. This was a book I remembered reading with my sister Laura. We had found it in one of the boxes of books that would make their way to our house from my grandmother’s house in Santa Paula. (Because if someone loves you, they share your books with you. My large Agatha Christie collection also exists due to this same wonderful grandmother.) But over the years, somehow we had lost Storm House. Finding it again after all these years was wonderful. More wonderful than the actual storyline. But hey, I wasn’t picky at ten years old.

My bookstore-working days are now over. Lucky me though, the city I live in seems to be a book heaven. I can reach seven used bookstores (including one exclusively for comics) in just a short bike ride from my home. And this is leaving out the four new bookstores and seven other used bookstores within a ten mile drive. And I won’t even mention that my library has six branches – all in a three mile radius of my home. Am I bragging? Oops!

However, I still occasionally rely on Alibris. I am currently trying to collect every Dorrie the Witch book written by Patricia Coombs. And with all of Alibris’s vendors, I still have access to the widest selection. I love that I can set my preferences by price, condition, seller rating or even date published. I can keep a running wish list of what I am waiting to buy. Yes, you may say all this is available on Amazon. And a lot of it is. But Alibris has the credibility of being independently owned. And although many of the sellers use both theses two vendors, somehow Alibris manages to still have a better variety of choices for most titles. And believe me – I have searched on both.

Which leads me to the original reason why I started this post. Last year I started a new job buying books for a small college library. (Say it with me now – it is as awesome as it sounds). Mostly I rely on large vendors to supply our library with the academic titles we need. However I am regularly asked to purchase a title that is, for one reason or another, hard to find. My first place to look is always Alibris. And I even get to use their super-cool “Alibris for Libraries” site to do so. Because I am now awesome and work in a library. I don’t have to shop at the same site as the rest of the lowly peons.

I like buying from Alibris because it is hands off enough to allow you to get your work done without pestering you to buy more stuff that you are not interested in. But it is also hands on enough that I can say I am on first name basis with their library customer service contact. I choose to pretend that this is not because of an ordering fiasco last December that may or may not have had anything to do with my accidentally ordering three different books twice. In any case, their customer service rep saved my para-professional tuckus. And she did so with graciousness and even good-humor.

However I do have to admit that I am not their exclusive favorite customer. As much as I feel that I am. The truth is: they lavish this kind of attention on all their customers. Every one of their library customers is on first name with the customer service rep.

When I started working in this position the library had used Alibris in the past. But not very often. In fact, since I started doing the purchasing, our library's orders with Alibris went up so dramatically that we got their attention.

Yes folks, today I met with a sales rep from Alibris. A sales rep who came specifically to visit me in order to discuss my purchasing needs and show me exciting options on their website. It may not be quite like being cool enough to meet the Beatles. But it is like being cool enough that their tour manager makes a personal visit in order to book a show at your location.

My book-cool cache just increased.