Back at the Beginning

 Most of my job is spent working from a spreadsheet: a list of potential duplicates in the MassCat catalog given in alphabetical order. However, the program used to spot duplicates, doesn't recognize initial articles. I am now reviewing titles that begin with the word "The".

There are a lot of them.

In a way, it's a little discouraging. It's taken me years (six? seven?) to slog my way through the alphabet to arrive at the letter "T" - only to end up back at "A". Actually, I'm at "B". I feel like Alice in the looking glass: I think I'm going toward something, but in reality, I'm going away from it.

Actually, it's not that bad; it's more ironic.

After five months of working from home, I've finally developed a sort of schedule. I try to do my MassCat work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday like I did in the "old days". That gives me two full days plus the weekend, to do other things like housework or yardwork or just sitting around reading.

But as of last week there has been a change: I'm leading my exercise class again! This is sort of an experiment. I'm leading it once a week and virtually. The first week, we used Microsoft Teams because that is what the Town Hall uses for it's meetings. However, only 3 people managed to log on. And I could only see myself in a tiny box which kept disappearing. In a meeting, seeing oneself in a tiny box is no big deal, but I need to know that I'm lined up so that exercisers can see me and what I'm doing. 

This week, we used Zoom, but after 35 minutes of what was supposed to be a 45 minute class, the program shut down leaving me in mid leg lift. The plan now is to schedule 2 half classes (upper body, lower body), one right after the other and consider the time in between as a break. Beginning tomorrow, there will be an outdoor class in the park next to the Town Hall.

As happy as I am to be back (even virtually) with my class, I now have to review my work schedule. Given that I don't much like to do housework other than dishes or laundry, I could always give that up. But who else will clean? My housekeeper has not been here since mid-March. 

I miss her as much as (maybe more than) my exercise class.

Missing in Action

What do Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and D.H. Lawrence have in common?

People sometimes misspell their names. And when that happens, it's impossible to find them or their books in an online catalog.

I've recently corrected Austin, Allen and Laurence in the MassCat catalog. I've also changed some squiggly symbols so that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë have the umlaut over the letter e. There are also all of those Japanese manga (is that redundant?) authors. They often have accent marks as part of their names and those accent marks don't always import properly into a new catalog.

As long as I can remember, the copyright symbol was indicated by the lower case c. After all, we used typewriters and didn't have the option of too many symbols. Now with computers, bib records actually contain © and sometimes ℗ if the item is an audiobook. Those symbols sometimes don't import correctly. I spend time every day correcting all of those various and sundry anomalies.

In the meantime, I'm plowing, progressing and puttering through the letter P. I finished reviewing titles beginning with the word Pop. There were a lot of books about Andy Warhol - not one of my favorite artists.

Tomorrow, I'm off to the Clark Art Institute with a friend to see the Renoir exhibit. I have my museum pass from my local public library. I remember the Clark back in the 1970s when it was a small, cute museum - and it was free. Now the admission is $20. I don't go there often enough to make it worth my while to purchase a membership, though I realize a membership is basically a donation and a monetary vote of support as well as the ability to visit for free.

Like most people I know, I have to make decisions on where and how to spend my money. I donate as much as I can to my local public library and they use my donation to help purchase museum passes that anyone can borrow.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

A Long Journey

In my alphabetical list of possible duplicate records, I've reached titles beginning with the word "long". The titles begin specifically with "long" - not "a long" which were listed in the beginning after the numbers. And not "the long" which will come much later. The sorting program does not recognize initial articles.

In the process of finding and merging duplicates in the MassCat catalog, I'm also finding and reporting duplicates in other catalogs. As I've written before, I key in a word, sort by title A-Z and then begin looking for problems.

One of those problems is CIP (Cataloging in Publication) records. Generally, they are pretty good, but because the record was created while the book was in the process of publication, they lack information such as the number of pages, the height, and whether or not there are illustrations.

When I find such a record, I go to the C/W MARS catalog and look at their bib record to find the missing information. Sometimes I find 2 exact records, which I then report to the cataloging staff at C/W MARS. Given the size of their catalog, they have very few duplicates. I find maybe one or two in a month. Compare that with MassCat where I find 20 in a day. Well, that's what I'm there for.

When C/W MARS started, it had one catalog for all of its members. Then, it moved to different software that couldn't handle the size, so it was split between CMARS and WMARS. When they moved to yet different software, the catalogs were once again combined. But not all the duplicates were automatically merged. Human intervention is needed for those last few stragglers.

The other place I find duplicate records is in OCLC. That is such a HUGE catalog, there are bound to be "issues". And so much of the information is loaded automatically, there are bound to be even more "issues". I think I find a duplicate record nearly every time I search the catalog. It is not unusual to find 2 or 3 of the exact same thing. Those I report to the cataloging staff at OCLC.

Sometimes I get the feeling my purpose in this world is to find and merge (or report) the duplicate bib records in every catalog on Earth.

Life and Light

In my quest for eliminating all duplicate and inadequate records from the MassCat catalog, I am still slogging through the letter L. I just finished viewing possible duplicates of titles beginning with the word Life (and there are a lot of them) and have been working on titles beginning with the word Light (and there are a lot of THEM).

Usually, as I have said before, I do a keyword search on one or two words, sort by title and then begin looking at each record as I scroll down the list, 20 records to a page.

When I was working at the beginning of the list, I found lots of problems: duplicates, misspellings, weird characters that should be accent marks, records too skimpy to identify the specific edition. Now that I'm nearly half way through (L being the 12th letter of 26), most of the pages are error free, though I still find things that have snuck in (or maybe I missed).

And there are records being added constantly to the catalog, sometimes in error (there's already one there) or the record is CIP (Cataloging In Publication) and is missing some details such as page numbers.

As I continue through the alphabetical list of each search, though, the last half of the alphabet is in far worse shape. It's a good reminder how much is still left to do to clean up this catalog.

On a sad note, my youngest sister, Wendy, 55 years old, a life-long smoker and single mother of beautiful 18-year-old twin girls, was diagnosed in November of 2016 with lung cancer. She's been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation and is now in a Hospice facility near her home in New Hampshire. I visited with her on Monday. Two of my other sisters and one brother were there and I got to spend time with them, also.

I barely know Wendy. She was only 3 when I left home to go to college, so we never really lived together. In 1987, she was living in Berkeley, California with her (now) ex-husband. I went to the ALA conference in San Francisco and stayed several extra days so that I could visit with her. It's the only extended time we ever spent together as adults and I very much enjoyed her company.

Life and Light. When Wendy is gone, she will take with her a Life and a Light.

The (In)Accurate Catalog

I've been working on the MassCat catalog for about 5 years now. First 10 hours/week, then 15, and now 18. Admittedly, I don't spend all of those hours on clean-up. I import vendor-provided records, search for and import records from OCLC, and create new records. I so very much want this catalog to correctly reflect the holdings of the MassCat libraries.

Yesterday, I had a very discouraging day. I'm still on the letter "L" in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates, specifically the word "Library". For some reason, I found record after record of the electronic version of a book and the corresponding holdings appeared to be for a print version. I know from past experience that many of these libraries do not have e-books.

Most of the time, just to be sure, I send an email to the director and explain the situation. I than ask exactly what the library owns and, if necessary (which it usually is) I find the bib record for the print book and overlay the e-book record.

Yesterday, I found over 30 e-book records that I suspected were really print books. I stopped emailing after the first 10. I figure I'll find the others again. Or maybe the books will have been weeded (dream on!) and I can just delete the record.

Nothing makes me happier than finding some skimpy or weird record with no holdings. ZAP! It's gone! Never to sully my catalog again.

Other things I encountered recently: a book by Edgar Allen Poe, now correctly by Edgar Allan Poe and another by Willliam somebody. He now has only two els in his first name.

I know I'm making progress because I keep statistics. Every month I merge hundreds of duplicate records, replace hundreds of skimpy records, and edit hundreds of other records. That third category consists of filling in pages on CIP records, correcting funky characters that should be accent marks, and correcting spellings.

If only I could get library staff to actually LOOK at the record before they import it and make sure it actually matches what they have in hand, I'd be a VERY HAPPY CATALOGER.

The one positive of this situation is that I have lots of war stories to tell when I'm teaching cataloging workshops.

The Letter L

As I continue on my journey through the alphabet in search of duplicates in the MassCat catalog, I recently reached the letter L.

The duplicate report sorts oddly, however; it ignores initial articles regardless of language. Therefore, the first several titles began with L' or La. I've come to understand the sorting idiosyncrasies of the Koha system and I just proceed as usual: I enter a distinctive word in a keyword search, sort by title A-Z, and look for things that need fixing.

The Koha system in general and the MassCat system in particular were upgraded a few weeks ago. Besides a slightly different display, which I like, there is a major difference that makes my job easier.

When merging duplicates, the procedure is to highlight all possibilities and put them into a separate file, a list called RecordsToMerge. They are still available to view in the main catalog, but in this other file I can view them side by side. Then I go into that list, choose the two I want to look at, check carefully to make sure they are, in fact, exact duplicates, and merge them. The operative word in the previous sentence is "two"; I can only look at two records at a time. Usually that is not a problem, but sometimes there are three, four, or even more possible duplicates. In those cases, I choose two, view them, merge; choose two more, view them, merge, etc.

With the new upgrade, I can now choose ALL of the records at the same time. I can only see two at a time side-by-side, but it's easy enough to select which one I think is the best (because the new display gives me more information), and then compare that record with the next, and the next, and the next, by clicking on the different tabs. When I'm sure they are all exactly the same, I click on the "merge" button and - poof! - they are now one.

This feature is especially helpful with the collection of a member library that previously used a very simple online catalog. These simple catalogs required each item have its own bib record even if it was a 20 volume set of an encyclopedia. The records read "Blah, blah encyclopedia, vol.1", "Blah, blah encyclopedia, vol.2", "Blah, blah encyclopedia, vol.3",etc.

What I can do now is find a good record for the 20 volume set, overlay the record for volume 1, put all 20 records into the RecordsToMerge list, and merge them into one record with the click of the mouse. Then I get to record 19 merges on my statistics sheet. That's the best part!

Why I Do What I Do

Three days each week, 6 hours on each of those days, I sit in front of a computer at the Massachusetts Library System and work with (on?) the MassCat online catalog. This may seem like a boring and tedious job to some people (and sometimes it is), but it suits me and actually brings me much satisfaction.

I do several different things: I import bib records that library receive from their vendors when they buy new books and other materials; I find bib records via paid sources to which I have access; I create bib records when they don't already exist. All of this keeps a library's catalog accurate so patrons and staff know what the library owns and where the item is.

Most of my time is spent searching for and merging duplicate records. If you've spent any time reading this blog, you know I'm now on the letter "K". I started on titles beginning with the word "Kissinger" yesterday. (There were over 800 hits using that one word in a keyword search.)

As I find duplicates, I look at the records side by side to make sure they are exactly the same and then hit the "Merge" button. All libraries with holdings on either record are now all listed as owners of this one version of a title.

Okay, that's what I do; now for why I do it.

There are lots of benefits from merging duplicate records, but I'm sure most people - even most librarians - don't even think about it, so here they are.

Benefits to the Patrons: Whether in a public, school, or special library, if one enters a keyword search with one or two words (as in the Kissinger example above), the result is a long list of books, audio books, videos, and other materials containing that word. Sorting through that list can be difficult. Many books, especially popular titles like James Patterson's Private Paris, come in a variety of formats: regular print, large print, book on CD. There might also be a mass market paperback, a DVD, Blu-ray and/or an e-book.

Each of these formats needs its own bib record for Interlibrary Loan purposes. If I can only comfortably read large print, I don't want to get a mass market paperback; I don't want a Blu-ray disc if I don't have a player on which to view it.

It can be confusing enough navigating the myriad versions of a title, but having two or more bib records of the exact same thing only adds to the confusion. Hence, merging duplicate records.

Another benefit for the patron is having all owning libraries listed on one record, rather than each owning library having a separate record. Some libraries, particularly historical societies and other special libraries, do not allow their materials to circulate; a person can use them on site, but not take them out of the building. But if another library also owns the same title and does allow their collection to circulate, I can borrow that copy via Interlibrary Loan.

And if two different historical societies own the same item, which is often the case, and I can only use that item on site, I can travel to whichever is closer.

There are benefits to the library staff as well especially for those involved in collection development: If a particular title in my collection has been lost but several other libraries in the area own it (which I can easily tell by looking at the list of owning libraries listed on said title), I might not bother to replace that title since my patrons can borrow it elsewhere. That helps stretch my materials budget. Similarly, if a specific book is looking shabby, I can weed it knowing my patrons have access to it at another library. That keeps my library looking fresher and more inviting.

As I stand and stretch and take a quick walk because too much sitting can stiffen my joints, I reflect on what I've accomplished that day and think of my contribution - small but important - to MassCat libraries.

Judging a Book by its Cover

I often choose a book to read because I like its cover, so how could I resist a book that displayed a little black dress?

I love little black dresses. I've owned several over the years. I've admired even more. Who can forget Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's? Now that's a little black dress to admire.

Nine women, one dress was an absolute delight to read.

The book reminded me of works by Maeve Binchey or Fannie Flagg. There are lots of characters, beautifully developed, and a central theme, so that the characters are related and everything ties together. This is a book I can easily recommend to anyone and everyone.

On the workfront, I have finally arrived at the letter K.

I'm totally convinced there are gremlins that invade the MassCat database when I'm not working on it. They create duplicate records and typos and turn book records into e-book records. The more I try to straighten out this catalog, the more stuff I find that needs fixing. Every time I think I'm making progress, I stumble upon a section that is so sad, I have trouble believing I haven't found it before. Cleaning up this catalog is definitely a long term project.

I guess this is called "job security".

Jumping to J

How did I manage to get to the letter J so quickly? Only a couple of weeks ago, I was still on F.

I have a helper. She is a Library Science student who wants to be a cataloger. She's also a Mass Library System employee. Depending on the time of year, her workload is sometimes light and she asked if she could help out with MassCat to get some cataloging experience.

While merging records is not exactly cataloging, this is great experience for her to look at bib records and see what kinds of problems arise. Since I work with an alphabetized list of potential duplicate titles, she has taken the later end of the letter F through the letter I.

I began with "Jazz" and have so far made my way through "Jewel", "Jewels", and "Jewelry". I've started "Jewish" which will keep me busy for a while. When I did a single word keyword search on "Jewish", I received a list of over 5,000 titles. The first 60 or so were in Hebrew, which I don't read, so I skipped past them and hoped they were accurate enough for Hebrew readers to find what they are looking for.

I'm still reading Introduction to Cataloging and Classification, and will be for a while. It's been a great reminder of the entire purpose of cataloging. While working, it's so easy for me to get involved in the specifics of the process - that whole "losing sight of the forest for the trees" thing. As I read through the textbook, the importance of describing the resource "uniquely" (to distinguish it from similar resources) and "unambiguously" (so that the patron knows exactly what he/she is getting) is repeated regularly.

To get a break from cataloging, I've been watching the third season of Hill Street Blues. Back in the 1980s, I watched the series pretty regularly and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I learned that it was out on DVD, I began requesting the seasons (in order, of course) from the library. Every few months, I take several evenings to become thoroughly absorbed in the adventures of the Hill Street station regulars. The stories are funny, sad, and always thought-provoking. The characters are multi-dimensional. The "good guys" have faults; the "bad guys" are sometimes kind.

I think what's most fascinating is the overall culture. No one has cell phones or computers. The cars are big (gasoline was just over $1.00/gallon). People wore aviator glasses. Come to think of it, so did I.

Hang Fire

When I keyed "hang fire" into the Google.com search box, what appeared was "delay or be delayed in taking action or progressing". That's a perfect definition for my situation - especially the progressing part.

As I've said before on this blog, I have an alphabetical list of potential duplicate records. I search the MassCat catalog to determine if, indeed, they are duplicates. Sometimes they are. Sometimes not; the title and author are the same, but one is perhaps large print, another a mass market paperback and yet another the audio version. Between the less-than-perfect bib records and the idiosyncratic way that Koha sorts those records, potential duplicates don't always end up one after the other. They may be several records apart and not always easy to find. Sometimes they'll be on different "pages". Each bit of punctuation affects the sorting: Fire and Fire! do not end up near each other.

The way I search for duplicates (and other problems) in the catalog is to use my alphabetical list as a guideline. Instead of searching the entire title, I do a keyword search on one word of the title and the author's first or last name, depending which is faster and easier to type.

This can be a pretty boring job at times. They way to keep myself interested is to make a game of it - which is how "hang fire" came about. There were several titles beginning with the word Fire. I decided to key in that one word and see what happened.

The first thing is that I got a list of over 3200 titles matching that search. This was a keyword search, remember. The word "Fire" can be anywhere in the record. Unfortunately, Koha only searches the first 1000 titles, so I knew I couldn't get to that middle 1000 easily. I sorted by title A-Z and began to look for duplicates, typos, funky characters that should be accent marks, incomplete records, and any other bib record in need of a cataloger's attention. I found plenty - hence "hang fire". I've been working on variations of this search for over a week! 

Here is one of the things I found: 3 records for Oscar Handlin's Fire bell in the night, although one was spelled Fire-ball in the night. There is now one record, spelled correctly.

When I finally reached record #1000, I resorted by title Z-A and worked backwards through another 1000. After merging all of the duplicate records (now there are only about 3100 or so), I resorted A-Z, went to record  #940, looked through that last batch and found a few more things to take care of. I resorted Z-A and did the same from the other end.

At that point, I went back to my duplicate list and did slightly more detailed searches (usually 2 title words and one of the author's names) on each title listed to make sure I hadn't missed anything in that massive scanning. While I never did get to that middle 1000 records, I can definitely say there are now fewer records and they are cleaner and more complete. 

Isn't that what it's all about? Now on to firefighter, firefighting, etc. It will be a while before I get to the letter "G".

Funky letters

The English language doesn't have any accent marks except on the words that have been borrowed (or should that be usurped since I don't think we're going to return them) like facade (which should have a cedilla since it is French) or Noel (which should have an umlaut, but you rarely see it with one). In the library world, accent marks are called diacritics.

Now that we have word processing programs, those diacritics are often automatically added by the computer software (but not in Blogger, I guess, since they did not pop in).

Since libraries often have books (and other materials, of course) in languages other than English, and usually have books (and other materials) written by or acted by people with names that require diacritics, you'll see many cedillas and umlauts as well as acute or grave accents, and rings (which I thought was called an angstrom but, according to Wikipedia, that is a unit of measure). Depending on the software a particular library uses for its catalog, these accent marks may or may not display correctly.

When bib records are transferred from one program to another (such as Koha, which is used by MassCat), the correct coding for those accent marks may or may not be transferred correctly.

One of the things I do at work is to look for funky characters (that's letters, not people). As I scan the list of brief records looking for duplicates and misspellings (remember the Portuguese Picket Dictionary?) I look for misplaced symbols like ? or @ in the middle of words. That usually signals there should be some sort of accent mark over or under or through a letter. Often I can tell what it should be, but since all of these programs translate the codes differently, I'm not always sure.

Fortunately, it's easy for me to correct these - what should I call them? - mis-translations when I find them. I actually have a word document with all of the different possibilities of letters with accent marks. I simply copy and paste over the offending symbol. Or if it's someone's name and I'm not certain what it should be, I go to WorldCat.org, search the part I do know, and copy and paste the correction.

If  only all of life's problems could be solved so easily.

The Portuguese Picket Dictionary

I wonder if anyone has ever searched for a Portuguese Pocket Dictionary in the MassCat catalog. If so, they would not have found it. Whoever entered the data for that particular resource did so incorrectly.

This is the sort of situation I face every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I pour over the catalog looking for problems like typos, incomplete words, and bibliographic records too skimpy to know what the item really is.

My first priority is hunting for duplicate (and triplicate and quadruplicate) records. Sometimes it's hard enough to navigate the catalog without being confronted with two of the exact same thing and several more variations. Which is which?

I have a printout, in alphabetical order, of potential duplicate records. A few weeks ago I reached the letter E. On June 25, 2014, I posted that I had arrived at the letter D. It's going slowly, but I'm doing a lot of other thing, too.

Since Friday was May 1, I totaled my statistics for the month of April. While I don't have the exact figures in front of me, I merged over 800 bibliographic records. That's a pretty typical month. I also replaced several hundred incomplete records with ones with more detailed information. And several hundred additional records received what I call "minor edits" like correcting typos and adding page numbers when I can find them.

As I look at all the work that needs to be done to this catalog, I know I'll have a job for a very long time. At least now anyone looking for a Portuguese Pocket Dictionary will be able to find one.

If Everything is on the Internet ...

... why is my desk at MassCat stacked with books, etc. that need cataloging? Sorry, I didn't take a picture.

I've been inundated with requests for bibliographic records for books, DVDs, even a local serial publication. Self-publishing is the main reason for me to create original records. Someone in town publishes a book and donates it to the public library which now needs information in its online catalog so that patrons can find the book and it can be circulated. This is in no way intended to imply they're not worthy of publication, but because these tomes are not going through the commercial publishers, they lack bibliographic records in the traditional sources.

It's not just new items that lack records; some old publications never received them. Some of the MassCat libraries are special libraries with historical collections such as the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Wellesley, or the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History.

As staff go through the process of retrospective conversion, making sure that all items are accounted for in the catalog, it is not unusual to find some for which no cataloging record exists. These are the things you won't find on Amazon.com. And you may not find them in Google books. The only record of some of these historically significant items will be in MassCat.

Working at Home

Today I am telecommuting for my job at MassCat. I could actually telecommute almost every day because just about everything I do is on the computer and I can log in from anywhere. Since the office isn't far from where I live and I'm out already at the senior exercise class, I choose to go into the office.

Both scenarios have their advantages.

At the office there is free coffee and sometimes snacks. I'm not distracted by dirty laundry, dirty dishes, floors that need vacuuming, plants that need watering, etc., etc., etc.

At home, however, I can work a whole different way that is actually more productive. Since I'm doing a lot of detailed computer work, I work intently for about an hour. Then I do something else (laundry?) for a while. Then I work intently for another hour and then do something else (dishes this time?).

Since it's hard to concentrate on the sort of work I do for much more than an hour, I find that at the end of a day of working at home, my stats are much higher than the same number of working hours in the office where I need to take frequent, though short, breaks. The big difference is that at home I begin early in the morning (sometimes even as early at 6 a.m.) and I'm still working into the evening.

At home, I often work my first shift while still in my nightgown and that first "do something else" involves getting dressed. That's definitely different from working in an office.

An Itinerant Cataloger

I've just finished the first week of my new schedule as an itinerant cataloger, although the schedule will fluctuate a little from week to week. There are two holidays in November to work around, too. The week was somewhat more chaotic than usual since I had to cope with 34 hours of no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.

Here's what it looked like:

Monday: I arrived at Springfield City Library at 9:00 a.m. The first thing I needed to do was learn the cataloging function of Evergreen and SCL's local practices. The library closed at noon because of the storm. I went home and graded papers and began prep for Thursday's class. The lights went out at 2:30, but I worked until it got too dark to do that. I lit candles, listened to the battery powered radio and watched the wind blow the trees around.

Tuesday: Still no lights. I went to SCL and worked on music CDs (mostly copy cataloging), got more comfortable with Evergreen and SCLs music classification system.

Wednesday: The lights came on about 12:30 a.m. It was good to wash in warm water and make coffee that morning. I went to Town Hall to teach the senior exercise class at the Council on Aging office, then off to MassCat to work on their database. I'm more aware of the differences between Evergreen and Koha, the two most common Open Source systems available to libraries.

Thursday was owner/member appreciation day at the local food co-op. I had been planning for a couple of weeks to go shopping there and take advantage of the 10% discount. First, I had to finish prepping for LIS415, which I did. I had a lot of photocopying to do for class, so I left a little early. It was a good class, perhaps the best of the semester. This has been a quiet group of students, not much discussion/questions during class but that night was different. They had a group assignment to work on and really got into it.

Friday: back to Town Hall, but first a stop by the library to sign the bi-weekly warrants (I'm trustee chair). The other exercise instructor usually takes responsibility for most of Friday's class. I lead the part where the exercises aggravate her bad back. I found out that the Town Hall will be closed the day after Thanksgiving and there will be no exercise class. That's good because it makes my schedule easier. The MassCat office will also be closed that day and if there's no exercise class, I can work at SCL from 9-5.

So now it's Saturday and I don't feel like doing anything at all. I've done some odds and ends around the house and there are plenty of things I could do, but they can wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll have more time. It's the first day of Standard Time (fall back) and will be a whole hour longer.

On Hiatus

It's that time of year again: the end of the fiscal year, when money runs out, but dollars for the next year's grant haven't yet come through.

So I get a break. I'm not certain for how long because DGI's client doesn't know exactly when the check is coming, though they know it will be coming sometime.

However, I'm starting a part-time job beginning in early July for MassCat. This is the same job I had last summer; then it was only temporary, now it's permanent. For 10 hours/week I'll be doing database cleanup, copy cataloging on OCLC when there is no record in the MassCat database, and original cataloging when there is no record anywhere. The job is a short commute and coffee is available for employees.

I'll have money coming in, but plenty of time to catch up on house and yard work. And I need to begin preparing to teach Information Organization in the fall. Simmons GSLIS has changed all of its software, and I need to transfer my materials from BlackBoard to Moodle. It's also a good time to work on some revisions to the course.

What was that about a break?

Getting Sloppy

Not with my cataloging. NEVER!

For the last few weeks, when I wake up, rather than practicing Yoga or Pilates or going for a walk, I've been brewing a cup of coffee and toasting a slice or two of whole wheat bread. Then I sit on the sofa and watch the birds at the feeder and listen to the waterfall on the very little pond we've constructed near the house.

But as cozy as that scene is, I'm noticing that I feel stiffer and I'm not sleeping as well at night (although that could be caused by the suddenly hot and humid weather). So this morning (Monday is always a good day to begin good habits) I put on one of the easier Yoga audio tapes and spent 45 minutes stretching and breathing.

Then I brewed a cup of coffee and toasted 2 slices of whole wheat bread.

My perpetually changing schedule makes it difficult for me to get into a routine of exercising, but that's something I really need to work on. Last week I started my new project at MassCat cleaning up that database. I'm finding possible duplicate bibliographic records, determining if they really are duplicates, and merging all of the libraries' holdings onto one. I'm also upgrading skimpy records that were imported from other systems when the library joined MassCat. It's tedious work, but very gratifying. MassCat will have a squeeky clean database when I'm finished with it.

Cataloging for the private O'More Library is nearly complete so I only have to make one or two more trips to Cambridge.

And I need to start seriously preparing for LIS415. Now that I've re-energized my exercise program, can that be far behind?

Another Job Application

MassCat is looking for a temporary, part-time cataloger. Guess what? That's just what I am/do.

Yesterday, I updated my resume, wrote a cover letter, decided the 3 people who could best attest to my skills in this capacity and put their names and contact information on a separate sheet of references. Then I emailed everything to the MassCat manager. Now I wait.

It shouldn't be too long since the ad said review of applications begins June 3. That's Friday.

As I approach my 1 year anniversary of being laid off (or being self-employed, depending how you look at it), I find myself beginning a period of reassessment. A year ago, I was seriously contemplating a new career. What I'm doing now is a career shift. Do I want to stay here? Do I want to put in the time and effort either to put my knowledge and skills toward something entirely different or to develop entirely new knowledge and skills?

On the last day of classes at Simmons west, one of my students was telling me she wasn't sure what she would do - or even be able to do - with this degree she had begun to pursue. She said she had just turned 60. This is the time many people begin contemplating retirement - not a career.

I've been working with a financial advisor looking at my various retirement funds and calculating the best use of them. As long as I am also able to produce income, I might as well. But it would be a relief knowing that if that next part-time temporary position does not come along, I'll still be able to eat.

Or, who knows, maybe I'll win the lottery!

The journey continues.