TFI Friday

So it's been a busy old time here in the reference library. We've been closed to the public now for 5 weeks (one to go!) due to building works elsewhere, resulting in the relocation of three other departments (that's right, three!) into our hallowed reading room.

The library looks remarkably like this

Not only that, but as I mentioned previously, we said goodbye to a number of colleagues, two of which were library staff. Given that we were effectively a full-time staff of three...yeah, I've taken over a few extra responsibilities! But now we're looking at the future, and hopefully soon we'll have a temp coming to ease the pressure, so that's good news. Though I'll still have to train them, and supervise them, and they won't be working Mondays at all...

Then we've had a colossal book move, swapping a room of oversized books, dealers' catalogues and art books with some of the archives. Hundreds...maybe even thousands of books being moved in two weeks...ouch. And much as I love not having had to move the books myself, this does mean I wasn't able to stop the movers when they reshelved the oversized books not by classmark, but by size. So now nothing's in order and I have no idea where anything is!

Added to that we've got the usual start-of-term chaos happening out in the real world university - I shall be giving tours to the History of Art postgrads soon. I've also been asked to run tours for the Cambridge Library Group, so I'm ankle-deep in email conversations with the other two libraries here to try and co-ordinate that (but that won't be until April, so I have a little time yet!).

The students I'll be showing around the library are ever so slightly older than these

I am luxuriating in the freedom to make decisions - I'm looking at ways to publicise the library and tie it closer to the general museum experience. So the idea is a person comes in, checks out the exhibition that they came to see. They might take in a couple of other galleries, eat at the café, make purchases from the shop...somewhere in there I think I can insert "visit library to look at further material on the exhibition, or just have a browse of the fantastic resources the library has on various forms of art". Or maybe just "visit library to sit down and allow feet to recover from all that ambling and read the Times Literary Supplement". I'm not fussy.

And finally...
My course is ever-progressing (at snail's pace). I've read 26 articles and learnt Set Theory for my latest assignment - and I'm hoping that that will be sufficient! I want to get it all done in order to go back to Aberystwyth in April, which means basically having completed everything by January. A month for each assignment should be possible, I think. Particularly given I've done so much reading for the next two already. Once I've completed Information Organisation and Retrieval, it's only Collections Management and Research in the Profession to do to be allowed to go back. It would be nice to have done Music Librarianship and one other before then, but we'll see. I'm hoping to have an idea about my dissertation by then too. I'd love to do something to do with music, but I'm pretty stumped for ideas beyond that thought.

And just a last cartoon which seemed pretty relevant to an art library but that I couldn't fit in with the rest of my verbal splurgings.

Happy Friday!