Drudgery R Us
Feb. 9th, 2004 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gementI volunteered 4 hours on Friday and 4.5 today. I did many things today, including looking up addresses, data entry, mailings, and cutting out fifty construction paper hearts. I prepped about 200 magazines for give-away. The only book I touched was the phone book.
They have me... heheh. How to put it. They asked me to make the next bulletin board about how the art on top of the shelves is actually available for checkout. There are about two dozen pieces. Said bulletin board should include a listing and pictures from online of as many pieces as possible, since almost all of them are reproductions. Which is fine, except their only catalogue of said art consists of ragged, out of date, inaccurate, and completely unordered checkout cards. What they actually needed was the information overhauled.
So I've spent about five hours so far doing the following: First, I had to determine which card went with which art, which involved a ladder in some cases. I then typed the ordered list (by current location) into a word document with notes on needed updates, missing cards, and Mystery Paintings. The list also now includes both first and last names for most of the artists (cards only had last), and I'm starting to collect digital copies of the pieces. [Update: I've found most of the ones with artist names.]
It's interesting stuff, and I can now identify El Greco and know that the artist's real name was very long and unspeakably Greek. I also know that what was labeled as Chagall's "The Circus" Just Isn't, though they're very similar. I can't figure out what we have.
Outside of that, the standard volunteer tasks are things like making sure the shelves are in order (I've adopted the entire Juvenile section) and relabeling the books using a manual typewriter and a lot of fingernail power, which is going to take YEARS. It took over half an hour for me to do seven of them. It's ridiculous.
The futility of that particular job frustrates me, but I might take it as a mission to get the good books done first, if you know what I mean. When I spot a few books in a row that have old labels that I think deserve new labels, I'll do those. Or, I'll just avoid the project until they give me enough access to the database to learn how to export and autoprint.
I had the guilty pleasure of COMPLETELY organizing the Nancy Drew this morning. There are six different flavors of Nancy Drew novels, including the Drew/Hardys crossover series, and I separated them all out from each other. The fairly modern Nancy Drew Files series with numbers on all the spines also went in numerical order, all 80 of them. I don't feel particularly compelled to do it ever ever again, but now I've done it. It's good to get these things out of my system before I'm getting paid for it, I think.
There are a few series in the Juvenile section that are split up by author that drive me crazy. I see the point, and on the other hand it's really frustrating. Unless someone like me is going through alphabetizing the damn things, or looks it up in the online catalog, they're never going to notice that six other authors worked on this series.
The biggest offender, and the best example case for arguing either method of organization: Dear America. It's a series of "diary" books from young people from every conceivable era and ethnic background, mostly American history, a few from further abroad (the Royalty series in particular: I spotted India and Sweden).
So, on the one hand, they should stick all these suckers together so people can see what they have to choose from. I mean, that's the whole point of it being a series. On the other hand, a lot of the authors who wrote for these series have also written other historical children's books, and putting the series together would encourage the kind of tunnel vision that never gives kids any reason to stray from the Babysitter's Club shelf.
In short, libraries are a land of many contrasts. I don't know what to think. Anyone with experience from bookland want to ring in?
Also, thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vixyish for pointing me to this lovely icon, from a drawing called Bookwyrm by Mark Ferrari. (c) 1989, excerpt used by permission.
They have me... heheh. How to put it. They asked me to make the next bulletin board about how the art on top of the shelves is actually available for checkout. There are about two dozen pieces. Said bulletin board should include a listing and pictures from online of as many pieces as possible, since almost all of them are reproductions. Which is fine, except their only catalogue of said art consists of ragged, out of date, inaccurate, and completely unordered checkout cards. What they actually needed was the information overhauled.
So I've spent about five hours so far doing the following: First, I had to determine which card went with which art, which involved a ladder in some cases. I then typed the ordered list (by current location) into a word document with notes on needed updates, missing cards, and Mystery Paintings. The list also now includes both first and last names for most of the artists (cards only had last), and I'm starting to collect digital copies of the pieces. [Update: I've found most of the ones with artist names.]
It's interesting stuff, and I can now identify El Greco and know that the artist's real name was very long and unspeakably Greek. I also know that what was labeled as Chagall's "The Circus" Just Isn't, though they're very similar. I can't figure out what we have.
Outside of that, the standard volunteer tasks are things like making sure the shelves are in order (I've adopted the entire Juvenile section) and relabeling the books using a manual typewriter and a lot of fingernail power, which is going to take YEARS. It took over half an hour for me to do seven of them. It's ridiculous.
The futility of that particular job frustrates me, but I might take it as a mission to get the good books done first, if you know what I mean. When I spot a few books in a row that have old labels that I think deserve new labels, I'll do those. Or, I'll just avoid the project until they give me enough access to the database to learn how to export and autoprint.
I had the guilty pleasure of COMPLETELY organizing the Nancy Drew this morning. There are six different flavors of Nancy Drew novels, including the Drew/Hardys crossover series, and I separated them all out from each other. The fairly modern Nancy Drew Files series with numbers on all the spines also went in numerical order, all 80 of them. I don't feel particularly compelled to do it ever ever again, but now I've done it. It's good to get these things out of my system before I'm getting paid for it, I think.
There are a few series in the Juvenile section that are split up by author that drive me crazy. I see the point, and on the other hand it's really frustrating. Unless someone like me is going through alphabetizing the damn things, or looks it up in the online catalog, they're never going to notice that six other authors worked on this series.
The biggest offender, and the best example case for arguing either method of organization: Dear America. It's a series of "diary" books from young people from every conceivable era and ethnic background, mostly American history, a few from further abroad (the Royalty series in particular: I spotted India and Sweden).
So, on the one hand, they should stick all these suckers together so people can see what they have to choose from. I mean, that's the whole point of it being a series. On the other hand, a lot of the authors who wrote for these series have also written other historical children's books, and putting the series together would encourage the kind of tunnel vision that never gives kids any reason to stray from the Babysitter's Club shelf.
In short, libraries are a land of many contrasts. I don't know what to think. Anyone with experience from bookland want to ring in?
Also, thanks to
vixyish for pointing me to this lovely icon, from a drawing called Bookwyrm by Mark Ferrari. (c) 1989, excerpt used by permission.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 06:34 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 10:02 pm (UTC)Instead he was flattered and friendly, and said that if I used the full image, the copyright was 1989, and that if I used a fragment, I did not technically need to credit him at all (fair use), though he still, of course, appreciates it mightily. Neat guy.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 10:20 pm (UTC)It looks like he's going to be at Norwescon this year. You should come. He almost always does panels and he always has a dealer table too. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 11:47 pm (UTC)