Every year Alumni House asks me to have the Archives open for reunion, but no one comes.  We had a discussion about it and they put up a looping PowerPoint I did inviting people to come and see a display.  The display was most clothes and beanies, etc from yesteryear.

I couldn’t believe the difference.  We must have had close to 30 people.  At one point there were so many I had to call for help!  Here are a few of the things that delighted me:

• A person who had donated many items to us, but I had never met face-to-face.  He wanted to see the fraternity paddle he had given us.
• Someone who had met FDR when he was here receiving an honorary degree and giving the commencement address.  FDR was governor at the time.
• A man from ‘38 who wanted to see his editorials in the Herald.  I could only let him use the microfilm.  As luck would have it one of my former student workers, Dan Goble ‘04, stopped with his wife to say hello.  I had to put him to work finding and setting up the film.  Thanks so much Dan!! I wish I had had more time to talk with you.
• Someone who is going to send me a good size piece of the goal post from the game in which Hobart beat the Uof R at football.
• A man who wanted to know what year Hobart played Army? (1936) What the the score was? (Army 51, Hobart 7) and How many students did Hobart have at the time? (308).  The answers were obtained in yearbooks and catalogs of the time period.
• Someone who wanted to see his Honors Thesis.
• Many looking at the yearbooks.

I was only open on Friday, but am told that people were looking for the display on Saturday as well.  Next year we may have to increase our hours.

It’s a lot more fun when someone actually comes to your party!

My position was recently re-evaluated, because it was realized that I didn’t really fit under any current policies. I went from a 12 month appointment where I worked 940 hours per year, with full benefits except vacation, personal days and sick leave…to a 10 month appointment where I work 930 hours per year, with full benefits. Since I have two months off in the summer, no vacation or personal days. This is all at the same pay rate, so I don’t lose anything.

This happened two days before before I left for “vacation.” I had asked for a week and a half, it was actually comp time, but was told to take 2 and a half weeks, to use all of the comp time. The new contract will start July 1st, so I’ll work the month of June, then be off from July 1st until August 15th.

Now anyone in their right mind would say whoopee!! But not being in my right mind, I was thrown completely off balance. I haven’t had this much time off since around 1978, and I’m not that all that great at using time off well. I’ve been keeping busy and using my time fairly well, but still spend a lot of time thinking about work. Perhaps if I write down what I need to do when I get back, I’ll be able stop running it over in my mind constantly.

• Get the Vail photos up on CONTENTdm.
• Figure out how to set up a new finding aid style sheet in Archivist’s Toolkit.
• Inventory the vault.
• Work on a BI for Primary Resources using ideas I’ve been picking up from the book “Made to Stick”.
• Get a list going of projects for student workers in the fall.
• Set up staff training for care of rare books an archives in the event of water or other damage due to an emergency.

I’ll probably be adding to this when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, because I’m thinking about work. That may be more than I can do in the month of June anyway. I’ll start working on my August list.

We just did the AT update.  I’m very happy with the search function now.  Before I didn’t see how to search for a word in a title.  Now it’s great. I love that it drills down into the components.

They say that one of the new features is improved stylesheets.  I don’t see any links to the stylesheets and the new features documentation doesn’t cover it so I’m in the dark.

I took a shot at tweaking the old stylesheet, a while back, without success.  Good project for the summer I guess.

We had a party to recognize our graduation seniors yesterday. We have started a tradition of having each seniors choose a book to add to our collection, to which we add a book plate with their name.

I will greatly miss

Hayley Mason,

Oliver Meeker,

Deana Stuart,

and Dale Watkins.

We had a great meeting yesterday with Alumni/ae house and Communications.  We determined what everyone’s needs are and how we can help each other.  I’m going to share our scanning procedures. Sara will help with organization and cataloging. And we will work at becoming a “lobbying group” to find for the money needed for software and storage space.  I’m quite encouraged.

I learned a few months ago that Alumni House is scanning all of the yearbooks.  I only found out when they needed to borrow one they were missing.  Now Jared, Hobart Alumni Dir, is getting us together to see how we can support each other in these scanning projects.  How great is that?

Also, last week Sara and I went to a OCLC/RRLC workshop on CONTENTdm.  I think the meeting this morning will give us a opportunity to suggest the group lobby for buying CONTENTdm because Alumni House, Communications and the Library can all use it.  We’ll see what happens.

I don’t know if any of you have run into the same situation with authorities that I have…

The  archives was originally setup  with item cataloging.  All  folders  are items in the card catalog.   I estimate  at best  20% of the  card catalog has  be converted to  MARC  and in our Voyager catalog. Since I came I’ve been item cataloging the digitized photographs.

Once Archivist’s Toolkit showed up on the scene, I’ve been trying to do incoming materials as collections.  Also, pulling some of the existing “items” together into subject collections for ease of use.

Now the names and subjects headings that are in the Voyager catalog are not in the AT names and subjects and visa versa.  I want to be as precise with our local names and subjects as p0ssible.  Here is my plan:

• I have Pauline, a super precise cataloger in our Tech Services, working with me.
• Pauline is checking the names and subjects I have already put in AT for correctness. (I’m not a cataloger by training.)
• She is then going through Voyager and checking that the headings conform to AT.
• I’m using AT as THE authority file.  As I’m cataloging more photos or adding collections, I check the AT headings.  If a heading isn’t there, I add one.
• I’m keeping track of my additions to send to Pauline, so she can check for correctness.  I’m hoping this way new things won’t slip through the cracks, as she moves alphabetically down the list.

I hope I’m not making both Pauline’s and my life too complicated. It just seems there are so many possibilities for forms of all those faculty and alum names that without an authority file we might loose someone.

I’ve gotten so I like to spend my Friday mornings seeing if I can find books in our special collections that might be particularly valuable.

Today I came upon “An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics” by Thomas Frognall Dibdin.  1804 in our Special Closed Collection.  If it was only the 1st edition instead of the 2nd, it would be valuable on it’s own.

Into our Voyager catalog I went.  I set the limits to “special collections” and pub. date less than 1804, then started doing keyword searches on titles or authors from this book.  Since I don’t know Greek and Latin I was working somewhat blind.  I did find a 1552 Caesar and a 1607 Boethius that are potentially of value.

I think this book is going to keep me busy for a few more Friday mornings.

I just noticed that someone has been looking at my previous post on this, so here is an update.

The webpage was redesigned and the Meebo widget was moved from the middle left to the lower right.  I haven’t had a Meebo question since. Coincidence?

I thought you would like to know that William Pitt Durfee, Hobart Dean, Acting President and Math Professor (1884-1929) is cited in the OED.  He was the first to use the word “twelfthic” in 1882.  He used it in an article of the American Journal of Mathematics.

Twelfthic: A quantic of the twelfth degree.