Days in the Life of a Science Librarian *With Footnotes #Libday7

Photo of Sunflowers against a backdrop of green plants and grass.
Sunflowers Lining the Path

We arrive around 3:30 pm and eventually find our way to the main building and meet up with Jon, the associate director of Cedar Point. He provides a brief tour and then finds us some lodgings to stash our stuff and informs us of the meal times, 7am-7:30am, 12pm-12:30pm, and 5:30pm-6pm.*** If you miss meals you’re out of luck and will have to go into town (about 3 miles) and find something yourself. As we unpack I discover they have horrible cell phone signal, I am luck to get a text out if that.****

After dinner we went exploring and saw tons of dragon flies, flowers, and the water diversion project.

Tuesday 7/26/11

7am We are among the first to arrive at breakfast, do not stand between hungry librarians and their food!

7:30am The foods all gone so we decide to get started, we’ll be done working earlier but at least we’ll be done.

Picture of Cedric the Toad with yellow and brown coloring.
Cedric the Toad

As we worked we were amused by this little toad hoping rapidly around the library (the toad was quickly nicknamed Cedric).

My colleague checked and updated holding records on serials and dissertations and thesis while I evaluated the collection. I noted what types of publications are in the collection, what topics are covered, what areas need strengthening. I also created a list of all the maps in the collection, set aside books which were added by faculty and staff without being cataloged to be processed, come up with a plan for storing and indexing the loose reprints and publishers copies of articles laying around, and explore some IT issues as some of our resources are not recognizing Cedar Point as part of our IP ranges.

We wrap up our serious activities a little after 3pm and call it a day.

Cedric the Toad resting nest to the bookcase in the Stacks
Cedric in the Stacks

At dinner, as we had at lunch, we split up so that we could talk with the students and faculty and find out more about their classes and research projects. ?It as over way to soon but we had fun and learned a lot.

Wednesday 7/27/11

Made it to the 7am breakfast again, discussed our finding, conclusions, and recommendations with Jon and then both caved and bought $10 shirts to support Cedar Point. ?I really liked the shirt I chose because it’s so bright and cheerful.

We then packed up the car and made our way back to Lincoln. *****

Notes:

*Now really, whose bright idea was it to make the a walking path follow a sewer, it smelled like a waste treatment plant!

Dino Kingdom setup on the middle of a bookcase shelf.
Dino Kingdom on a Shelf

**I’ve been driving the same old car (’86) exclusively for 12 years, I think I had maybe 1 hour of drive/practice time in a different vehicle previously and for my 1st rental car they gave me a huge beast with state plates and all sorts of hightech driver tracking equipment…

*** Cedar Point used to be a girl scout camp. Housing consists of a working AC, 1 sitting chair per person, a small table, a refrigerator, toilet paper, a shower, a sink, a toilet, a dresser, one night stand, lamps, and 1 twin size mattress per person with overhead shelves.

****Apparently the horrible cell signal we had while there was due to the fact that some prairie dogs had eaten through the wiring disabling the nearest station. 

***** I would like to note that I did the majority of the driving and managed to return the car in good condition with only slightly more dirt than it had originally.