June 23

Today, we got assigned a new cataloging project. Go figure. Instead of continuing to process "retro" CDs like we'd been doing, we were told to process new ones now. So far, it's not much different - still involves pulling up their MARC record and applying stickers and barcodes when necessary. There is an added component, however - if we can't find the CD listed in our Library's Voyager catalog, we turn to the OCLC database and check there. That's new - access to the OCLC catalog. Of course, if the CD record IS in OCLC, we can't do anything with it. Don't think we are allowed to willy-nilly copy-catalog items from OCLC into our records. Ha! We, do, however, have to make 'brief records' if the items are not in Voyager or OCLC. Not that we've learned what doing a "brief record" exactly entails yet. Tomorrow, I guess.

Other than that, we had a MBRS/SpecMat Team 3 meeting. Meetings, meetings. You know you are working at a real job when there are meetings every single day. Everyone from MBRS was there - including the Motion Picture people and, via telephone, the motion picture archives in Dayton. Most of the discussion was about the Culpepper, VA, facility, which is scheduled to open in a little over a year. Pretty much the entire MBRS team, including the catalogers that we work with in SpecMat in the mornings, are expected to move to Culpepper when this facility opens. Some are understandably less-than-thrilled about having to relocate about an hour away. If a person doesn't want to move, efforts are being made to reassign them, though. It seems like most people I've talked to don't want to move.

Oh, the last thing that happened today was that I FINALLY got my loan ID so I can check out books!! Yay! Of course, the one book I was looking to read that was available for the last 3 weeks now suddenly has both copies checked out. Hmph. I think I might be able to find something else to check out among the Library's 24 million books or whatever it is.