Construction Chaos in the Acquisitions Dept.

Back on the library front, things are less busy. The budget still hasn't been distributed to the selectors so they're ordering very little. And of course paper is fast becoming passe as students opt for online journals and professors ask for streaming video.

One of the fortunate things about working in a research library is that we are all forced to keep up with technology. Every few years we get a new ordering system that's even more complicated and less intuitive than the last. Classes are necessary to keep up with each new version. When the library loads new versions of Microsoft Office, we all have to take a workshop to learn how to get around in it. And for a long time now we've been ordering materials online from Amazon & Half.com, or some other online dealer. So websites are no mystery and we all have Paypal accounts. And that 10 week online course called "23 Things" was incredibly useful. It's what I will miss most about working here. I fear I'll cease to keep up with the new technologies and become an anachronism.

So while I'm not as technologically savvy as your average 25 year old, I am ahead of the curve in the 60 year old category. I've been taking 3 hour evening classes once a week since September sponsored by the local Community Development Corp. They're free and geared toward small business owners. Marketing is the big topic of many of the classes and today everyone markets online through social networks. Many of the older folks in the class are truly lost when the conversation moves toward blogs, RSS feeds, and Twitter. I've expressed my dislike of Twitter here already but I can't deny the impact it has on my shop statistics.

But I digress. My office is scheduled to move to its new location in January. And while we slowly clean house and get ready to pack up, the construction crew is slowly moving its stuff into our space, complete with snow fencing. They're working on expanding the Learning Commons, a necessity for today's college and university libraries. The library is now a destination. And while I understand the need for this renovation, I find it disrespectful to leave staff in an area of drilling, hammering, hard hatted construction workers yelling to each other and walking through the department, and now a pile of sheetrock and mechanized staging. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but they were able to find alternate space for everyone else. Why couldn't they have relocated us as well?

Oh well, we'll be moving soon to a space overlooking the courtyard. It can't come fast enough.