Exhibit

There was a new exhibit opened at the library this Friday. The topic was SAOB, the dictionary that describes the Swedish language since 1521. A gigantic undertaking that started already in 1787. It is published by the Swedish Academy, the institution that decides who will get the Nobel Prize in Literature. The staff working with the dictionary uses the library very much, they even get access to the stacks so that they can pick the books themselves. It's only the books in remote storages and extra-security rooms they need help finding. The exhibit was created by that staff and opened by the Academy's permanent secretary Horace Engdahl. It was interesting to see the development of the dictionary. They have now reached the letter T and plan on publishing the last volume in 2017. There will be much work also afterwards, there have been many new words added to the language since 1787.

When the month of January ended I had 40 hours overtime, indicating that we have too much to do at work. There isn't enough staff, basically. This week I had to fill in for another and retrieved books at two storages. Since I'm not used to doing that, it took much longer time to find the books than it normally would. We have also had several meetings this week, most of them boring and not leading to any improvements for my department.