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Sunday, October 30, 2016

Illness

Monday I drove the storage round and then attended a meeting. After this I had to go home. My throat was sore and I knew very well what that meant. Many of my colleagues have been sick and now it was my turn. This was really annoying because my work calender was full and we had arranged a bowling evening on Tuesday. I missed the opening of the renovated lunchroom also. I had to cancel several things and if that wasn't possible, force someone else to take my place.

I have had a severe cold with body-ache and high temperature. It was more like a flu. I was at home for three days and worked a few hours Friday. I'm still not well. It was incredibly boring to sit at home doing nothing. It's amazing how low the quality of the TV shows is in the daytime. Because of my fever, my brain didn't work well enough to solve crossword puzzles. It was truly a bad week.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Fall weather

The leaves of the trees are changing in color and it's very pretty. The rain storms are not pleasant, though. It's cold in the mornings and I have already started wearing my winter jacket.

It has been a rather ordinary work week. I have spent many extra hours at work because of that new database with Swedish-American newspapers. One other colleague was also interested in this and I tried to help her with searches. She has recently started doing research and she has already found several emigrants in her family tree.

This past week there was a choir festival in Lund. Two colleagues are members of a choir which performed in the large cathedral this Thursday. I attended (as did several other colleagues) and it was a very nice concert with sort of melancholic tunes.

Saturday I went to Lund but not to work (very unusual). I had to go to the optician as I need new glasses. There were many frames to chose from and I made a preliminary decision. I need to get my eyesight checked also, but they didn't have time until next week. While I was in Lund I also went to two of the thrift stores and some other stores. Had a salad lunch and then made some purchases in the expensive chocolate store. They have a very nice selection, it's hard to resist.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

New database

There is a new database out that is very interesting. We have been waiting for it for quite a while. It's digitized Swedish-American newspapers from 1850 and on to about the 1930s. Coverage varies a lot. The database is hosted by the Minnesota Historical Society and it's free to search here: http://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/swedishamerican. I have spent many extra hours at work this past week to search this database and I have found many clues, both for my own research and other's. I was able to find information about an early emigrant for a colleague. I noticed that this database is also good for finding information about events in Sweden because these Swedish language newspapers quoted the Swedish press. We have very few or really no databases of this kind in Sweden, so this can be used for locating very local news from the 19th century. The actual text is interpreted with OCR software which makes it easy to text-search (even though it sometimes gets it wrong, it's a marvelous tool). I found several news items from my hometown, some were about house fires, auctions and the renovation of the church in 1948. Pretty amazing to find that in an American-based newspaper.

At work we waited for the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature. It turned out to be a rather surprising choice this year, Bob Dylan. Nevertheless, it took three minutes before the first book about Dylan was requested from the stacks. It's the same thing almost every year.

This weekend I made a visit to the nearest mall to get groceries, basically. There were high winds and I didn't dare to go on any longer trips. I have also spent a lot of time with the above mentioned research, because this new database has made me dig up several old cases.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Lots of shelving

The second work week was even more straining than the first. I had to do double desk duties, two storage rounds and on Friday afternoon I went with a colleague to the storage again to do some much needed shelving. We are constantly lagging behind with shelving. It is incredibly boring and we all hate it. The only good thing about this was the discovery of four missing books in the technology section. We have also had a service done to the electronic shelving system and now the shelves are much better to deal with. We had a lot of problems with it, the shelves got stuck and we often couldn't retrieve all the requested books.

At work many of the people on my floor had been ordered to move their offices. The exact reason for this has passed me by, but I heard the order came from the management and it was not negotiable. I am one of few people that didn't have to move. This past week it was pretty chaotic with lots of people carrying their desks(!), chairs, computers and work materials to other rooms. It will take a while to learn where everybody has their new offices.

This weekend I was pretty tired and didn't do much. I went to the local grocery store and then made my own pizza for dinner. I cheated and got a ready-made kit with dough and tomato sauce. I had tomatoes, feta cheese, chicken and bacon on it. In my opinion it turned out great. Over the weekend I have also done some reading. One of my friends has written a book about an old church near my hometown in northern Skåne. It was very interesting to read. He and the co-author had produced a very detailed account of the history of the church (which is believed to be from around 1200 AD).

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Back to work

I survived the first work week in quite a while. It wasn't a great shock to come back this Monday but it was still pretty tough. Lots of people came bringing tasks and questions for me and there were large amounts of emails to check. I had to drive the storage round twice during the week and also fill in for a colleague on vacation. One of the weirdest questions I got this week was if we could lend out 20 shelfmeters of nice-looking books for decorative purposes for a special event in late October. I think we can answer yes to that, but we have to discuss it a little bit more first.

This weekend I have mostly rested, but I spent a few hours of Saturday in Helsingborg. Had a nice lunch at a 1950's style cafe and then went to the mall. At home there is now heather in the flower box on the balcony. The tomato plant is still alive and I will probably be able to get another four tomatoes from it. We are preparing for the dark season here. It's about 15 degrees and the rain storms have started to come. I removed the balcony furniture and made some changes in my closets.