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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Bowling event

Last week wasn't as mad as most others. Only one meeting, three visits to the storage and one day at the internal desk (on which all the unsolved issues end up). The most memorable event was the fire alarm drill on the Tuesday. I was on the fifth floor and it took a while to get down from there. I could tell it was a drill and not for real within about ten seconds. There were too many staff members from the building manager's office and also the security supervisor was present. We stood outside in the cold weather for about 15 minutes and then were allowed back in.

Thursday evening it was time again for a social club event. We normally book a bowling event every fall but last year we didn't have money enough for both that and the Christmas party. This time it was more popular than ever to get free food and spend an hour bowling with colleagues. We had a very nice Italian style buffet. The bowling competition was won by a colleague working in the manuscript department. I ended up in the middle of the result list, like usual. It was a fun evening, and very easy to organize.

The weekend was spent doing very little. The weather was bad so I didn't go anywhere. Only a walk to get groceries. I sometimes cook on Sundays to have for lunch boxes and I decided on chicken tikka masala. If I may say so myself, it turned out great.

This week started out with a storage round, two meetings and sharing the desk duty (because those two meetings were on that same day). It's time to hand in the annual statistics to the Royal Library and it's always a lot of work and requires a few meetings before we get everything in order.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Reference books

The first two workdays last week there had to be extra staff on the fifth floor because the sprinkler system was shut off. They placed a security guard there with an extra fire extinguisher next to him. We felt very sorry for him. He was bored out of his mind. Absolutely nothing happened. The sprinklers are supposed to be functioning again now.

I started on the physical weeding of the reference collection this past week. It was difficult to decide what books should stay on the shelf and not. There were several other problems; all the books didn't have barcodes, some were misplaced and then we are not sure there will be space for the old (pre-20th c.) books we want to move to the stacks.

Last year I was given the task of producing a process chart of my department. It's a list of all the tasks that are carried out on a daily basis. In order to get this done I have interviewed my colleagues. I had the last interview today and then I guess I have to ask myself a few questions also. The list is incredibly long already. It will be a challenge to get it into readable form.

Since I have an impressive amount of overtime I left work at 3 PM to go to the chiropractor and didn't return afterwards. Instead I got some groceries and then went home to rest.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Leaking sprinkler system again

It has been an eventful week at work. If people hadn't become sick and meetings were cancelled, I would have attended seven meetings. Now I only had to attend five. That's a lot for someone who works in the stacks. I have now finished packing the donated books. I was able to weed the collection a little but it still ended up being 46 boxes.

Thursday two people from Stockholm University Library came to visit. They had asked about an article service we have because they want to start something similar. We showed them our routines from beginning to end, including the database work and scanning. They said it was useful and I hope they learned something.

Friday there were yet again problems with the sprinkler system. There were minor leaks but no books were damaged. The sprinklers had to be shut off, which meant that we were not allowed to work on the fifth floor for security reasons. It got complicated for several people as many computer programmes are locked to certain pc:s. Some of my colleagues moved to other desks on lower floors and used laptops instead. I could check my e-mail at another computer but for the most part I worked in the stacks that day.

Since I wasn't allowed to spend the weekend at work because of the sprinkler issues, I had to find something else to do. Yesterday I went by train to Trelleborg on the south coast. I have been thinking about this ever since they opened the rail line for passenger trains this past December. There have been cargo trains running for many years since Trelleborg is a large sea port served by enormous cargo and passenger ferries. The train station is right by the sea and it was the first time I have seen it. I spent the day in town shopping. One of the department stores had everything 50 % off and I wondered about this until someone explained that it was going to close down. I found a hanging wardrobe made of fabric, to hang in the attic space. The one I had was damaged so I needed to get a new one. It got to be very cheaply as I also had a gift certificate. Trelleborg is a small town but it's nice with second hand stores (I found three), interior design shops and several cozy places to eat. I had a chicken sandwich and a rocky road cookie at a bakery.