Article issues

Both weekends were spent at work to write on the article on the local libary in my hometown. By chance I came across a newspaper article from 1950 where a bookmobile service was reported to have started in that area. There was a photo from my town where six girls asked the librarian for adventure books. The librarian was also interviewed. It was a great addition to my article but it presents a big problem. The current bookmobile librarian told me this service started in 1972. This is also stated in the literature about the main county library. There is a gap of 22 years here. Most likely, the service in 1950 was discontinued shortly afterwards, but I can't find any information about that. This is typical of research - when you find more clues on the subject, it inevitably yields more questions.

At work I have given more guided tours of our catalogs. I had two desk duties and one storage round. The past week we also had quite a few meetings. We have started to have informal meetings every Monday morning, which is a good idea. The technicians hosted a national conference on the database system we use but I couldn't attend because of other tasks.

Movie

Last Thursday evening I actually went to see a movie. It was a documentary about a comedy duo, Hasse & Tage. They made several movies and revues together. The archive material from the productions is at my library. The people making this movie had been here to photograph some of it. The library name was also mentioned twice in the credits. It was a movie worth seeing.

Saturday I went on a fleamarket round in Malmö. I visited six stores, one of which was new to me. Got a fair amount of books for the library. Also groceries.

The week at work was hectic. I have almost caught up with the piles on my desk. I got a genealogy request from a library visitor, which was relatively easy to do. I have also started to do more catalog tours. I invited all my colleagues to this tour of the small but useful printed catalogs placed in the library. I have done that four times this week. Also had to go to the storage yesterday to remove a few meters of books. I am in the process of changing the call numbers on these books and will move them to the main library instead. There is high circulation numbers on those titles and it will be easier for everyone if they are closer at hand.

Back to work

Last week was mostly about research, flea markets and making preparations for work again. Friday morning, however, I drove north to Hässleholm. I met my mother and her boyfriend there, we visited an elderly lady who had invited us for lunch. A very tasty lunch, I must say; chicken casserole with cauliflower. After this I drove to the cemetery to plant some heather at the family graves. Then on to the summerhouse for the weekend.

Saturday I went to Färlöv to attend an event hosted by the local historical society there. Some people I know gave a speech about a book they are writing. I went through the archive material the historical society had brought. I also added to this material, giving them the bibliographies I had compiled and a few other things. Sunday I washed my car. We invited some relatives for afternoon coffee and waffles. After this I returned to my place. (My mother and her boyfriend have returned to Borås for the winter now).

Monday was the first day at work in a long time. During my absence the name of my department had changed. Two other departments also have new names. I will probably never learn to say the correct thing. There was a pile of books to attend to, and also several requests and e-mails to review. Tuesday I got desk duty and managed to remember most of the passwords needed. One of the recent employees wanted to learn more about this desk duty so I had an assistant for part of the day. Wednesday I still tried to catch up with the piles. I could tell people had noticed my presence because my phone rang quite a lot. In the afternoon I drove to the storage to search for missing books. At the archive center (where the storage is) I also attended a lecture by one of the people giving a speech this Saturday. This time the topic was different. She talked about three generations of women who were all baptists and how to find them in archive material. It was an interesting lecture.