Presents

We are rather busy at work at this time of year. The students return all their books before the holidays. It's a favorable Christmas with only two working days next week. Very few people will be here then. I have given the movers time off those two days, so that also I could get vacation. I'm going to Göteborg like usual on Monday morning (by train) and will spend about a week with my family in that area. There is very little snow left, it melted again. It's more like a normal winter here now, just above freezing and rainy. It's dark and boring. (The movers are happy about the absence of snow, though).

This years' Christmas present from work was a set of four ceramic bowls. Not that exciting, but might be useful. My father and his girlfriend came to visit this Sunday to give me a present too. I already knew it was a frying pan, but they had still wrapped it carefully. We went to the mall to get some small things. My father helped me repair the shower glass base that I had injured my foot on earlier. The wound has healed fairly well and I don't have to walk with sandals anymore.

This week I have been shopping for more presents, but I still have some left to buy. I can usually come up with ideas for this, but not this year. I did get myself a present though - two pairs of new glasses!

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and all the best for the holidays! Thank you for the Christmas letters I have received from near and far! I have sent out my annual letter by e-mail. If I have forgotten anyone, please remind me.

Christmas party

Last week's trip to Göteborg was very interesting. I attended two meetings in the digitization committee, and we also got to hear a lecture on copyright. The second day there was a conference on digitization and availability (in a broad sense). Making our websites and databases user friendly for people with disabilities was one topic. Others regarded projects in Finland, language databases and what the researchers really want (open access to everything down to the raw data, basically). Very informative day. I just wish it hadn't been so bitterly cold weather. Many participants at the conference couldn't make it there because of the bad weather (ice, snow and high winds). The airports at Stockholm were closed, and the trains had big problems. I was lucky with my transportations, though.

Back at work Thursday everything was focused on the Christmas party Friday evening. I went with a colleague to shop for beverages and other things. We had to bring all the furniture and decorations to the storage, because there was nothing at all. We even had to stock the bathrooms with paper and soap. We managed to get this big warehouse turned into a party place, thanks to many strings of light, a Christmas tree, tinsel and candles. We rented a music/loudspeaker unit and that was a great success. Some people stayed until 3 AM to dance. I borrowed the company car and drove home at 1 AM. The party seems to have been very much appreciated, especially the food was fresh (taken from the restaurant across the street). The work for the organizing committee continued the next day, when we had to clean up and remove the decorations. I once again asked the movers for help this Monday, so they brought back the chairs and tables we had borrowed from another library. There is much more work involved to arrange the Christmas party ourselves (instead of having it at a restaurant), but it's really worth it. It was definitely a fun party.

Today is Lucia Day, and we had the traditional lussekatt (saffron bun) at the morning coffee. Some retirees showed up for it, so I talked a little to former colleagues.

New mall

About a week ago I visited the new mall outside Malmö. I was not that impressed, there were mostly chain stores and that's not so interesting. It's a large place that, according to their website houses 200 stores, but that's not correct. There are about 160. It's very conveniently located right by a train station. There were lots of people, of course, since it just opened. There were some Danish/Norwegian style home interior stores I visited, and I got some small things for Christmas.

Last week was busy at work. We are planning for the Christmas party, which will be at one of the storages, actually. I got help from the movers to transport chairs and tables and some other things. We started decorating the storage last Friday, and it has potential, even though it's just a large and empty warehouse.

This Saturday I did something really, really stupid. I have never noticed that my bathroom floor is so slippery. I smashed my right foot into the shower glass wall. There was lots of blood, that's all I'm saying. It ruined my plans for the weekend and it's still difficult to walk. I can only wear sandals, which is very cold, since it was 12 centigrades below zero this morning. The first snow fell this weekend also, and I was wet and cold when I finally arrived at work today. This was extremely bad timing, I have so much to do this week.

Tomorrow I'm going to Göteborg for two meetings, one lecture and one work lunch, there will also be a conference on Wednesday. It all regards digitization.

Butter

Lots to do at work at this time of year. We are one staff member short, as he and his wife just had their second baby. The movers are dealing with complicated call numbers at the moment. It's the type of material we have housed at two different locations, so there's a lot of driving included. I have spent two days going through a large part of the collection. This is a collection that will be moved only in part. I have tried to mark the books that should stay on the shelves. I have never looked at those books that closely before and it was not nice to realize that many of them were placed in an incorrect order. It was hard work to get everything right again.

There was a technician at the new storage this week to update the programming. We are wondering a little if he really did that the way he should have, because the compact-system is not working better. We have had several staff meetings and workshops lately, for various reasons. There are many things going on; planning for the Christmas party, a new intranet, organizational changes and then the regular meetings.

My sister, who often enters consumer comptetions to win all sorts of things, wrote my name on an entry recently. I ended up winning 12 packages of butter! I need to get some baking done for Christmas, that's for sure.

The cold I had lasted for a very long time, almost three weeks. I never get that sick usually. I am still affected by it, but it's much better.

Book lecture

Last week I gave a short lecture at work. The subject was Biographical works that include "ordinary people". There are many biographical reference works with celebrities and people who had a high status in the society, but there are also quite a few containing information about more normal people. These books were commonly produced during the first half of the 20th century. I have seen many of these books in the stacks, and wondered why no one seemed to be interested in reading them. I have found several of my relatives listed in those books. Most of my colleagues didn't know they existed, so I showed some of them at this lecture. It wasn't that advanced, I just read out loud from the books, quoting the topic (often different trade categories like janitors, waitresses, farmworkers and automobile drivers) and gave some general hints on family history research. I have given this lecture before, but we have many new employees here, so it was worth doing again.

Saturday I went with my friend Eva to the archive center to attend Archive Day. There were lots of visitors, mostly older people. This is rather typical, as the younger ones tend to do their research in front of a computer at home instead. I had sent out a message to all my colleagues about this, because there were tours to the stacks and people had asked me what they look like. I saw three colleagues there, and all wondered why I was there (it's the same place we have our new storage, so I'm there for work often). I even went on one of the tours to the stacks, and they opened the doors to our storage and of course I couldn't help myself, so I explained about the shelving system and how it works (or not).

Sunday I was at work (the library this time) to do some genealogical research for someone else. A fairly big case but not so complicated. I got stuck when one ancestor had the same birthplace in all the household records, but he is not in the birthbook for that parish. Slightly annoying and I haven't been able to find the right place yet.

I have been sick for more than a week now, it's a cold that just goes on and on. Now I have problems speaking, so I e-mail my closest colleagues, even if they are sitting in the same room. I had big difficulties talking to the movers (I can only whisper), but I think they got the message anyway. The call number consists of digits this time, so it's fairly easy to understand.

Moving-mistakes again

Again, nothing written here in a while. I need my life to include more hours.

Two weeks ago we had the traditional dinner and bowling in Malmö with some colleagues. Very nice, many people turned up for it.

I have to take nine days off before the end of the year, because I can't save all of my vacation days. It's nearly impossible to do, since my job is so crazy right now. I did take one Monday off, but I ended up going shopping for the Christmas party we are planning, so that was really work. Last week was a memorable one. The movers have never made so many mistakes in such a short time before. It was a complicated call number system right there, and I really can't blame them. It meant that I had to help them re-shelve 50 plus 40 meters. It was a tough job (we had to move it twice) and we kept a pretty high pace. I haven't done something like that in years, so I was sore for days afterwards. I could really feel where my back problems are located. I'm glad I don't have their job, I would never survive it.

It is amazing, but despite the mistakes last week, the movers have relocated 20 000 shelfmeters of books in total. They have come halfway now. We celebrated this by giving them lunch.

Last weekend was spent at the summer house, where I met the rest of the family. It was a short visit, since I arrived very late due to the shelving mistakes. We went to the cemetery Saturday to place candles at the family graves for All Saint's. We also got a cookie overdose at mother's friend's house that afternoon.

Trip to Munich

Sorry about the long silence here. I have been on a business trip to Munich in Germany! I'm a member of a national committee on digitization and we visited the State Library of Bavaria last week. They are very active in the field of digitization. They started already in 1997 and now have more than one million books available on their website, for anyone to read. It's of course works that are copyright-free. Their collection of books printed before 1800 is enormous and they have focused on getting them scanned and published on-line. The staff at the library showed us most of the departments. It's a very large facility, there are six reading rooms and gigantic collections of books (10 million), manuscripts (94 000), maps (40 000) and incunabula (20 000 - the largest collection in the world). It was incredibly interesting to see everything, especially the stacks. There are 52 people working in the stacks. (We have 5 million books managed by 8 people in the stacks)... Total number of library workers was 800 in Munich. (80 here). I can say that the Munich library has a lot more money than we do. Much, much more. They have 23 scanners of various models. (We have one that advanced). The committee studied the workflow, asked about the technical problems and discussed financial matters. It was a very informative day, and the librarians were very eager to answer all our questions. We also had time to have a proper committee meeting (at a restaurant) and do some sightseeing. Munich is a city of about 1.3 million inhabitants. There are many impressive buildings that seem to be from the early 19th century, but they are mostly rebuilt after World War II in the old style. The opportunity for shopping is quite extensive, there are many nice stores. I couldn't resist, of course.

This Tuesday we had a staff day, so the library was closed (this is extremely unusual). We all gathered at a hotel in Lund to have a meeting. We got a new boss earlier this year and she wanted to hear our opinions about the work and the organization. We are not used to being asked about this. But we did have a few things to say, so I guess it was worth while. Wednesday we had a lot to do since we had to retrieve books ordered both Monday and Tuesday. The movers needed help also, so this week has been a little crazy. The movers are almost halfway done now. It's amazing to realize that there will be an ending to this madness. The collection they started moving now is placed in four different storages, one of which I have actually never seen.