Cruel week

Last week was a cruel week. Incredible technical problems, short of staff and heavy chores. The entire server hosting an online catalog broke down physically (it's very unusual) and it took six days to repair. In the meantime we couldn't send any articles or find out what the patrons had actually ordered from this catalog. A little frustrating. At the same time two scholars asked for more material, and that wasn't a little. It was no use counting the volumes, it was several shelf meters of journals that we had to pick up from a remote storage. After such an incredible week I had to go to the chiropractor again. He wondered what on earth I'm doing at my job.

One of my colleagues became a father for the first time ten days ago, so he was at home for a while. I was happy to see him return yesterday, because he drives to the remote storages. Last week we also had a library school intern from Germany visiting. Despite the language barrier she was a fast learner, so she helped us retrieve books in the mornings. Her main interest was actually the stacks (who would have thought this...) so she spent all the time there. She was especially impressed by the old collection. I also arranged visits to the book bindery and the manuscript department.

The weather is typical of the season. It has been quite nice with cool, dark mornings and sunny in the daytime. The colors of the trees are beautiful, bright yellow, orange and red. Today was the first rainy day in several weeks.

Last Saturday I was at the archive again. I have received a few research requests that are quite interesting. I have been asked to do research in parishes in northern Sweden. Some of the places I had never even heard of before. Sunday there was a large flea market in Malmö, I only got a few small things (an eggcup for instance). Also went to two malls, just to browse the clothing stores.