It's Friday!

The picture is my grandma and my mother.

I have the bar codes I need to put on the books so now I can enter them all into the catalog with the number of copies along with all their information. What I still can't do is put call numbers on them because 1) I can't print (although I may have fixed that, we'll see) and 2) I have no tape, still. I have put in a purchase request for Scotch book repair tape again and now hopefully I'll have it by next week. Oh please, oh please, oh please. Then everything will be ready for checking out. You know, once the students have ID cards. But that's not my problem!

Also, I'm coming to the conclusion (actually, I came to it weeks ago) that we may be able to afford only one online journal with full onsite access. AJN seems like a good bet but it's $500+ just for one user. Having an EBSCO product would have been great but all of their databases are over $8000. However, the nurse reference center they have is very similar in content on a number of points to Medscape's free content. Obviously the EBSCO version is much better but for a small institution Medscape seems like a pretty good alternative. Geez, education really is for the well-off. It's too bad there are no alternative pricing arrangements for small places.

I've also put in my first book request to the Director and the Director of General Education. The books I chose were mainly on subjects that faculty members told me students had trouble grasping. I included a few books to help with faculty development as well. The faculty I've talked to really like the idea of having professional development resources so I can use that if questions are raised about why we should buy them.

A student opened up to the copy/printer yesterday, grabbed a sheaf of paper, stuffed it into her bag and walked out. I didn't see it happen but a student who had been in the study room where the machine is told me. She and another student were just as flabbergasted and angry as myself. Paper isn't exactly expensive and there's a Staples right across the street. I'm going to have to keep a very small amount of paper in the machine and let people come to me if they need more. For every ten good students you get one bad one, you know? They're just stealing from their classmates.

I have finished Treasure Island. Pirates, treasure, mutiny, fights, ships; they all make for a great adventure. It's an action-driven story, not much for dialogue or character development. The atmosphere often takes center-stage.

I am now reading First Drop by Zoe Sharp. This is the first book in a British series to be printed in the U.S. about a new bodyguard named Charlie Fox (a woman) who comes to America to take her first job protecting the son of a computer programmer in, apparently, Florida. I'm only in about 60 pages and I already hate Ms. Fox to bits. She is massively unprepared for both her new job and a new country, she is incredibly unprofessional, and she is very petty and self-centered. I may abandon it, I may just save it to read by the computer.

I've also started Red Lights by Georges Simenon which will, of course, be better. His stories have not failed me yet. This one is not a Maigret mystery though. It takes place in '50s New England. A couple is driving up to Maine to retrieve their children from summer camp. So far they've fallen into their usual summer routine which has been marred only by the husband sneaking a double rye when he pulled over to use the restroom. Now there's a bit of tension between them and we'll see where that goes.

Yay, weekend! The drive to and from Cleveland (or the environs around Cleveland anyway) and everything in between was exhausting. I hate open casket funerals. I think they're demeaning. The makeup is never right, the flesh sags, the hands are stiff. I can understand people wanting to say goodbye but it just seems so degrading. Well. It was wonderful to see my family and next year one of my cousins is getting married so that will be a happy reason to have to go to Cleveland.

Edit: I can't print from my computer, but I can print from the student computers on my log-in. The tech guy said something about 32 and 64 bit and how something has to be changed which just sounds far too complicated. Oh, and Charlie Fox is one of the most uncompassionate, unsympathetic, self-centered, unprofessional little half-wits to masquerade as a bodyguard ever. The only time I've felt such annoyance and disgust for a character was when I was reading the first two Dexter books. (The show, however, is awesome.) Henry Miller doesn't count because he's amusing and the writing's much better.