All coming together

Sunday was great, because not only did I get to go on a fantastic game drive (pictures, soon, I promise...I took a ton of them), but my luggage showed up as well! So I got to see loads of animals up close and personal, most of which cooperated with me and posed for the camera, and I got to change my clothes. I also managed to get online for the first time in maybe three days (I'm such an internet junkie...you have no idea how hard it is for me not to be connected...even in a place like this...it's terrible, I know). So, all in all, a good day.

Today (Monday) was my first day of work. The students don't start showing up until next week, so this first week at the library is to get as much organized and useful as possible. I'm somehow still not quite over jet-lag, because I couldn't sleep last night until far too late, and I had to wake up early for work this morning. Mandatory tea-time at 10:00 though really helped me not to be a zombie the whole time I was working. There's an optional tea-time at 13:00 that I skipped, because I'm just not used to that many breaks in a day, but next time I might go. I'm not much of a regular tea person, but they had this herbal stuff I'd never heard of before, and it was actually pretty good. I'll remember what it's actually called eventually, but the name of it means “red bush” in Afrikaans...or something like that.

After work I went on a walk around the perimeter of the college (an electric fence keeps the animals out of the buildings), and took pictures of the African sunset and wildlife through the wires. I saw two male impala fighting today. They ran at each other with their heads down, horns forward, and crashed together. I could hear them as I saw them butt heads. They both stopped and looked at me as I walked by, but continued to fight each other, probably over a girl (I saw some other impala nearby), when they realized I wasn't a threat. After my walk I went for a quick swim and showered. Now I'm just waiting until it's late enough that it's a reasonable hour in the States for me to go online and call people. Now that the library is operational, WiFi is up 24/7. However, when the library closes, you have to go outside to use it. Needless to say, being a warm body outside the library with a light-emitting source is bound to attract all manner of insect. So, I'm probably just going to do the bare minimum communication with people so that I don't get eaten alive.

The following is a bunch of boring library stuff that you should not feel obligated to read, but I feel obligated to write, because I'll need to refer to it later when I'm writing up my report on this whole experience for class credit. (Although, if you happen to be one of my fellow library students/librarian friends, then, by all means, read on.)

Most of today I spent cataloging a collection of wildlife management books from a series put out by the World Wildlife Fund. This library is very small, and anything out of the ordinary gets its own classification. Series, conference proceedings, coursework books, etc., all have their own little sections and their own way of writing call numbers. I invented the call number system for the books I was cataloging today. I used a combination of letters to represent publisher, title, and copy. The collection was big enough that it needed its own section. So, the first thing I did was to choose the letters WWF to begin the call number, because that tells me who the author/publisher is and what section the book will be in. Then I used the first three or four letters of the first word in the title to make up the next part of the call number (three is the standard, however, if there are two distinct titles in the series which would have the same call number, I expanded it to four). Finally, I used c. and a number to represent individual books which were duplicates. For example, the call number for the third copy of a book entitled “Human conflict management manual” would be:

WWF-Hum c.3

Although I did add subject headings to the record, classification by subject is not necessary for this collection, because students using these books generally know precisely which book they need, and therefore giving a call number related to the title rather than the subject makes it easier for both students and librarians to find. This collection of materials is unique from the rest of the library materials in that having as many copies as possible of a book is desirable, because they use these books to teach classes with, and students all come in from the same class needing to take out the books, so we have to provide them with as many resources as possible.

Now, anyone who knows anything about going to college in the U.S. will be scratching their heads, saying something like, “But that's what the bookstore is for; the library never has textbooks.” because we've all been ripped off by the campus bookstore, overpaying for a new edition that you can't sell back because next year they'll pull the same thing on whoever's coming in after you. It's not like that here. At least, not at this college library. The college itself is small enough, and the focus is more on hands-on conservation activities than it is classroom learning, that a bookstore isn't necessary here, and would actually get in the way. The college is situated on a game preserve, which means that the land immediately outside the college's property is protected. This limits the amount of building and expansion that can happen, because then the college would be encroaching on the territory of the wildlife. I'm not even going to get into the irony that would be there if a college dedicated to wildlife conservation went and destroyed habitats in order to build a bigger campus. Oh, wait, I just did.

I'll stop boring all of you now with my library mumbo-jumbo, at least until next time, when I talk about expectations of the users, budget, and maybe even community outreach projects. Fascinating, I know!