[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Boiled eggs, card catalogues, etc.



My seventh grade home ec teacher from Georgia confused lots of non-Southern 
military folks with her references to balled aggs.  Frankly, I thought they 
were pretty good for breakfast...

__________________

It's Friday afternoon and since everyone else is either off or at a meeting, 
I'm at the front desk.  Not the archives desk.  Though come to think of it, 
the particular software we use for checking books in and out is antique.  So 
is the online catalogue.  Fortunately there is also a web interface for the 
catalogue-and I direct all students and faculty to that.  There are, however, 
a few faculty who believe that the students must use the antique catalogue to 
do assignments, and have actually written assignments out with instructions 
such as "type An and then a space, then type in the author's name."  If 
you're going to go into that much detail, tell them to put in the last name 
first.  Better yet, just let them use the point and click web version.  Kids 
today get confused with command driven programs.  Point and click menus are 
where it's at.  You'd think they'd understand PC's better than they do.  But 
sometimes I tire of being the one everyone looks for when they can't open 
their WordPerfect file on the college's Microsoft Word setups.  

(I hope y'all appreciate the work I'm putting into keyboarding this.  For a 
week now I've been suffering from a pinched nerve and can't use the A and S 
fingers.  My right hand still touch types and the left hand does a warped 
"hunt and peck" routine.  Who had that theory about schizophrenic manuscript 
cataloguers?)

This place has two catalogues in a matter of speaking-the old character based 
antique software and the newer variant web version.  I perhaps shouldn't 
mention that there's a shelf list in a traditional card catalogue cabinet in 
my office.  Obviously something like that belongs in the archives…  Perhaps I 
also shouldn't mention the card catalogue cabinet at my home office holds a 
card catalogue of the family library.  If you can imagine doing communion 
backwards then you'd understand how I'd feel to confess that I catalogued the 
stuff on the PC first then printed out the cards to file in the cabinet.  
Kinda sacrilegiously backwards.  

Who would catalogue their home collection?  It's a long story I won't go 
into, but family obligations can put you up to things you'd have never 
considered otherwise.  Keeping track of 189x volumes that Grandma's British 
friends sent to the children back in the 192x's is something that can please 
parental units.  But perhaps not N Baker.  I did it backwards, remember.  


So I browse this 1939 issue of Wilson Bulletin looking at an ad for copies of 
the newly revised Jenkins manual on archives to be shipped free from Britain 
to interested libraries and wondering if the offer still stands.  There's 
also the Union List of newspapers.  Should I pass the info on to the guy with 
a thing about newspapers (and card catalogues)?

Perhaps not; I'll just call it a Friday afternoon and go home.

Holly Hodges

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>