caropinto

COME ON, IRENE.

We all weather storms in different ways. Some might want to watch various news channels and freak out with family over the phone, others (read: me), will cope with the hurricane by mucking around LibGuides, monitoring Twitter, streaming 89.3 the Current, and reading the stack of periodicals so I be on trend and select quality goods from my college’s social science collection. I get paid to buy stuff which translates in library speak to this: I am the social sciences selector; I do collection development.

Anyways, here I am spending my last weekend in Connecticut waiting out Irene.

Stay safe, friends.

#Reading

"If archivists are no longer commonly depicted as antiquarians stopped over old ledgers in dusty basements, they are not generally acknowledged as people consciously construction social memory to meet or reflect contemporary neds, values, and assumptions-or as the professionals who control the past by deciding which stories and storytellers (i.e., records creators) of that past will be remembered and be retold in the future."

-Terry Cook, Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions.

A Last Look at Sterling Memorial Library

One last look.

Victory is Mine!

Above, my victory lap. I started processing three collections on 1 September 2009, a total of 348 linear feet.They were not minimally processed; this was old-school, maximal processing. I finished processing those collections in June. The finding aids will be published at the end of the month after I leave.

In my department, one doesn’t really consider a collection to be DONE until it moves to its permanent home onsite or at the Library Shelving Facility (LSF) in Hamden. The medium sized collection, totally nearly 105 linear feet, went out in the Spring. The final, smallest collection, will go out in September.

This photo is of the largest, most complicated collection totaling 245 linear feet. Seeing that go off shrink wrapped on pallets to LSF is the taste of sweet victory and I was exhilarated watching the TR&S guys load it up on my way in to work this morning.

My last day of work is a week from today. I have some loose ends to tie up, but not many. I have two reference shifts to work, but mostly farewell lunches to attend.

That will do.

I left my heart in Western Massachusetts

And next month, I will return to become a librarian for social sciences & emerging technology at Hampshire College. I am so excited to return to my 5 College roots and to work in a library that is entirely focused on undergraduate learning. I will miss some of my colleagues at Yale something fierce, but ultimately this job will allow me to work through many of the questions I am most interested in vis-a-vis scholarly communication, teaching, and the role libraries play in higher education today.