I purely love my job. I'm working on the map collection of the New Jersey Historical Society, and converting their old handwritten, "well, we know what we mean" cards into standard format involves using the calculator and a couple of specialized conversion websites, as well as peering at the handwriting and using my knowledge of the geography and the typical usages of a historical society, and, well, I'm having fun.

Plus I've impressed the project manager by being giddy over math-y stuff. "You must be smarter than me," she said as I explained some division of fractions I had to do to make the conversion website work. I didn't say, "Well, I already knew that."

Applied math is my bitch.

And after we're done here, I'm working on the Royal Institute of British Architects. Yes.

I purely love my job.

What exactly do you do, Connie? Because it sounds fascinating even though the mathiness frightens me.

Timelies everyone. Is it Friday yet?

Timelies, Bitches. Somehow, I must spend a bit less time online, because I have many writing projects and I must attempt to rest my wrist a little more frequently and avoid the writer's cramp. Because I'd hate to get carpal tunnel behind some lj quiz, you know what I'm saying? Also, blah, blah obsessioncakes. So I'm late today.

An article for the librarians around here.

since it was obvious to me then, and has become only more so as the years go by, that libraries are the sexiest places, and librarians the sexiest people, on earth.

Erika has an appropriate new tag.

What exactly do you do, Connie?

The technical term is Retrospective Conversion, but what it is, is taking library card catalogs and converting them to computer-based catalogs. The tricky bit comes from figuring out what on the card fits into the standard database format. Modern cards that come from publishers are all done in intricately detailed, correct format, with all the punctuation and abbreviations in place. With smaller and older libraries, however, you run into standards that have changed over the years, cataloging that was done to a "Miss Grundy said to do it this way because she doesn't hold with those new formats" standard, or people who were doing the best they could who had never studied the formats.

It's a situation of "Oh, we'll fix that eventually, it works well enough." When it gets to me, though, "eventually" is "now." People come in here to work and think that it's straight data entry, but it isn't. You have to be able to look at an old, frequently handwritten card, figure out where all the essential parts are, figure out how to work around what's missing, then try to deduce what cataloging standards they were using, a process that would be made easier if we had access to a reliable spirit guide to contact the ghost of Mrs. Whozit, Goddess-Librarian of Small Town Public Library and Historical Society for forty years.

Oh, gosh, I'm gushing again. But I get to work with incredibly respected research libraries, internationally famous universities, and obscure little town libraries and their massively detailed local history collections. It's often frustrating--I remember trying to figure out how to catalog the collection of local orchard orange labels that had been carefully gathered by the historical society of the town--but I'm only ever bored when doing public school libraries. There are only so many copies of "Tom Sawyer" you can look at without falling asleep.

It sounds like a wonderful job, connie.

Except for the three-year, "talking to people on the phone" hiatus, it's the only job I've done since 1992.

Baby won't stop crying.

Mother going slowly insane.

Maybe not so slowly.

Connie, that does sound fascinating. It's like historical detective work! Very cool.