I have run out of excuses to loiter around the film crew that's currently in the museum. Which means I haven't actually 'met' Tony Robinson, as the Oxford academic is currently talking him to death. But Tony Robinson! Cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9ZX10iM64

Official video of the Steampunk exhibition :)

I'll be in Blackwells at lunch time, if any of the usual lot want to join me. I'll be there anyway, so don't worry if you don't make it! I know there's a lot going on at the moment.

bateleur, I saw this game and thought of you...

I watched the UEFA women's final last night (although I was knitting at the same time so didn't give it my full attention). England didn't win - it was 6-2 to Germany. The score line doesn't really do credit to England, who mostly played well for the first hour or so. All except the goalkeeper who seemed to be playing in treacle. I want to see keepers diving for things, not assuming it's a lost cause as soon as the ball gets anywhere near the goal. Mr Gemlad agreed, although he phrased it as "I want to see them bouncing up and down!" - I assume he meant the keepers...

Once again with women's football, I was disappointed with the commentary. I watched the Eurosport coverage, mainly because I'd already set up the Sky+ to record before I knew it was going to be on BBC. However, I was glad of the choice, because Gavin Peacock and the woman (whose name I don't know) who usually commentate on the BBC women's games wind me up. Up until the final, I hadn't heard the Eurosport commentators refer to the players as 'girls'. That didn't last. Not 5 minutes into the game, both the male and female commentator had used the diminutive term. Girls' football does exist; it's played by children of the female persuasion. However, top-level international senior football is played by adults. Stop referring to adults as children, just because they are female!

Commentators also seem unable to criticise female footballers, but for a while they also seemed unable to criticise any England player, so I can't really tell if this is nationalist, mildly sexist, or just crap commentary.

We're going off to deepest darkest Dorset tomorrow - so no intarwebs! See you in a week!

Our (small) library had a stock check about 5 years ago (well, it was completed about then). My boss asked at our recent committee meeting whether we should think about doing another before too long. My initial thoughts were yes, of course we should, mixed with the Aaaaargh that will take forever and it's me that has to do it! thought.
But I've since had time to do some less on-the-spot thinking. I've done a librarianship degree, surely I should know about this sort of thing? Well, no. I don't. We didn't actually cover collection management; I suppose I'm meant to know about that inherently (well, ok, it is common sense). I've done a quick 10 minutes trawl of the Library and Information Science Abstracts database, and the university policy pages, but can't find anything that says "You should do a stock check every N years". I suspect then that other libraries make it up. I can do that too!

Why do a stock check at all?
a) Everybody else does them
b) We get to flesh out the annual report with the statistics
c) My boss said we should do one
d) We get to see which books are missing and write them on a list then ignore it
e) (Ok, this one's actually pertinent but less funny) We have a chance to track down missing books, which may have been borrowed by previous staff members, and ask for them back before they die (ooh, I made it a bit funny in a morbid way)

However, I honestly can't think of a good reason that would justify a full-blown stock check, which would take, as my first estimate, 250+ Gemma-hours (like man-hours, but it's just me).

I have a cunning plan, which I shall call a policy and look like a profeshanul librarian. Put a new field in the library database in which I record the date I last saw the book. Then, I can integrate stock-checking into my already existing cleaning schedule. Huzzah! I am genius.

I have a mouth ulcer on the tip of my tongue. It's more annoying than painful, but it has made me wonder: is there a name for the impulse to prod something that hurts?
Why does picking a scab or squeezing a spot feel good? And tangentially, when we smell something bad, why do we get the impulse to get someone else to smell it? "Here, smell this - it's horrible!" Why would I want to smell it then?

We've just had panic buttons installed at work which, when activated, send an alert to security (offsite, 2 mins response time promised). It also sends an alert to the office, where most other staff work. The panic buttons are for museum invigilators, and there's also one for me as I'm on my own in a separate part of the building.
At the staff meeting, a discussion ensued over whether we should keep the old panic button for invigilators as a 'soft' panic button. This one has the internal alert, but doesn't go to security services.
I'm of the opinion that if you make it too complicated, then it's pointless. It was argued that people would be reluctant to press the new button in situations which were a potential emergency, where before they could press it to get reinforcements which quite often diffuse situations without anything needing to be done.
My argument is, why can't the invigilator just pick up the phone and say something like 'It's a bit busy here, please can you come to the reception desk?' If it's a situation where the invigilator doesn't feel comfortable asking for help over the phone because someone might hear them, surely then it's time for the panic button?
There was also the discussion of the 'old' system of using an innocent sounding phrase over the phone to request help. The trouble with this system, is that me and the administrator seem to be the only ones who remember how it works. Very reassuring.

I probably had a point to make, but it's lunchtime.

"Mum, gerroff me!"

(From http://snuzzy.com/web/)

This weekend, and today, I have been sad, and I don't know why. I have lots on my mind, but nothing that I can pinpoint and say "that's it". a_llusive brought me nice cake to work this morning, so now I am less sad and full of cake :)

I think I'm wise enough, so bugger off, painful wisdom tooth.

Woo! They're drilling my head again! They've finished the cobbling work, but now some other workmen are drilling the masonry around the external lift shaft which is just next to my desk. And walls transmit sound extremely well. Ah well - I have earplugs now, which have the added bonus that I might miss the doorbell and therefore anyone wanting to get into the library. Shucks.

*drool*
http://www.gurulib.com/

Thanks to the recommendation of mejoff and valderys, I've just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It had good characterisation - most of the characters had their good points and their flaws. The fantasy world in which it's set adds to the story, but doesn't overwhelm it. It is a bit gruesome in places, which if it wasn't set in Fantasy World (tm) might have disturbed me more than it did.

Thanks for the recommendations - I'll be reading more of them soon!

This weekend I went up to Harrogate with Mr Gemlad, to the wedding of Mr Gemlad's eldest brother. I ate lots of lovely food, and danced at the cheesy disco. It was nice to see my in-laws and out-laws* again, and I now have a sister-in-law-out-law-twice-removed, or something like that :D

Yesterday morning I discovered that I had a bad back (I was going to say 'I woke up with...' but realised it crept up on me at some point during the morning). It was either because of the bed, but more likely due to dancing to Twisting the Night Away. Luckily, Mr Gemlad managed all the driving back so I slept most of the way and then proceeding to sleep for most of the afternoon too. My back is stiff today, but not achy.


* My out-laws are leathellin, and Mr Gemlad's step-grandmother Elizabeth, who is a wonderful woman.

Just had a wonderful day at work. It was quiet (mostly) and the library was closed, as me and a reader were working on a project to hack apart a book and put it back together again (for good reasons!). We didn't get very far as glue takes forever to dry and we both get distracted by interesting things. I am learning more about pre-Copernican solar system mechanics although not really understanding it. As long as my project colleague can help me stick things back together in the right place then I don't need to understand it!

( The project )