...sometimes completes a circle.
This week my colleague is sorting through books donated by a lecturer whom I've known through a library position I held 30 years ago, my first library job. As many of the books are in German, I've been helping out with translating the titles. (Have I mentioned that before becoming a librarian I used to be a German teacher?) I come across a book that had been weeded from that library's collection and then donated to the lecturer as it matched his teaching and research interests. There is the "withdrawn" stamp, which I would have stamped in that book, and when I turn to the back, there is the accession number 76-685, oh so neatly written in my hand, 30 years ago.
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9 comments:
What a memory to come across after 30 years. My daughter is an assitant librarian - she comes by her love of books through me at least partly I hope.
How wonderful that you get to ride all day for $3 - wish we had something like that here. Our public transport - except for the larger cities - is very poor.
I hope you start enjoying your adventures soon and don't forget the camera.
I remember handstamping library books when I worked as an aide in high school.
(That would be 40 years ago!)
These days when we visit the library, we always check out Large Print Books for my Grandpa who's nearly 98. He always looks inside to see when it's due!
(We're all computerized here, as I suppose most every place is!)
:-)
I think your library is loosing a treasure. That "half of knowledge is kinowing where to find it" thing can't be replaced easily.
I hate sorting my own books because I'm afraid of tossing out something I'm sure to need in a week or two. Never fails!
I hope your retirement proves both restful and exciting, just what you want.
I think it's a pity that the due dates are no longer stamped in the books in many libraries. Nowadays borrowers get a computer-generated printout of what they've borrowed with the due dates, which does have advantages. But I love to see the history of borrowing of particular books - when was this book first lent out? Why was it so popular in that year? Why wasn't it borrowed for 3 consecutive years? And so on. But that may be a very librarian type thing to think about.
I used to look at the 'due dates' too and wonder some of the same things. Now I just lose the computer print out. Thankfully, Richard keeps a diary and every 3 weeks announces that I have some books due back at the library - mostly the ones I haven't yet read or finished! I think I'll just have to borrow one book at a time now, but I get a bit greedy when I see all of those books just waiting for me to discover the pleasures between the covers (that sounds a bit risque, doesn't it?).
I didn't know that you taught German. When you come to visit perhaps we'll kidnap you until we have learned to speak German so that we can converse with Michelle's parents-in-law. You could be here a heck of a long time as we've tried learning German at night classes and found it was like learning a foreign language ...ha,ha.
I used to love looking at the hand stamps and also the cards they used to keep in a little pocket in the book. It contained the names of the people who checked out the book and when.
I got a kick out of Alice's comment about trying to learn German.
Wow, what a blast from the past! It is amazing how people, and possessions come around again after many years.
Guten morgen! (sorry, that's about my full extent of German language, so that spelling could be completely wrong!)
That Alice is a riot :) Wow, that is a blast from the past. It is rather sad that those histories won't be viewable any more with everything computerized.
I lose the printouts too!
AIP,
seeing the borrowers' names on those slips really is a thing from the past, I remember that too. There is so much history in that.
Jelly,
no problem with the spelling, but Morgen should be in upper case, although in the 90s the Germans went through a campaign of not putting EVERY noun in upper case. I don't know if that ever took off.
Alice,
yeah, learning another language can be such a pain, it's like they have a different word for EVERYTHING! (hehe)
Kerri,
try using the printouts as bookmarks, that works reasonably well for me. But then I can't use my beautiful collection of papercut bookmarks I bought in Hong Kong 10 years ago. Mmm, I feel a post on that coming on soon.
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