Paging

I started my job in the Paging Department at the library yesterday, and I think this will be my favorite place to work. American librarianship is quite advanced, and we have a system called Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Interlibrary Loan works much like video hire, where you borrow items from another library. If you want to use an item that your Local Friendly Library doesn't have, but another library does, you can request to borrow the item through your LFL. The LFL sends a request to the Other Library, and if the item is available, the item is sent through the mail, and you can borrow the item and use it.

I remember when ILL used to be done by paper, and the ILL request was mailed to libraries. Now, everything is done by computer. You use a program called WorldCat to locate the item you want, fill in your information, and hit "submit request". It's really cool! It used to be that journal articles were sent by mail, but now they are scanned and sent as e-files to the borrowing library, and then the borrower can either print them out or read them. ILL, and Document Delivery, have made the library world quite accessible. If I don't want to go to the library, or I can't go to the library, I can request items from the U of A Main Library, and they will be scanned and e-mailed to me, free of charge.

My job in Paging is to locate the items which are requested by other libraries. We are given sheets with the ILL requests, and they are split by library (main, fine arts, science, ccp, etc.). If I'm paging in the main library, I take my papers and an empty truck, and go to the proper location to find books or journal articles. If the item isn't available, I mark on the sheet, or if a journal article is cited improperly, I mark that as well. Then the items I found are taken to the processing station on the First Floor. Paging, as one can expect, is a lot of exercise. You're doing a lot of walking around the libraries (particularly if you're paging Fine Arts, which is on the other end of campus), and you're moving quickly to finish within a 2-hour shift. Yesterday we had 120 requests for the Main Library, which is quite a lot. We got through everything but the 4th floor, which is always the toughest floor to page since there is a LOT of materials.

I like paging because you have to rely on your research skills, and sometimes instinct, to find items at times. If someone doesn't give you the correct information for a journal article, you can sometimes manage to find the article quickly by using deductive thinking or sheer luck. We aren't closely supervised, so I like the fact that I'm left alone to work.

People might not realize what a dynamic environment the library really is. We have committed ourselves to holding a 95% accuracy rate for shelving, and there is always a lot of work, so shelvers and pagers must move fairly quickly at times to finish the work. At the same time, as workers of the library, our primary job is to help patrons. So if I'm paging or shelving, even with a full load, and someone needs help, my job is to stop and help them--mostly locating items, even if they are on a different floor.

I really like working at the library. I have very little money for my efforts, but I love the environment. I'm so much happier here than when I was working as an ALT. While the money was great as an ALT, I didn't have much of a chance to use my brain, or my skills. Here, I get to interact with a lot of different people, and I have fun with my co-workers and the people on the MAT (Materials Access Team). I truly feel like I'm a member of a team, not just the Token Foreigner. I'm now excited to go to work every day, as I know there will be new challenges waiting.

Midterms are around the corner, and I had a lot of work this week. In fact, I couldn't even go to kendo last night, since I had to get some Linguistics homework ready for today :( But I'm hoping I can go tomorrow.

So this week has been fairly busy. I finished my training on Wednesday, so I started working for shelving on Wednesday night. I'm working there and for Hitoshi Kamada in the Japanese Collection. I will start paging next week, and be going 30 hours a week.

I am trying to keep in touch with Japan as much as possible. I am working in the Japanese collection, I read manga, I talk to my roommate, I cook Japanese food, and I practice kendo. I want to start practicing iaido again, but I have to find a place.

I am studying the Maori (indigenious people of New Zealand) for my museum course, and find them very interesting. I would like to go to New Zealand or Australia to work.

For my photos of the day, I present some shots from tonight's kendo practice. I wanted a few pictures of me wearing my Do, so that I can write a letter to my dojo in Japan.

Work

So this is where I spend most of my week at school--the Main Library. When my training is done, I will work for 30 hours a week here, in shelving, paging, and Japanese collections. There are three other libraries on campus--Fine Arts, Science/Engineering, and Law.
The Main Library has 5 floors, with the ground floor going to the Information Commons. You enter the library on the first floor, and then go up 3 floors to get to the 5th.
The Main Library just got Wireless installed, so I've worked there twice with a laptop. I naturally bought a security lock for my laptop, which is basically an expensive bike chain you can use to lock your laptop to a table. That way I can go get materials I need.


In Japanese collections, I am responsible for placing orders and receiving them when the books come. I don't do any cataloging, and the job mostly requires the ability to read Japanese (readings are given for the kanji) and to transcribe it into roman letters. However, as long as I can locate and know ISBN numbers, I'm fine.
So, yes, I am working with materials written in Japanese.
Here are a few of the books I received the other day.

Missing Stuffed Cat

I couldn't resist. Here's the latest scandal at U of A, as seen in Thursday's student newspaper.

Kendo and such

Well, today's theme was studying and Kendo. I got up at 8.30, and worked on my project for Linguistics for a few hours. I am going to study Japanese dialect, or 方言. I'm not sure if I will focus on 3 prefectures and the differences, or if I will focus on two Kyushu prefectures (for instance, Oita vs. Kagoshima), or if I will focus on a region such as the Tohoku (northern Honshu). I am still thinking about it.
So I spent a few hours today in the study room.


Then tonight I had Kendo, and I had a shinai splinter really badly. You have to keep shinai oiled, because they're made of bamboo and they dry out. It wasn't so bad in Oita, but here the desert air is really dry. So I can tell I will have to oil them a lot more often lest I spend tons of money on shinai. I disassembled the splintered shinai (I had two which were splintered, ironically enough), and was able to repair one with some sandpaper. the other shinai, though, was too bad. But I can save the shinai pieces, and when another shinai breaks I can take a slat and make another shinai.

So since I had the shinai apart, I took a new one apart, sandpapered the edges so they were smooth, and oiled all the slats. It's best to do them really well the first time, and then perform routine maintenance. This may be a familiar site to my friends at Shobukan. My sempai was telling me today that he oils his shinai about every 2 weeks so that it doesn't dry out and splinter. I just wish we had the spray can oil like they do in Japan.



Here's a photo of me, afterwards, fixing the himo on my men. They had become twisted, so I had to fix them. I take my men and kote out of my bag after every practice and air them out in the living room. Once a week I put them outside to dry for about 20 minutes. That's all it takes here. That's how warm it is. No mold growing here on bogu, that's for sure!

Apartment

I haven't posted in a coupla weeks. ごめんなあああああああ。
So here are some photos of the apartment. More updates to follow later.
There's the living room, kitchen, view of my room from the door, my bookcase which I constructed from milk crates and boards, my desk.
*shrug* It works, I guess. The price isn't bad. $495 a month, don't drive to campus but instead walk or bike, includes laundry and utilities.

So this week's been busy. I got started in my courses, and found two jobs. They're both working at the library, which should be fun, but they're both low-paying. One is shelving and doing related shelving work, and the other is in the Japanese collection, ordering and receiving materials. I didn't have to have a lot of Japanese knowledge to do the job, just basic reading skills. So that's kind of cool, and good experience to put on my resume.

I started kendo practice on Tuesday, and it was good to get back into the dojo. We practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are a lot of beginning kenshi, which is good. I had a lot of fun at practice, but I miss my dojo in Japan a lot.

I have to do a research project for my linguistics course, and I'm either going to study Japanese dialects or Singapore English, known as Singlish.

I also made a big life decision. I'm not going to graduate next May. I'm going to do 6 6 6 instead of 9 9 and graduate next December. I want to work and enjoy school a little more while I'm here, and also take advantage of what's on campus. There's really quite a lot to take advantage of on campus, as long as you're proactive.

Well, it's the first day of school here in Sunny Tucson. It's actually kind of strange, as I haven't experienced First Day of School for quite some time. In Japan, we'd have a long boring meeting, followed by cleaning, followed by a long boring ceremony which has no real point, followed by another meeting to discuss the long pointless boring ceremony and other Pointless Issues. By my 3rd year, as people know, I skipped the meetings and went home, claiming to be really busy.

Right now maintenance is in my apartment. There was a hella leak in the living room, it came from a cleanout drain which came from my bathroom. Turns out the people who built the building didn't install the drain plug properly. So now we have a full-blown repair job being undertaken, with custodial coming to clean up and dry the carpet. Kinda interesting.

I'm reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It's quite a book. The movie is fabulous!

Anyhoo. Here are a couple more shots from campus. They're the main gate to campus, and a shot of the SUB from the library.

So here are some photos from my new pad in Tucson. These are my two crazy roomies, Audra and Angie. We have a 3rd roomie, Haruka, but she's off in the wilds of Japan. We share a kitchen/living room/laundry, but have our own bathroom/bedrooms.











Here's a view of my room from the door. It was really hard to get used to having a small room for my living space, vs. my seemingly huge apartment in Japan.












Speaking of Japan and Japanese, style, that's what my desk is. We didn't get desks given to us, and I didn't have very much space, so I built my own desk courtesy of Home Depot. My friend Tracy labeled my furniture as "Bohemian", because it can come apart and move easily. I guess that's what I am, though--a Bohemian. But, as JRR Tolkien wrote, 'Not all who wander are lost". (Not that I like Tolkien, and frankly I found his work boring as hell, but it's a good quote).

Long Strange Trip...

So I've been moving in to my new apartment at the University of Arizona (http://www.arizona.edu) in Tucson, Arizona, and it's been a trip and a half. I have 3 roommates, but we all have our own bedroom and bathroom so it doesn't seem so bad. My two roomies are Angie and Audra. We have another roomie, Haruka, but we haven't heard from her. She moved her stuff in and went back to Japan to visit.

Angie and Audra are really cool though. We're similar personality-wise, so it's a good time.

Yesterday was Angie's birthday, so we had tacos and chocolate cake. The tacos came courtesy of Audra, because I had a meeting, and I made the chocolate cake. They're calling me Suzy Homemaker now, because tonight I threw together a hamburger quiche and, on a whim, folded the paper towels into cranes.

Today Audra and I went to a library orientation. It was pretty cool. We went to different stations, and got stamps. If we went to all the stations, we got a piece of pizza and a fruit slushy.

The highlight of the library tour was, by far, the Information Commons, which can be seen at http://www.ilc.arizona.edu/features/infocom.htm

It's a new part of the library, and has a lot of different areas to work. Some of the campus is now wireless, and other parts will eventually become so. I'm on ethernet in the apartment though. I was flat-out impressed by this part of the building, and will most definitely spend some time here I'm sure.

I met with my advisor, and I'm not sure whether I should do a thesis or not. I'd like to go abroad, so I might be able to get some grant money to go study if it supports research.

I was originally going to try to graduate next Spring, but I may slow down a little bit. I feel like I should take advantage of more opportunities at U of A while I'm here, and that will probably mean staying 2 years to do so.