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In which she gains loot
Sep. 9th, 2009 11:49 pmSo we're doing a lot of deaccessioning at the library at the moment. "Deaccessioning" is the polite euphemism for "weeding" that we use in the hope that it won't cause the general public to go "Oh noes, the librarians are throwing out books, civilisation is falling!"
(If anyone is tempted to express such sentiments here, all I can say is: you haven't *seen* the books we're weeding. Or the colour of my hands after I've spent half an hour with them. (Some people from another branch came to weed one section and complained about all the dust. In private we mocked them mercilessly, because that's the section we *vacuumed* a year ago.) We use other criteria than the dust index, but actually the dust index is a pretty good gauge. --The mould-on-the-front-cover index is even better.)
Anyway, when I came back from holiday there was a gigantic pile of books on the bench waiting to be sorted into an "Attempt to sell for $2" pile and a "Throw it straight into the recycling bin and stand back before the mushroom cloud of dust gets you" pile.
(Seriously, don't even start with the outrage. You haven't *seen* this junk. Reprints of journal articles no-one cares about and if they did they wouldn't search for a reprint, in courier, single-sided on yellowed paper, quarter-flushed in cardboard which has warped with age so that the dust has had plenty of space to settle on.... And the ringbound workshop notes from 1973. And the damned plastic spiral binding that snaps at your fingers when you try to pull it off so the paper can be recycled; there's a knack to getting it off without injury, but it doesn't work if the plastic's old enough to be decomposing into shards. And the damned metal spiral binding which won't come off at all unless you tear the pages off a few at a time -- although then you can make things with the wire. I made a cute bookworm yesterday when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed.)
So anyway, yesterday and today, among other tasks, I sorted through the pile. And today among that pile I found a Swedish/English and a Norwegian/English dictionary. And now the dictionaries are in my living room, along with the Danish/English dictionary which technically still belongs to the library but in practice has been in my possession for three years.
(They're still in a plastic bag: I haven't vacuumed them yet.)
(If anyone is tempted to express such sentiments here, all I can say is: you haven't *seen* the books we're weeding. Or the colour of my hands after I've spent half an hour with them. (Some people from another branch came to weed one section and complained about all the dust. In private we mocked them mercilessly, because that's the section we *vacuumed* a year ago.) We use other criteria than the dust index, but actually the dust index is a pretty good gauge. --The mould-on-the-front-cover index is even better.)
Anyway, when I came back from holiday there was a gigantic pile of books on the bench waiting to be sorted into an "Attempt to sell for $2" pile and a "Throw it straight into the recycling bin and stand back before the mushroom cloud of dust gets you" pile.
(Seriously, don't even start with the outrage. You haven't *seen* this junk. Reprints of journal articles no-one cares about and if they did they wouldn't search for a reprint, in courier, single-sided on yellowed paper, quarter-flushed in cardboard which has warped with age so that the dust has had plenty of space to settle on.... And the ringbound workshop notes from 1973. And the damned plastic spiral binding that snaps at your fingers when you try to pull it off so the paper can be recycled; there's a knack to getting it off without injury, but it doesn't work if the plastic's old enough to be decomposing into shards. And the damned metal spiral binding which won't come off at all unless you tear the pages off a few at a time -- although then you can make things with the wire. I made a cute bookworm yesterday when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed.)
So anyway, yesterday and today, among other tasks, I sorted through the pile. And today among that pile I found a Swedish/English and a Norwegian/English dictionary. And now the dictionaries are in my living room, along with the Danish/English dictionary which technically still belongs to the library but in practice has been in my possession for three years.
(They're still in a plastic bag: I haven't vacuumed them yet.)
