Day 3

Visited the systems librarian today and was shown the library management system. Actually, that's not strictly accurate. I was told about the library management system. It turns out that there's no need for me to actually learn the system or have very much to do with it. I wasn't really taught anything about it practically and certainly didn't do anything 'hands on' with it.

That will take some getting used to. No more putting on basic MARC records, cataloguing do it. No more adding an order to an item to actually 'order' the item(s), cataloguing do it. No more checking statistical information, it's done another way it seems and I get taught that next week when I go to Technical Services (more formal reports are done by requesting them via the systems guy but that was always the case at TheOldPlace).

Not a problem really. Can't say I have a burning desire to learn another arcane system and if I never added another MARC record it wouldn't be the end of the world. Just different.

All I have to do now to order a book is fill in a little card and it gets bib checked, added to the system, 'ordered', and then catalogued by others. I guess that's what a technical services department is for.

There is one remaining thing (I did sit in the meeting desperately trying to think if there wasn't something really obvious I was overlooking) , just one remaining thing I'll need to be able to do and that's check budgets so I will be given passwords etc for that, but it's a very small part of anything.

On my last ship...