First faculty library committee meeting this morning.

Small affair with the liaison officers, the Dean of the faculty and myself. The Dean kindly lent me a laptop so I could show off my PowerPoint slides in a room with no projection facility. Slightly better than looking at the more limited printed handouts.

I was quite comfortable (if not happy) to be reporting on the delays to the extension although it did generate a lot more discussion than I'd expected. Not quite so comfortable to be reporting (as requested) on serials commitments for the coming year. Still, I'd gone over spreadsheets and numbers till my head swam; done my best to have a head full of knowledge on the stuff in some West Wing like presidential briefing; and checked with a senior colleague that I wasn't too far off the mark with what I was doing.

It seemed to go very well even though, once again, a long discussion ensued but my 'just in case' PowerPoint slides went down well and looked impressive as I had material that clearly anticipated what they might ask.

I hadn't dreamed of mentioning it, but the subject just happened to come up, so I revealed that a paper a former colleague and I had had published a couple of years back had just been cited. It drew a round of applause! (Not to mention a laugh when I added that it had been cited incorrectly. Such is the world of academia.)

It felt somewhat like the baptism of fire I'd half expected, but I think I survived and one of the liaison officers made some kind comments about my first few weeks and proactive attitude.