The Adventures of Super Manuscript Girl!

I seriously dislike our online catalog. I can't find anything with it, and I am an information professional. No wonder people get frustrated when they come into this library and can't find what they are looking for.

It really frustrates me when a patron is looking for an item and I am unable to find it for them. This happens several times a week. I just feel incredibly ineffective and wonder why I spent two years in grad school. Anyone can fumble; I'm supposed to know what I'm doing.

This morning I was trying to find a biography to include in a finding aid. While I was over in the reference section, a woman asked me a question. Not being very familiar with anything outside of the Special Collections bubble, I was unable to answer the question. I had to go back to the reference section a couple of times, and she was still searching. The main reference desk had merely pointed her toward the aisle, and left her to it. I decided I was going to find a call number for the book. She told me it was called "Hitemans", but she had no more information than that.

Ok, classic reference case. I can solve this one. I went to our catalog and typed in "Hitemans". The catalog thought maybe I meant "Hitman's". Most of the entries on the screen were for Hitler. I decided to do a search by call number, entering the call number of the book I had been using. I paged through a few screens, but found nothing. Unwilling to give up, I turned to my trusty companion, Google. I typed in "hiteman revolutionary war". The very first link:

Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the ... - Google Books Result

by Francis Bernard Heitman - 1892 - United States - 525 pages
I transmit herewith a list of the names and rank of the officers of the Revolutionary War, as complete as the records of the Department will furnish, ...
books.google.com/books?id=_GwsAAAAMAAJ...

Actual email sent to me today:

I will be visiting Colonial Williamsburg April 30-May 8.  I am interested in material concerning children in Colonial Williamsburg, African-Americans, and the Indian school that existed in Williamsburg at the time of the revolution.  I would be particularly interested in diaries, journals, letters or any other records pertaining to these subjects.

Sincerely,
[name withheld to protect the oblivious], PhD, History

That was it. The whole thing. It is taking every inch of restraint in my body not to write back and say, "That's nice." Am I supposed to be jumping for joy, inviting you to lunch, putting these things on display in the historic district? Or are you actually planning to visit the library and you want me to pull these things out for you?

Hi, my name is Super Manuscript Girl, and I am an emailaholic. I sit at my computer for hours on end waiting to hear the *ding* indicating a new mail message. When hours go by without a single ding, I start feeling nauseous. I start checking blogs to see if anyone has posted anything that my RSS reader has yet to pick up. When that fails, I go to Facebook to see if anything of interest has happened there. I get up and use the restroom hoping that I am suffering from the 'watched inbox never dings' syndrome, and that upon my return there will be something to read.

It is a slow day at work. All I want to do right now is go home and take a nap.

And it's only Tuesday. AUGH!

Ok boys and girls, it's that time of year again. Six months have gone by since my last date. That seems to be just enough time to forget how bad match.com is and to contemplate once again giving them my credit card number. I know there are sites out there other than match, but since I don't actually believe any one of them is actually better than another, I'm going to stick with what I know.

Here's where you, my reading public, come in to play:
If you were setting me up on a blind date, what would you tell the guy about me?

Let's face it, there are some things that show up in just about every profile. Everyone is trying to find someone who is honest, funny, enjoys spending time with family and friends, likes to travel, eats the occasional meal, blah blah blah. I just can't bring myself to write that stuff anymore. Why be a scoop of vanilla when you could be Mackinac Island fudge*? What should I write? More specifically, what do you see as some of my finer, or more unique, qualities? As an example, one guy I dated for a while liked the fact that when I get tipsy I tend to giggle.

Should you know of anyone who is available, or have a method of meeting people with a success rate higher than that of online dating, please share! I'm trying to remain open minded, but I do have some preferences. First of all, rednecks need not apply (despite the fact that being in VA this does drastically reduce the size of the pool). Keep in mind that I am 5'8" and enjoy wearing heels. His political views must be liberal (friends don't let friends vote Republican). Religiously speaking, I grew up attending a very liberal Protestant church with a Jewish mother and a father who goes just for the music. Bible beaters and I probably won't mix well (again, reducing the VA pool). I also remain pretty strict about the college graduation requirement.

So that about covers it for now. I am going into this with the mindset that I will be in VA for a while. I honestly don't know if I will be, but I can't keep living life with only one foot in the door.

THANKS!!!

*Vanilla with chocolate syrup, chunks of fudge, and maybe some nuts (I can't quite remember). In a word: yummy!!

P.S. If there are any guys out there reading this who are also contemplating putting a profile online, I have just one piece of advice. Do not put a photo up of you and another woman. I don't care how good you look standing next to your [ex-, sister, mother, or high school Spanish teacher]. It doesn't sell!

Hear ye, hear ye...http://jen025.vox.com is now http://supermanuscriptgirl.vox.com. Update your links accordingly.

Last weekend I attended that party. The only person I knew when I got there was J, the host of the party. I hadn't seen him in eons, and it was so great to reconnect.

While I was at the party I was explaining my job to a couple of people. One easy way I have found to describe it is to say that I am Manuscript Girl, and I work with Rare Book Boy and Architecture Boy.  J responded to this by saying, "It's like Super Heroes for librarians." And thus was born the new theme for this blog. I initially created this blog on the fly so I could converse with Madelyn. I always intended to spiff it up a bit; it just took a while.

Now I just need a profile pic that is sort of a Marian Librarian meets Wicked Witch on the bicycle combo. Anyone good with Photoshop?

Seen on a car at my apartment complex:

License plate seen more than once in Williamsburg: SHAG EM

I have had some really random thoughts this evening, and decided a blog is the perfect place to record them. This may end up being just a single post; and it may end up being several. We shall see.

Earlier this evening I was watching "Sesame Street" clips on You Tube. Where would we be without You Tube? It is great to be able to re-watch some of my favorite childhood moments. In particular I love the Yip Yip aliens. Uh huh, yip yip yip.

I also watched a few commercials and find myself wondering, what ever happened to ring

around the collar? It was such a problem in the 70s and 80s and seems to have completely disappeared.

A few months ago we had an anniversary party for one of my co-workers. She has been with the library for 10 years. It was a chocolate themed party, and a good time was had by all. This inspired one of my co-workers to plan a Cheese Appreciation Day. Again, yummy. It was followed most recently by Dippable Foods Appreciation Day. I actually didn't participate. Too scared of it becoming Double-dipping Appreciation Day. You may recall "Mr. Humphries" from a previous post. He suggested Green Foods Appreciation Day for this coming Monday. Sadly, workplace rules and regulations prohibit green beer on the premises, but I think it is going to be a good time. I went out tonight and bought white cake mix, white frosting, and food coloring. I'm thinking one shade for the cake, and another for the frosting. Hee hee hee...

"Grey's Anatomy" isn't coming back on until April 24. Gah! Five more weeks. I need my Doctor McDreamy fix. Actually, I have been re-watching my Season 1 dvds. I have Seasons 1 and 3, and have plans to buy Season 2. I just got a 25% off coupon from Barnes and Noble, and am expecting a $25 gift card since my credit card billing period just ended. Can we say just-about-free- dvd!!!

Every once in a while I read the local news in the hometown daily paper. This evening I was reading an article about a Board of Education meeting, and at the end it mentioned, "Also during the meeting, the board of education unanimously accepted the resignations of husband and wife administrators [Ms. X] and [Mr. Y]." WHAT??!!?? Since when are those two married? I thought I knew all the gossip in the high school. It must be a recent thing because I am pretty sure that while I was in high school she was single.
Before Mr. Y rose to his current position of Assistant Principal he was a junior high English teacher. I have two vivid memories from his class. One was when he used Billy Joel's "Storm Front" album to teach us about poetry (very cool) and one is from a vocabulary test. I couldn't remember the meaning of the word 'erroneous'. Then a line from "Singing in the Rain" popped into my head, "Moses supposes his toes are roses, but Moses supposes

erroneously."I'm pretty sure I still did lousy on the test, but I have never forgotten the meaning of erroneous.
Sometime between when Mr. Y was my English teacher and when he became Assistant Principal, he got arrested for DUI. What a fabulous roll model, don't you think?

Every now and then we all need a good ego boost. I'm back in the home state for a long weekend, attending a workshop at Yale on Monday.

I needed to get out of the house this afternoon, so I went over to one of the malls. I walked into Williams-Sonoma and who should be working there but my boss's boss from my old insurance company job. As soon as I saw her I remembered someone had emailed me that she works there now. It was SO great to see her! When I left the insurance company I was pretty sure I had everyone's support. But to have Mary come right out and tell me today that I did the right thing by leaving, was just fabulous! We talked about how we miss the people, but not the stress of the job. We agreed that we didn't realize how bad it had been until we left. Though we didn't chat for long, It was so wonderful to be able to talk openly with her about the situation. She worked for the company for most of her 30 year career. At what turned out to be her final performance review, the woman Mary was reporting to told her she didn't have leadership skills. As if! Reviews are given on a scale of 5, with 1 being the best. Mary was given a 4. Unbelievable, though it is a story I have heard many times in the past few years.

I certainly made some very good friends at my old job. It always hurts when I hear how horribly upper management has been treating them over the past few years. By the same token I am always glad to learn of others who are able to find happiness once they leave Asylum Ave (seriously, that is the street we worked on).

I met a pretty angry man at the recycling center today. Apparently he was going to back in to the spot where I parked, and he was none too happy. He then accused me of putting my containers in the cardboard collection area (I had actually put cardboard there), and rounded off his well honed argument with, "Screw you, lady". After putting my containers and paper in their respective collection bins, I passed him again. I put on a sickeningly sweet smile and said, "Have a nice day". To which he mumbled under his breath, "You have a nice day, too".

Ha. I won.