May 26 2006

Teenagers at the Library

Erica Firment

Even nature sancturary libraries have problems with unruly teenagers hanging around in the parking lot.

These geese are at the awkward stage between being yellow fuzzy poofballs and tall feathery adults. As a result, they listen to emo music and wear heavy eyeliner. Someday they will grow up to be pâté.


May 22 2006

Plover!

Erica Firment

plover.pngThe hot news this weekend is that we got a new kitty. I swear, I just went to the pound to pet the cats. But there she was, a four-year-old fluffball with a penchant for laps. She only has about six teeth, so she looks surprised all of the time. We’ve been on the Maine Coon rescue list for several months, but nothing had really come up. Then I found the cat of our dreams sitting in the Humane Society three blocks away. We named her Plover.

We brought her home Friday, and I spent the weekend doing cat-integration. There were about five minutes of fur-wrenching, then a truce was called. Now the house is swarming with cats. Two cats can make an impressive swarm.

Last week I met a swarm of digital librarians. My work hosted one of Cornell Library’s Digital Preservation Workshops. I helped show off our homegrown catalog and a/v player (which generates spectrograms that you can muck around with!) and our very-exciting-for-library-geeks data entry application. So man, can I just say? Talking to digital librarians? Very exhausting. You guys? Pretty intense. I found myself saying things like “Why yes, the animal behavior table in our data model IS tied to the hierarchy nodes in the taxonomy tree”. And then I went home and drank.


May 15 2006

The Librarian

Erica Firment

librarianart.jpg ARCIMBOLDO, Giuseppe
(b. ca. 1530, Milano, d. 1593, Milano)

The Librarian
c. 1566
Oil on canvas, 97 x 71 cm
Skoklosters Slott, BÃ¥lsta (Stockholm)

.

.

.

.