The SLSA (Stanford Libraries Staff Association) annual Summer Picnic will be held on Thursday, September 5th this year. Details will be forthcoming closer to the date but mark your calendars now!
-- Jennie Nicolayev, SLSA President
Please extend a warm welcome to our new music cataloger, Nancy Lorimer.Nancy has recently completed her MLIS at the University of Western Ontario. In addition to her library degree, Nancy holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Edinburgh and is completing her Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of Chicago. After having the cataloger position at the Music Library open for so long, we are fortunate to have hired someone with such a deep background in music history. Nancy's library work to date has centered around the University of Chicago with some experience at the Rare Books Collection of the National Library of Canada as well. She has already had the incredible good luck to find an apartment for both herself and her cat in Palo Alto. I am confident her new position at Stanford University will bring as good a fortune to her new colleagues in the University Libraries.
--Philip Schreur Head, Music Technical Services
We in the Science and Engineering Resource Group are excited to welcome Catherine Candee into our ranks as the new Physics Librarian, as of August 1.
Catherine comes to Stanford from UC-Berkeley. She received her MLS there in 1994 and proceeded directly into the post of Acting Head of the Astronomy/Mathematics/Physics Library. Over the two years that she held that title, Catherine's performance generated applause and support in an atmosphere of staffing crises and campus-wide budget cuts. She served on four library committees at Berkeley, including the committee on Research and Professional Development, and the Academic Services Planning Group.
Catherine lives with her family in Berkeley, so we feel lucky to be able to have her with us down here in the Stanford Libraries. We hope you'll join us in getting to know her. Catherine's phone number is 3-9577, and her email is ccandee@sulmail.
Our joy in welcoming Catherine to campus is tempered by our sadness at losing JK Herro, our Map Librarian, to the wild, wooly world of law school. JK begins at Depaul University in San Francisco later this month.
JK came to Branner in the Fall of 1988, just in time to get settled in the Map Collection for the Loma Prieta earthquake. One of his many accomplishments during his tenure included getting the collection back onto its feet after the quake. JK then coordinated the complicated merger of the old Central Map Collection and the Branner collection, and brought the combined collections (about 250,000 "volumes") from uncataloged chaos to online order. He also assisted with the MARCIVE load, and introduced Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and digital map services to Branner clientele. He has served as an able conduit between Science and Engineering Librarians and the Cataloging Department. When not actually running around Branner like a madman, JK has been very active in the Western Association of Map Librarians, serving successively as Treasurer and as Secretary, and also as the Chair of the UC-Stanford Map Librarian Group.
Both staff and users will miss JK's helpful spirit and wry mind. We have enjoyed working with him, and wish him the best of luck. Please join our somber leave-taking on Friday, August 9, from 4 - 6 pm in the Geology Courtyard (between Buildings 320 and 360 in the Main Quad).
-- Charlotte Derksen & Marina Wolf, SERG
Now that staff have begun training on Unicorn you might be interested to know what types of records are included in the test database. pproximately 130,000 records were extracted from NOTIS for the test Unicorn database. All MARC formats were included with the exception of AMC. The records were first identified within Socrates using the following search strategies and were then extracted from NOTIS:
Call No. Range Subject Estimated Number of Records
for Each Subject Area
BS# Bible 11,000
22# "
G3701# Maps of California 6,500
G4360# "
G4361# "
G4362# "
G4363# "
G4364# "
HN# Social History... 15,000
NB# Sculpture 6,250
NC# Drawing 7,000
TA1505.P76# SPIE Proceedings 2,000
TK# Electrical Eng. 13,000
Y# US Hearings 500
(SuDoc)
3781 S78 A# Theses 200
3781 S78 B3 "
93 03# Pubs 400
93 04# "
AND BY AUTHOR/SUBJECT SEARCHING
FIND A SHAKESPEARE OR S SHAKESPEARE 4,600
FIND A DANTE OR S DANTE 2,400
FIND A CERVANTES OR S CERVANTES 800
FIND A TOLSTOY OR S TOLSTOY 700
FIND A STEINBECK OR S STEINBECK 700
FIND A HOMER OR S HOMER 1,000
FIND A GOETHE OR S GOETHE 2,800
FIND S STRING QUARTETS 2,500
As of today the Unicorn opac indexes do NOT work exactly the same as our current Socrates indexes, but Systems Office staff is busy configuring the new indexes to work like Socrates currently does. That work is expected to be done soon. For more information about the opac and how it will work be sure to attend one of the training sessions being offered by myself and Kathy Kerns later this month. Here again is the information for the opac training;
Title: Introduction to the NEW OPAC
SCHEDULE: Thursday 8/15 10-11am and 2-3pm Friday 8/16 10-11am and 2-3pm Monday 8/19 10-11am and 2-3pm Tuesday 8/20 10-11am and 2-3pm Wednesday 8/21 10-11am and 2-3pm Thursday 8/22 10-11am and 2-3pm Friday 8/23 10-11am and 2-3pm Monday 9/9 10-11am Tuesday 9/10 2-3pm Wednesday 9/11 10-11am and 2-3pm Friday 9/13 2-3pm
-- Steve Gass, Engineering Library
September will mark the third anniversary of the death of Kevin Freeman, former Music Cataloger and Head of Music Technical Services. Some of his friends have begun working on a panel so that Kevin will be remembered in the AIDS Memorial Quilt, to be displayed in Washington D.C. this October.
If you are interested in helping, we are going to meet for the next four Thursdays in August, from 5 to 7pm in the Archive of Recorded Sound (basement of Braun Music Center). Just drop in when you can; call Richard Koprowski at the Archive (3-9312) or Mimi Tashiro at the Music Library (5-1144) for more information; we are planning additional sessions for September, and some in San Francisco so that Kevin's friends who live in the city can participate. If you would prefer to come to a session in San Francisco, please contact Mimi for details.
No sewing skills are required.
-- Richard Koprowski, Sound Archive, and Mimi Tashiro, Music Library
All Stanford's walls are brown or tan,
We've often heard it said,
And all must have, by ancient plan,
Red tile overhead.
A pleasing pattern this, although
A trifle unexciting.
As color innovations go,
The place is uninviting.
To alter this would be a crime:
Suggestions to are buried.
Yet on occasion, for a time,
This simple pattern's varied.
You don't believe it? Don't heed me,
Just have a look at Green,
And if you look just right, you'll see
Exactly what I mean.
Among the tiles of the roof,
A gleam of turquoise blue
Attracts the eye -- a vibrant proof
Our rule's not always true.
Oh whence could this anomaly
Have come, so bright and rare?
And just what is it? Could it be?
They've put an outhouse there!
--Anonymous