Dumpling in a Hanky

Something @infobunny was trying to find out this morning...she was looking for what she believed to be the 2 cases decided so far. Where would they be? Well, any sane person would think "Ah, the Decided Cases section, that's where they'll be". But no, sanity does not prevail here! Obviously, where you should be looking for decided cases is in the News and Publications section, where you'll find a link to a topic called Judgments . Here, you'll find a case. Just one case. The other is mysterious, and not to be accessed by the likes of us. It may be real, it may not. There's no way of confirming that from the mish-mash of the website. Although @johnhalton has suggested that the delay in judgments going where they're meant to be is due to the fact that it takes a while to transcribe from the vellum onto computer... And of course, why would anyone want to be able to pick up an RSS feed of any important areas, like, ohhh, News? Judgements? Anything? Sil...

So, I've previously blogged my Library Roots , and added it to the wiki of the Library Routes project (and if you haven't done yours yet, get adding - it's fascinating!). I thought I'd now add info on my Library Route, i.e. how I ended up doing what I do today. Well...it all started off a bit randomly. I'd qualified, and now I needed a job. I was scouring the CILIP Gazette job section, and the library recruitment agencies, and the local authority job sites here in Edinburgh, hoping to find something, anything, that would let me work! But it's not easy, even in the Capital of the country, to find a job when you don't have any official experience. So really, after a couple of months, and with the savings going down fast, I needed a job. I saw a post for a part-time library assistant at a private members society library within the Scottish courts complex at Parliament Square. I had no idea what a librarian would do in a court library, but I got the job, a...

*Warning - extreme and pointed sarcasm may be used in this post. Those with weak hearts and constitutions may want to stop reading now* Dear people-who-have-agreed-to-attend-the-training-with-a-supplier-that-we've-set-up-for-your-benefit, I am very, very sorry. I obviously forgot a few things. I forgot: That I am your personal diary secretary, and I myself should have reminded you that you had agreed to attend this training. That you are incapable of leaving your seat without my specific instruction to point you towards a training room, and therefore cannot make your own way to your training. That the frequent pop up reminders on your computer of your imminent training session are only for you to ignore. Every time they pop up. For an hour beforehand. Every 10 minutes. That you can only tell me that you're not attending the session once I have had to come looking for you and ask you personally. That you cannot write an email or pick up the phone to spend 20 seconds telling me y...

So, I finished Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters a few days ago. I have to say, I enjoyed this even more than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters has a society that was much more altered from the original (I imagine, not having read it), and which was much more steampunk, and humorous, than I expected. Lots of boats, pirates, monsters, strange chants, various animal attacks, experiments, underground cities, and trained mutant lobsters. With some old-fashioned morality and "proper" behaviour thrown in. And of course, there's various mysterious sub-plots, the solution only revealed at the end, which hints about pop up throughout the book. I don't want to say much more, so I don't ruin the fun of discovering the contents. I'd definitely recommend giving this one a go!

You know, I'm really, really enjoying Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I know even less about the actual story of this than I did about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but I really son't think it matters. I seriously doubt that homicidal sea creatures, massive domed submarine living quarters, mysterious island-dwelling, mountain-worshipping semi-humans, and regular battles with sealife featured in the original book! And you know what? I don't care! On its own, this is a fun, and funny book! I have no idea how the in depth conversations on who feels what for who fit into the original, and whether polite society included women who had been stolen form their native lands in burlap sacks, and forced to be wives to seafaring adventurers were in there (I have a sneaking suspicion not...), but to read about two ladies maintaining the niceties of conversation while being attacked in a canoe by the Fang-Beast certainly amused me! About half-way through now...oh, who will win...

It just so happens that Woodsiegirl has been blogging lots of things recently that catch my attention, and interest! So, I'm copying her Q and A ! Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? Depends where I am when reading. Usually, it's on the bus to / from work, or in bed, neither of which are snacking hot-spots for me. If I'm spending a few hours on the couch reading, then yup, usually crisps....but those crisp-smeared hands never touch the book until they've been cleaned! Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? No writing in books! I have enough trouble removing the underlined passages in books at work (which at least tend to be historic, and in pencil...current users know I'd gut them if they inked up the library books!). I didn't write in books while studying either - I remember things better if I've written them myself, so I'd write notes on lined paper instead. How do you keep ...

By "this", I mean the whole librarian thaaaaang. Woodsiegirl recently blogged on why she became a librarian, and after conversations in the comments section, I thought I'd join in with my own blog post on the topic. As I said on Woodsiegirl's blog, I am one of those odd people who always wanted to be a librarian. My Mum and careers adviser both said it was a daft idea as 1) there'd be no jobs as computers would be doing everything by then (careers advisor) and 2) there's no money in it (Mums advice, herself a lifelong librarian). I actually was surrounded by librarians: Mum worked in libraries her whole career from the local branch library (when I say local, I mean local: 100 yards from my parents house) to the secondary school I went to (although years before I went there). My Aunt worked alongside my Mum for a while before emigrating, and has worked various shifts as cover in the local library since coming back home. So, I kinda grew up in libraries: I would...